What if resilience was never about becoming who you were before?

Most leadership advice treats recovery as the goal. Get through the hard thing, return to baseline, pick the plan back up. Lauren Posesorski's experience says otherwise.

In this episode of The Impact List, Laurie Fainer, Founder and CEO of Dynamic Alchemy Advisors sits down with marketing leader Lauren Posesorski, a marketing leader with seventeen years of experience building teams from the ground up for one of the most candid conversations this show has featured.

In 2021, Lauren went into preterm labour at 28 weeks. Her daughter Eleni lived for 60 days. As Lauren puts it, when Eleni went, a version of herself went too, and that version never came back.

What she rebuilt in the space that followed is the reason she is on this list. A different way of asking her team how they are doing. A different definition of what she owes the people who report to her. And now, a deliberate pause instead of a reach for the next title.

This conversation is about what leadership looks like when you stop trying to return to who you were.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why the trust Lauren experienced from her team while she was on leave taught her more about real leadership than any framework could, and how to build that kind of trust before you ever need it.
• The exact question Lauren changed when she returned to work, why simply asking someone how they are doing stopped being enough, and what she asks instead.
• Why losing a former version of yourself is a normal part of leading through crisis, not a sign that something has gone wrong.
• What Lauren says every leader gets wrong about mentorship, and why cross functional relationships often teach you more than the person you report to ever will.
• Why Lauren stepped off a linear seventeen year career path to take an intentional pause.

We talk about:

00:00 Meet Lauren Posesorski and her leadership story

01:46 What gave Lauren pause this week

04:07 Going into premature labor at 28 weeks

05:02 What did her team do while she was away

07:41 What must a leader believe to fully let go

09:42 Returning to work after unimaginable loss

10:25 Losing the version of yourself grief takes

12:12 How she leads differently since coming back

14:43 What people actually need from a leader

16:31 Why she is taking an intentional career pause

25:15 The leadership belief she had to unlearn

28:24 The leader who shaped her career the most

Subscribe so you don't miss who's coming next.

Connect with Lauren:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-posesorski-kerhoulas-54a2b220/

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions