In the Cut Leadership Conversation with Dr. Nwando Anyaoku

Nwando and her Mother, Elo Anyaoku

Nwando is known for her strategic brain, compassionate heart and ability to speak into complex decision-making environments with clarity and conviction. Over 2 decades, she has combined clinical and operational experience with advocacy in leading transformative healthcare strategies. Her roles are underpinned by her commitment to innovation and equity and her expertise as a board-certified pediatrician.

My Friend, I’m so glad you’ve joined me In the Cut!

In this crazy world where we are called upon in so many ways, and so many things pull on us, and so much of our identity is on blast, how do you identify?

I identify as a Black woman and as an African woman. I am Nigerian. I am African American. I inhabit the legacy of my culture and sit very deep and proud in it. It informs a lot of my life and I think about the wisdom of our ancestors at critical points of my life.

I’m a Mom. I’m a physician. I’m a leader. I’m a sister. I’m a daughter. I’m a friend.

Sheila: Yea. All of you shows up and you said that you inhabit the legacy of your culture and the wisdom of your ancestors causes things… it causes things.

What’s the work that you do? In all of its many facets.

The work that I do, in so many different ways, actually has a throughline in all of my career. What I do is to empower people to bloom or thrive wherever they are planted. I do that as a physician, providing care and information to my patients and families so they can live their best lives. I do that as a physician leader, providing coaching and mentorship to my teams and doctors so they can live in the joy of medicine and thrive as physicians at a time when many are struggling. I do that as an executive who has been charged with advancing health equity, providing advocacy,  information and support to the communities I serve so they can access and experience healthcare and have equitable outcomes.

I do it by learning new ways to solve old problems. Whether that’s clinical, technology, digital health or even AI. I bring all that to bear in the service of helping people to bloom where they are planted.

Sheila: You could have just been a physician. You could have put a period behind that. Quite an accomplishment. Why the more?

I think it’s a function of how you choose to serve. You ask yourself what is the fundamental basis of all these different “mores”. Someone could look at it and think that you’re scattered. But understanding that the fundamental message, and the calling that I have, remains true in all of these ways that I serve. It’s what ties it all together.

I think, okay, I give prescriptions to help the babies and then I ask myself why are there so many sick babies. Can we go upstream and find out why so many babies are sick? As a leader, you’re seeing physicians stressed out, burned out, overwhelmed and we must ask what’s happening? What do we need to understand in order to continue giving our best to our patients? I need to go “up” to figure out what is the cause and how can I address that.

At the end of the day, is it really more? Or is it multiple versions of the same thing?  I think of it as different facets of the same solution that I am called to bring.

Sheila: Do you think that you had to experience success at your point of entry in order to know that you wanted to do the next thing?

No. I don’t know that you arrive at a point where you go “check”, I’ve done this. I’ve finished taking care of all the patients. No, it’s like, how can I do this better? How can I have greater impact? How can I reach more? How can I be more effective at what I’m trying to accomplish?

It’s not a function of thinking that it’s already done. It’s a function of thinking I’m doing this, having success and asking how I can do this better?

Sheila: As I’m talking with people about leadership, there is the self-starting of it. Or the one who got it acknowledged in them and someone said to them that they should be doing more! How we get to more is such a personal journey. It’s amazing. I’m enjoying these interviews! So much! For some it was their parents who said, “you will do this!” So, I love what you said and how you described the sense that it didn’t mean that you were finished with something, it meant that there was more for you to do.

“My name means ‘the one who brings shelter’, and my Dad always knew that I’d live my name.”

What was your first known leadership moment, whether you called it that or not?

Well, I think of my leadership moment separate from my crucible moment. I had a chance to pause while in the journey of clinical medicine when I was constantly running on a treadmill. I relocated and took a job which lasted for about a year. When I came into it, everything fell apart. It didn’t unfold as I intended. But what it offered me was an opportunity to functionally be on a sabbatical for a season. I actually got to reflect and ask myself about the meaning of what I was doing. Was this the highest and best use of me? Am I still following my calling?

That’s when I started to cast back and find the common thread in the things I was doing when it didn’t feel chaotic.

In that cocooning period, I landed on my name. So, my name means the one who brings shelter. Shelter. Comfort. I got that name because I was born in a war. It was my mom’s friend’s name and it encapsulated their hopes and vision at that time when they were running from place to place trying to find safety. Having a baby offered them hope. Offered them shelter in a trying time and allowed them to bloom and think forward.

Nwando means covering. It means shelter. I provide shelter as the eldest child, as the big sister, as the doctor, as the leader. The recurring theme is that’s who I am. All that tied together all the different aspects of me. So, I said that’s my calling and it was given to me on my birthday.

During my Father’s funeral a few years back, I remember that one of my uncles said to me that my Dad always knew that I’d live my name and he was seeing it. That meant so much to me.

It wasn’t a leadership moment, but a realization, that I’ve been walking this path. Reasonably predestined, right?

Sheila: The reality is that you can either embrace it or run from it. Wow. I got chills.

How does your identity inform your leadership style? If it started at your first breath, you are kind of locked in it!

I shared my identity being linked to my name because it pulls my culture into it. In my culture your name is not random. I’m always anchoring my thoughts and questions in that space. That cultural awareness.

And when I say culture, I don’t mean only my African culture, I mean my experience as a Black woman in America. How we navigate spaces is an interweaving of that knowledge and experience that we’ve had to knit together to come through.

When I say that, I mean that when things are challenging, we don’t bow down and cry. We look for the way forward. We look for the crack in the wall. We look for the next step forward. We don’t lament. At least no longer that it takes to shed a couple tears, wipe our eyes and keep it moving.

We live in community and support one another. We look at what we’ve got and figure out what happens now. Understanding that we’ve got this. Someone calling to check on you and sharing what they’ve got to help you on your journey. For me, that’s been incredibly powerful because when you find yourself in leadership, it can be isolating. If you’re trying to navigate it by yourself, the exhaustion takes on a life of its own.

Knowing that in that moment, somebody will call from 3 states over to say that they had you on their mind and want to say a prayer for you. It helps center you and ground you and remind you that, A, you can do it, and B, you don’t have to do it alone.

All of my identities come to bear in that way. Where I feel confident because I can own my vision and I know I have people surrounding me.

“I became the CEO of Me, Incorporated.”

Share a leadership moment. Whether it was affirming, or it was, I’ll never do that again.

It was a “don’t do that again” moment. I remember it a lot because I was killing myself at work. I was a woman leader with men scheduling meetings at the crack of dawn. I had to get up, get to work to have a meeting and then go back home to get the kids to daycare. Then work through lunch. I was churning, working late every day. It got to the point that security dedicated somebody to walk me to my car because it was so late when I was leaving.

I was thinking, my work will speak for me. I was the division chief and head, halftime clinical and halftime administrative. I’m producing more than those who were full-time clinical because I’m ”a strong Black woman”. Then they decided to change the compensation model. The way they were going to change it was from a flat salary to a base salary plus clinical productivity. With this change I was told that based on my productivity, I would be paid too much! They wanted to set a different threshold for me than everyone else. I said, “I’m sorry, what? Too much for what?!?”

They were trying to figure out how to pay me less than I was worth and said to me “well, if you want to make more, you have to work harder.”

Those last 2 words… you know those cartoons we used to watch as kids where the bomb would go off in one part of your brain and travel around hitting all nerve endings in your brain? I saw that movement in my head. The sparks just started flying. That moment is ingrained in my head forever.  I played back all the phone calls from my kids asking, “mummy where are you? When are you coming home?” All the time I missed with my babies, friends and family working for people who did not see my value. I was so upset that I was shaking.

That took me to a real learning. How could they see my value if I didn’t see it myself. I decided in that moment that no one would ever get to define me, but me. I was going to be the CEO of Me, Incorporated.

Sheila: Right! This won’t happen again because I know it. But more importantly, this won’t happen because I know me!

What’s your leadership superpower, then? What’s written on your cape?

Honestly, my superpower is that I can make complex things simple. I just break it down. I make it simple for me and I make it simple for the people I am trying to serve.

Sheila: That’s translation. How does that benefit you.

I can call strategy. I can see where the puck is going. It’s a lot of noise but I can cut through it. I can simplify it. It gives me the ability to see the simple path ahead of me.

What surprises you about leadership?

How lonely it can be. I’m a big sister and in my culture, that’s an office. The oldest sister in a family is often called Sister and everyone else is called by her name. The responsibility can separate you from everyone else. That’s one aspect.

Coming up as a physician, you start as a doc and then become a physician leader. However, I was a physician leader from the beginning. My first job after my residency was as a medical director. That means you are not one of the crowd and the further up you go, you become an administrator, a suit. One of those people. It is also isolating.

So, you have to be intentional about building your support network. You have to be intentional about having the people around you who hold you up, where you can be safe and vulnerable. Those not in the inner circle can be resentful which isn’t surprising. What’s surprising is how it can be lonely where you are.

What do you know your life’s purpose?

To provide support, comfort and shelter. That’s who I am.

Do you have a talent that you’re not using? Or that you could use in a bigger, better way.

Yes, my talent for speaking.

You’re in your 5 year chapter. What’s it about?

This chapter is about living out loud. Joyful. Visible. Impactful.

When you’re getting strong and brave and have to go take care of something, what is it that gets you there?

It’s a Bible verse that shows up many times. It’s about when something is in front of you and you don’t quite know what to do. When it’s beyond your understanding, the question that God asks you is, “what is in your hand. What is in your house? What do you have that you can put in my hands so I can do something with it?”

What that means is that when something is in my hands it’s different from it being in God’s hands. It requires me to know that there is something in my hand that can become different when I hand it over to God. It’s to recognize that the answer is always in my hand. A lot of time we spend time lamenting what we don’t have and the muscle to be built is to ask yourself what do I have?

“This chapter is about living out loud.”

It’s a year from now, what are you celebrating?

I’m celebrating lots of travel, rest and joy. Yes, living out loud. Standing on the biggest stage I can come across.

Sheila: Good! It’s fulfilling your chapter!

Is there anything that I did not ask you about leadership that you’d like to tell me?

I think it’s important that people recognize that leadership isn’t about position. It’s about leading yourself first and foremost. Recognizing who you are, whose you are and who you can be. That’s the first test of leadership. It’s not about your team. It’s always first about you.

Thank you Nwando!

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