Lead From Where You Are with Linnie Haynesworth

Linnie Haynesworth
We can all lead from where we are. My dad taught me I can do that when I was six. We don’t have to have an anointment, an appointment or a specific role to lead.

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Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Thank you for tuning in to Voices of Athena, a podcast highlighting the personal side of the highly successful women that make up our community here at Athena Alliance. I am your host Priscilla Brenenstuhl. Today, we are spending time with Linnie Haynesworth, a Corporate Board Director, Former Aerospace and Defense Executive at Northrop Grumman Corp (NGC) and Member of the US Dept of Defense Business Board.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Hi Linnie, Thanks for being here. Please tell me, how would you introduce yourself?

Linnie Haynesworth
Well, let’s see. I would probably say I’m a technology business leader who happens to have grown up as a engineer in the space industry. I see myself through so many different lenses. It’s hard to just say one thing like that or one thread, because you know, I’m a wife and I’m a mom of three young adults. And I am very dedicated friend. to few. And so, you know, I’ve seen myself through so many different lenses. But my family would probably say I’m somebody who just get stuff done. So I I get it done. Those things are important and meaningful to my business colleagues, my family and friends but I try to also do that while I’m having fun. And try to make sure that folks around me can have fun as well.

Priscilla
Awesome, thank you for that. Who or what inspires you and why?

Linnie Haynesworth
So when you asked me that question, I also think of so many different views of that because it’s more like a tapestry. Of, of inspirations over over my lifetime, not any one person. So of course, my family inspires me and I have to start with a mom who leaned in hard on education and got two degrees before she was old enough to actually start working in Italy in the school systems in Michigan, and who demonstrated every day to me what it was like to manage being a mom and and working and making every child feel special. Every child feel seen. And to be quite frank, making each of one of each one of us think that we weren’t her favorite even though we would share it with the other because we didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. So you know, she she helped shape my worldview. That that mom working combination could be done successfully. Where at the end of the day, the family the children were close, tight knit family focused on achievement. My father who was a lifelong reader, and I’ll say debater also shaped my thinking. He taught me early about the preparation to defend my position, my worldview and conversation. So it was healthy and good to have a debate, to disagree with an adult, to do it with respect and preparation. He also gave me my first business lesson, because when I started working, he sent me a way to understand how the company made money. I was a high schooler in an internship, so I was 14. And that was my assignment was to go away and think about how this large company made money and how my little role played and that made an impression upon me that stayed with me throughout my my entire business career, which was thinking about the bigger picture and not thinking about myself. So, so those lessons, I absolutely have stayed with me forever. And then And then finally, I would say I could turn to a variety of business leaders who I witness having high impact on business outcomes through them having the courage to make decisions, to drive results. And take positions both with the business piece and the people piece, the culture of the organization and make changes where they were needed and being able to see that courage and a result of that courage, also shaping. And I said that was fine, but probably not so much. There’s an element of people that I’ve been fortunate enough to see that I have just profound respect for who were day in and day out without any fanfare. Nobody knows their name, but without whom we couldn’t have delivered tremendous capability to the United States government and our and our customers around the globe. And that mission is something that’s important to me. But it was important to all of us. And so those people taught me something. And they taught me to listen to them to understand their view, and how critical they were to the fundamental outcomes of what the company can do.

Priscilla
Thank you for that and I thank you for explaining it like a tapestry. I just really like visualizing all these people on a hillside and looking like a tapestry coming alive in color and shape and form and that’s a beautiful way to acknowledge that.

What song are you singing at karaoke?

Linnie Haynesworth
Well, karaoke is not for me. But you know, I grew up with a musical family. So we all sing all the time and my mom was a singer we sang in the car we are understanding in the kitchen. And so you know, I grew up with a whole wide range. of music, classical music, gospel songs, Motown and then you know, as I got a little older Pheobe Snow, average white band. So just I am a person of musical variety, both in my my background as well as my interest. So I would say, I often over the years is fun, over the rainbow from my favorite movie Wizard of Oz you know, those are the songs I sing by myself. I have often sung with my children when they were little, my mother’s favorite hymn that I always heard her sing, which is beams of heaven. And they know it now. I you know, have known it my whole life because of her. And then, I guess, you know, if I think about just this week, I’ve caught myself saying speak to my heart, which is another gospel song. I Donnie McClurkin this kind of new relatively newer than beans have had and so, just a variety of music over many years for different times and different reasons.

