Lesson from Ukraine: Empathy, Forgivenes, Gratitude and Action E16
How do we stay connected to some kind of sanity when our country is being invaded by another one? Says Yaryna Klyuchkovska, a senior communications expert, living in Kyiv: “As a country we are surviving because we’ve learned who we are.
Yaryna shares that war has taught her more of what she is truly made of. She acts on what she truly values, even if it means losing relationships, and a prestigious job. “It’s not a value if it doesn’t have a cost,” reflects Yaryna. And, practicing forgiveness, she accepts that everyone makes their own choices. Olena Sergeeva, a seasoned facilitator and coach from Ukraine who has moved to the US has found herself in search for meaning and what her true core is. “It’s difficult not to be sucked into bigger emotions and be blown with the wind,” says Olena adding that she finds inner stability through empathy with self and others, meditation, exercise, and by facing head on old patterns that no longer serve her.
Both draw inspiration from Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” and practice gratitude. Listen to this episode of Rooted & Unwavering and discover more of your inner wherewithal to work with crises.
A communications professional with 20+ years of experience, Yaryna Klyuchkovska works as strategic communication consultant in Kyiv, Ukraine. She specializes in strategic communications, crisis communications, and communicating change. As a communications advisor and media trainer, Yaryna has helped dozens of senior executives, government officials and politicians.
Most recently, Yaryna worked as Corporate Communications Director for ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, the largest foreign investor in Ukraine. She revamped the company’s approach to communication as a strategic function, transformed its relationships with the media and influencers, and successfully managed communication for a series of crises, including a major litigation case with the government and the first six months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier, she worked as communication consultant and advisor for clients including the Minister of Economic Development and Trade, the Minister of Finance, the National Health Service and a number of businesses and NGOs. She led communications departments at large Ukrainian and international companies, including Microsoft Ukraine, Group DF, UMC (now Vodafone), and Metro Cash & Carry Ukraine. She also spent a year with Benjamin Group / BSMG Worldwide, a leading technology PR agency in Silicon Valley (now part of Weber Shandwick).
Yaryna holds master’s degrees from University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Kyiv, Ukraine) and San José State University (Calif., USA). Since 2001, Yaryna has developed and taught public relations and business communication courses at Ukraine’s leading business schools. She co-founded the Ukrainian Association of Public Relations and chaired its Board in 2007-2008. In 2011, she was named one of Ukraine’s best PR Directors by Marketing Media Review magazine. In 2014, she helped create the Ukraine Crisis Media Center, a civic initiative to help Ukraine manage its international visibility during the ongoing military crisis.
Connect with Yaryna on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
Growth Leaders Network is a team of experienced facilitators and coaches dedicated to helping individuals, teams and organisations thrive by helping them recognize their innate greatness and putting it to work.
We support clients providing executive coaching, team development, culture development and key notes, in addition to assisting in initiatives for societal evolution. Our clients report that we catalyse significant business transformational impact and profound shifts in people, team and organisations at the root cause level.
Olena Sergeeva is a coach, facilitator, and consultant working with organisational change and leadership development projects, executive coaching, and team alignment.
Olena’s vast professional background encompasses 15 years of senior management experience and 12 years in business education and consulting. For a decade, she headed Mary Kay in Ukraine & Moldova as a General Manager and was listed among Ukraine’s Top 100 Managers.
Olena was also one of the founders of Ukrainian Direct Selling Association and served as a Chairperson for its Board. As a consultant on leadership as well as an MBA lecturer at Edinburgh Business School Eastern Europe and Kyiv School of Economics, Olena has worked with generations of leaders across industries and non-profit sector to help them grow and transform their organisations.
Olena has a Master of Education degree from Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA, and a Master of Arts in Philology degree from National Shevchenko University of Kyiv. She is a Certified Coach with Coach Training Alliance, USA and a Certified Senior Professional in HR International with Human Resource Certification Institute, USA.
Connect with Olena on LinkedIn.
About Rooted & Unwavering
Peace, Compassion, Wisdom, Purposefulness, Creativity and Strength come online in us when we deeply connect with the true, unwavering greatness that lives within ourselves and others.
In this podcast and radio show, Hylke Faber, seasoned transformational coach and author of the award-winning Taming Your Crocodiles series, engages in deep inquiry with leaders from all walks of life about courageously connecting with our true selves, others and the world at large.
How do we stay connected to our true selves and our greatness, especially when we are challenged? How do we rest in the heart, also when our mind keeps us restless? What becomes possible when we truly stay committed to our own and others’ best selves, also when we don’t feel it? How do we practice staying connected to our true selves, in the midst of our busy lives?
Join us and leave inspired to act on your heart’s greatness and that of the people around you.
About Our Host
For as long as he can remember Hylke Faber has been curious about what this life is about. His ongoing inquiry has become his work: helping people individually and collectively to discover what is possible in life and express that authentically and fearlessly.
Hylke started his work life with Towers Perrin as consultant and then as Partner with Strategic Decisions Group, serving a wide range of industries, including financial services, manufacturing, consumer electronics and life sciences companies. A major shift occurred during this critical phase of his life. He had become the typical, hard-charging, 16-hours-a-day strategy consultant, and was burning out at a rapid clip.
When he discovered meditation, everything changed. He was so taken by his new discoveries that he chose to bring to business what he was learning: that there is a way we can have it all – we can be fulfilled, do work we love, and create extraordinary results with others. He thinks of it as creating a sense of ease in business.
He learned how to coach and facilitate human transformation completing his coaching certification with Newfield Network and by working at Axialent, the culture and leadership company. After a few years, he founded Co-Creation Partners together with other leaders in the field of transformation and personal development. Then he formed Constancee to help people grow by creating the conditions where deep personal, interpersonal and organizational shifts happen routinely.
He leads Growth Leaders Network, the culture and team development consultancy. He has also taught coaching at Columbia Business School Executive Education and has contributed to Harvard Business Review. He is currently teaching a course on Climate Conscious Leadership at Arizona State University. His award-winning book, Taming Your Crocodiles: Unlearn Fear & Become a True Leader, was published by Dover in 2018.
His next book, Taming Your Crocodiles Practices for Leadership Depth, came out in 2020. Besides helping others grow, which he loves, he is a trained opera singer, enjoys hiking and writing, is an avid reader, in particular of biographies, and is always in the process of growing himself. He integrates all of what he learns in his work with executives.
Connect with Hylke on LinkedIn.
About Our Sponsor
Realizing Your Greatness
We are a team of experienced facilitators and coaches dedicated to helping individuals, teams and organizations thrive by helping them recognize their innate greatness and putting it to work.
- Executive Coaching: we work with clients individually to help them connect to their calling and use every challenge as an opportunity to help them grow more into what makes them great.
- Team Performance: we help teams evolve to their next level of excellence, connectedness and impact by working on the root drivers of team performance.
- Culture Development: we help organizations to evolve their culture by creating clarity about where they aspire to go, and by building role models, coaches and systems that catalyze people being energized to work the new way.
- Key Notes: we deliver powerful speeches at conferences and other events that help audiences become energized, more connected to themselves and each other, more open to discovery and ready to commit to the next stage of learning in their career and life journeys.
Growth Leaders Network (GLN) serves Fortune 500 companies, smaller organizations and non-profits globally.
GLN clients report that we catalyze significant business transformational impact and profound shifts in people, team and organizations at the root cause level.
Learn more about the Growth Leaders network here.