Priscilla
And do you catch yourself then doing like your mom did see in the chin and see in the car.

Linnie Haynesworth
Yes

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Priscilla
What is your biggest fear?

Linnie Haynesworth
So I would say it’s related to what I think of as my my biggest role. And that’s to be a parent who was not available when my family needed me. So as a mom who also had tremendous commitments outside of the home, you know, I always focused on trying to manage that and balance that with my mother as an example because I always felt she was there. And I needed her. So that that fear has diminished over time as they get more mature but it’s not gone. I look forward as I see them getting older and older and just being better ready to operate completely on their own as their own leaders from their own families.

Priscilla
Yeah, what a privilege to watch it. Progress and I I am curious, you know, I’m always curious because I’m young mother, of course. And I often am struggling, you know, and luckily I work from home now so my struggle is a little bit lighter than when I was working outside of the home in some ways, but I am always struggling with trying to balance it and and sometimes even if I balance it with time, I’ll find like I’m spending time with them. I’ll find that I’m like worried about work or like my mind isn’t really there. I have a hard time not being present especially now because I work from home right I feel like I should always be working or it could always be working or that like the computers there like you know what’s going on or like my phone is always pinging me with new messages and all of those things and it;s tricky to show up for everything in a really whole way. And and so I don’t know any advice you have being that you’re someone comes from a mother who made you all feel like you were her favorite and I knew a lot of there’s a lot of women now who are in this position that I’m talking about. So anything that you feel like you might want to share about that.

Linnie Haynesworth
Sure, I would say a few things. One is to seek help, where help can be available to you. And so for me that came in, again, kind of adapting. Right I had a sister who was in the neighborhood was a school teacher who could come over you know, one night a week and be with our children and they look forward to that like it was Christmas every week. And overtime my mother moves to California where we were raising our family and she could come over one night a week and and see them and make them you know, help them be heard every every time she showed up in their way and they they talk about that even today. Right and and my my husband’s parents were available to the kids as kind of a refuge from our home every Friday night. So my husband and I needed to either work or wanted to just rest that was available to us. But I recognized that everybody doesn’t have families kind of where they are. And and so we also had and I was very fortunate to have a network of women, professional women who all had children and we all kind of worked it out together. You know if somebody had a doctor’s appointment and couldn’t make it because of the work commitment or you know somebody needed to drop off a kid and stay late or boring, get a technical input from a third party, right? That to help just make the work process go a little faster, and get some confidence about the product that they were delivering. All of that was available to us through a network of women, who I’m so fortunate to say are still part of my network of friendship today. Who we’ve watched each other’s kids grow up and support each other through a variety of I’ll just say move through through life that we all had. And that network is important. And then finally, I will say one of the things that I learned early was to do only what’s important and to not take on the notion of failure. And so, you know, within a span of time what is critical and when when with the family, that’s critical. Right? And so where where I might have started my family life, thinking I can do so many things because I wanted to do them and only I didn’t best. I learned that no, no, no. There are some things that only I should do. And that’s my humanity. time with my family. And there are many other things I don’t need to do that need to get done. And I can also can I live with how they get to the area important distinction. It is and and that even goes down to learning to value. You know, my husband doing my daughter’s hair when I was on travel, things like that. Where, you know, he figured it out I need it’s not my way but it was she loved me. And it was beautiful. Right? So those those things, of setting priorities and learning that your value is not in doing every chore. Your value is in interacting with your family.

Priscilla
and trusting the other interactions that they have, even if they don’t lool like how do you initially thought, which can definitely be challenging for me sometimes

Linnie Haynesworth
and then finally cut yourself a break you know, give yourself some slack. When you find that you are your own worst critic, you know? Correct that. You’re doing fine.

Priscilla
You’re doing fine. Moms, do you hear that, you are doing fine.

What is the most daring thing you’ve ever done?

Linnie Haynesworth
So that’s an interesting thing too, because it’s not. I moved from Michigan having grown up there and lived in a very I’ll say relatively narrow walk of life to California. That was a big change for me. I also have regularly and continuously just reached out to make connections with people I don’t know. So over time that became kind of a critical skill of mine and I just learned to have relationships are manner of people. So some would find that daring at least initially it was. Over time it just became part of who I you know, and I can have relationship with the trash can. Always say it I can figure that out. Then some things were be fun things you know, I’ve gone whitewater rafting when I didn’t have great swimming skills. You know, I’ve taken on physical activities when I wasn’t prepared for them. But that that was all in fun with friends. So those kinds of things. Professionally, I just say I would I’ve leaned into roles all the time, running to the problem that needed to be solved with my dad’s message in my mind around what’s the big picture? What’s the goal and what are the risks? And the risk to that goal. That’s where we need to focus our attention. So I would run to this

Priscilla
The risk to the goal is where you need to focus your attention. That’s making me think, like what’s on the other side of fear, that kind of thing?

Linnie Haynesworth
Yeah, I just got used to that feeling, that sick tummy feeling. You know, I had a co worker who is a peer. So we kind of grew up together. And we when we first had to give these big briefings I mean with hundreds of people in a room we didn’t like it. You know? We were kind of sometimes Ill. However, we got used to this feeling and we each created kind of, I’ll say steps to work through them. You know? And so if you were to talk to me as a 23 year old, entering into the workplace and maybe 25 taking on leadership teams, roles, you know, I didn’t like that public speaking part, but I had to learn how. So I just created kind of mechanisms to help them work through that process. And over time, that discomfort, even though sometimes I would still get it, wasn’t so fear in bringing great fear, right it was it was just best part of the process. And so I think that kind of thing happened in many dimensions over time.

Priscilla
So the feeling didn’t necessarily go away that pit in your stomach. It was your ability to manage it that increased and change. What was that process like how did you manage it? Was it a mindset or like was it body tricks or breath tricks or

Linnie Haynesworth
it’s funny you should say that you know, I first of all, I I focused on honing that skill, so I took a course right and, and it was one of those early courses where we were videotaped and I thought, Hmm, that’s what I look like, that’s what I sound like? I can see it objectively for myself. So there was one just competence coming from understanding the things to do to make myself better, right. But the fear piece I just created mechanisms to keep my body calm. Because that was part of it to keep my voice steady. But inside my shoes, my toes would go to town just after and no one would know that that was a way for me to bring calm to the rest of my, my, my voice and body. So I just learned over time from that kind of experience, that everybody struggles with something somewhere along their development somewhere in their career path. Some people it stays with them for a lifetime, some people it diminishes over time. And guess what? We all can move through it.

Priscilla
And there are likely other people sitting at this table who are tapping their toes to in their shoes and I cant see it.

Linnie
Exactly

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Priscilla
If not your current profession, are there things that you you thought you would like to do?

Linnie Haynesworth
Do you mean looking in the rearview mirror if I’d done something other than engineering and technology leadership, or do you mean going forward from here?

Priscilla
I think I mean both like what tugs at your heart heartstrings and I but I don’t want it to be necessarily the most practical or logical answer. I want it to be that kind of like maybe underlying or that thing which you you know, I’ve always kind of thought of maybe since you were a little girl, but maybe it seems way over there. Maybe it doesn’t, but that kind of thing,

Linnie Haynesworth
but well, you know, it’s interesting. Like I said, we’re from a family of like, mostly musicians who do other things. Right. I have other engineers, variety of careers in my family, but we all love music. So, you know, I always could imagine myself as a singer. Or, yeah, I could have imagined myself that way.

Priscilla
Although not karaoke. You want like a live band behind you. You want it to be like good.

Linnie Haynesworth
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Really good. It’s only it’s only it’s only workable if it is really good. And then, you know, one of the things we talked about as a youngster because it was kind of obviously, like math and more technical than you should. Right. So that was always a kind of backdrop of Do you want to be a physician, even though that was really not something I I ever saw for myself? But you know, I didn’t wait what now a lot of technology folks go into finance. And so that’s maybe a bit another option. Oh, I never considered that at all. It just never crossed my mind as as an option. But you know, look forward from here. If I weren’t doing more work, I’d probably be challenging myself some other way, both physically and mentally. And I can see myself taking on some age appropriate competition physically or I can see myself taking on you know, something. Yeah, competition, swimming, walking, and, you know, weightlifting or something. I just see myself teaching, because I always like learning. I think it’s exciting to help other people love it too. So yeah, I can take you in a variety of things.

Priscilla
Do you swim out or lift weights now?

Linnie Haynesworth
I have a swim coach now. So I’m learning to learning to prepare for it being my lifelong sport.

Priscilla
I love that I love swimming. It’s one of my most favorite things.

Linnie Haynesworth
it’s great. It’s a great exercise as you age.

Priscilla
For everything. I tell my husband because he has injuries and his knees for being a soccer player. I tell my parents you know as they age, even as me when I was pregnant and just like the one exercise that I can do and I’ll swim fast and far and commit but that didn’t feel like it was hurting my body. So and also just even at a bathtub just going underwater, your mind is for me instantly calming. So it’s one of my most favorite things to do

Linnie Haynesworth
do is swim for better walking. So I don’t know I can see myself challenging myself somehow. I don’t know which one

Priscilla
well I want to say I guess I’ll take this and I know I said I was focusing on the personal and it is for me personal my. I’ve had like you I’ve had several kind of whims of things that I wanted to explore I thought I would explore in my years. But I will say that two of them well, it means it’s so space. I mean, I’m so fascinated by space and all things space related and stars and planets and galaxies and how small we are and looking through a telescope and taking my children to see like out when all the planets were aligned, you know, getting up early in the morning so and then also, at one point I thought I would love to be a storm chaser. Wow. And I was really young and I used to run out to play like and even when I was older like I would go wash my car in the middle of the rain thunderstorm.

My mom would be like, Why are you doing that like you’ll get struck by lightening. I’m like this is the best time I don’t need to run a hose. I just love storms. But then for me, I learned that there was a lot of math involved with those things. And I was not particularly interested in exploring that. I was like Can I just hold the camera while we chase the tornado? Yeah. And so like thinking of your background and it with Aerospace products and then serving as a program manager for the defense weather satellite system. My inner child Linnie I gotta say is just why Wow, this is so cool.

Linnie Haynesworth
It is cool. And there is nothing like actually being present to see something that you work on launch. It is just it’s a tremendous feeling. But it’s back to that message about the people because there’s so many 1000s of people who have done their things so well. Down in in a system it just works like it’s supposed to people just count on it happening. And it’s so it’s so rewarding it to be part of that team is not like even you know being a leader of a team is the leader in terms of getting it done because it’s it’s it’s the result of an effort. Many and I I’m proud of just being associated with some of those efforts. Yeah, very rewarding. But you know, so funny you mentioned thinking about that. One of the things my family and I talk about now, and probably more now than ever is What if mom had been a politician and part of it is, you know what I have been able to impact outcomes. Would I’ve been able to garner support from people to do more in terms of helping our fellow citizens. Would I’ve been able to just have a greater benefit to people by doing that kind of work. So it’s not something I again, ever thought about at the time. As a matter of fact, in politics was just not something I would imagine that’s a good thing. But now when I look across the landscape, I think it’s it’s ripe for people who have critical thinking, who have humanity in mind and who are willing to do the work to get outcomes.

Priscilla
So maybe this political career still ahead of you

Linnie Haynesworth
I don’t think so. I think the train has left that station.

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Priscilla
Not to take it the conversation backwards, but I am curious when you got into engineering when you thought of studying Did you work with was that in anticipation of doing the work that you did? Or didn’t the work that you did come like you were like okay, engineering and then oh, space and weather and that’s cool.

Linnie Haynesworth
Let’s see. It’s really it was a journey also. So, for example, I went to a technical high school I had computer science as a high schooler. I got to code early in life. And I was always hearing that voice about being in medicine. So my first thought was around biomedical engineering. And I, I moved to USC around biomedical engineering and when started into that program, but at the time those folks were not being given very many career opportunities, and the room for growth was very limited then. And so I got exposed to internships at the local Southern California, aerospace and defense companies and I was so fortunate to be able to join TRW at the time. And my first intern job was developing embedded flight software for a satellite that was had a scheduled launch date. And I couldn’t have been more jazzed and excited by that. So I was hooked from that day forward. And, you know, I always share with folks who have the opportunity to work with young adults, and to bring in interns or new hires into their workplace. My company gave me real work. They didn’t sit me in a corner and have me do some paperwork and not really be engaged in the main line of the company business. They gave me real work. And oh, by the way, when they had questions actually listened to my opinion about technology and where we should go design questions and things like that. I was brought into the team and I was made to feel like I was part of a team. I can tell you from like month one, I was, I was I was hooked not only with the people with the mission and the work, but because of all of those things combined. I was hooked to that company. And I stayed at that company for 40 years.

Priscilla
Wow. I love that story. That’s so as an intern and you just what you said what made me stay well, they saw they treated me like I was valuable. They saw they recognized that I was valuable and even just to them and doing that likely made you more valuable because of your the drive that it gave you. Yeah. So it all leads back again to that how you started the tapestry

Linnie Haynesworth
and I would have to share and I hope it gets shared in the messaging. The culture at TRW now north from is compelling. It is not everything. And over many decades, you know no place is perfect. But they absolutely offered an opportunity and environment for me to continuously grow, continuously learn and to be heard. So I can’t say any more about that. notion as a way to treat people and to kind of grow camaraderie and loyalty they can’t be replaced.

Priscilla
Which is what people are looking for now right and saying, Oh, why isn’t anyone staying and what Yeah, yeah.
Tell me about a life changing or life defining moment.

Linnie Haynesworth
I have so many life changing, you know, professionally, having worked on a large program that didn’t complete because the government ended up canceling the program and all that came with that kind of corporate organizational team and individual disappointment. But being able to, to address all of those disappointments and recover every time that to bring value to the company and to the people who supported those efforts was important to me. That was a focus even though it certainly couldn’t have been done 100% successfully. It was a focus for me in that window. It was also a tremendous learning window for me. Certainly having children with each one life changing, kind of impact for me. Having relatives who’ve had tremendous health risks. And recognizing the fragility is that the temporary nature of life is something that is ever present in my mind and is part of how I show up with people. I will say that I’ve had that experience not only with family and close friends, but also co workers who are colleagues that I’ve known for for many years. And, and it’s not something that is kind of, you know, a topic folks, lead with, but it’s always something in my mind, in terms of value people how to interact. And, you know, my family would say I have a high level of respect for the individual, as well as probably a high level of intolerance for disrespect. Not just for myself, but for others.

Priscilla
I have a question and I think it might even be one of our audience questions that I was gonna bring in and I don’t know this may catch you off guard because I feel like how would I answer this if I suddenly given it and only 10 minutes or whatever, so but it’s there and it’s talking in the back of my head so I’m gonna I’m gonna ask it can you do you have a belief and you share a belief that you held that changed?

Linnie Haynesworth
I would probably say no. And here’s why. I was raised in a family that had a strong religious belief. So I do. I’ve never felt that I was alone, even in the presence of severe life disruption. And I’ve had as have many others. So my my worldview comes with so many foundational things that are very much held up, even though I am you know, often like everyone else surprised by how severe or how, how negative somebody else could be, how terrible somebody could treat someone else, this notion that that could happen has been part of my my upbringing and worldview. So So you know, I’m I’m not alone. We all are not. I have been taught the notion of working hard from the day I can remember, you know, watching those around me all. I have been taught from the day I can remember how important it is to treat others. You know, one of my first memories of of this concept was seeing a youngster get talked to in a way that I’d never heard before. Tone of voice was mean, was done by an adult to a child. But my father and I were together. And he took me aside and he said that child really needs a friend right now. So these concepts, it was the conversation wasn’t about the adult. The conversation was about my role relative to the person who’s being harmed. And, and so these concepts of people are disappointing. You know, everyone won’t show up and treat you the way you need to be treated. But here’s how you handle those things, I would say that’s been with me in some form or fashion. For thanks to my family.

Priscilla
And that you said something, just paraphrasing from the beginning, seeing the problem and then the risk like the goal and the risk. So right the problem is how his how this, the adult is talking to him. The goal or the solution and that time was, you know, needing a friend or needing someone who doesn’t talk to him like that and the risk is, is it’s taking that action.

Linnie Haynesworth
Well, and then seeing a problem from the angle of what you can do, from the place where you sit. So you know, one of the things I’ve shared with women leaders for decades is we can all lead from where we are. My dad taught me I can do that when I was six. Right? So so we don’t have to and anointment an appointment a specific role to lead and that concept has been so helpful to me in many different roles, particularly early in my career, not looking for or waiting for a role or an assignment, but identifying what needed to be done to be better. And working with peers and leaders to just get better as a team.

Priscilla
That’s a great way to wrap up this conversation. Although I will ask Linnie is there a you know, I said I have this like buzzing in my head with that. Is there anything and we get to sit for a second but is there anything that you feel like you would like to share or the salon your mind?

Linnie Haynesworth
You know, I I bought about and the thing that drove me to spend a lot of time was to think about how I describe myself. So, you know, I I don’t describe myself very often. So, you know, I’m think of that from the perspective of somebody else see me, right? So not from me. I see that from an outside in kind of look, and that’s why there’s so many different views or lenses through which individuals get seen and, and women leaders have so many lenses through which we are seeing as well. Right so so the only thing else I would maybe share there is to keep the long view you know, I try to to not just see what’s before me but see the big picture, to be calm and have patience. And I don’t mean wait for results from others. I just mean patience in your kind of support to yourself to be patient. But I’m always seeking to challenge and I’m always trying to learn and I’m always trying to have fun and make sure those around me are having a good time

Priscilla
That’s great. It’s been a life long thing and to just gain confidence and also also recognize how people respond, I don’t know how to say like a not self response, how often people respond in their not-selves. Just because of a lack of confidence in that how crippling a lack of confidence and how fragile it is how it’s not just something you have or don’t have necessarily maybe you’re born into a family of it and so your likelihood is greater, stronger. You have a stronger foundation but like it’s something that lives like a garden that needs consistent watering

Linnie Haynesworth
and then I think working towards something and and those micro achievements just help that that soil get stronger and make the whole thing grow right that these these little mini achievement achievements really are so self affirmming. If if we just take a minute and acknowledge that yeah, we did that and that was good.

Priscilla
Yeah, as part of that, and acknowledgement is part of it. I know a lot of people who who are making progress or I don’t know the right word for it now or the right one I’m trying but it’s like Okay, finish that on to the next one. Finish that on to the next one finish that next one, you know, never able to like really slow down and so, you know may appear as confident that their confidence is based solely on achievements or like so so once I’ve achieved that thing, it doesn’t matter anymore because I need to achieve another thing in order to maintain that instead of taking a step back and waiting in between and being able to say, Okay,

Linnie Haynesworth
here’s what I learned. Here’s what was great. And it’s all good. Yeah, thank you for doing this as this was pretty cool.

Priscilla
So cool. Oh my gosh, I just feel like one of the luckiest people ever to be able to do this because I I’ve been listening to podcasts for like 10 years please back with Ira Glass and This American Life and I always thought Oh I would love to have a podcast and I love conversation, storytelling and I never dreamed I don’t know at that time when it was a dream. At the beginning I never dreamed that I would just be talking to like the most successful women in business about their personal lives and their fears. And so this is a dream come true for me and it definitely took a little bit of my fears and lack of self confidence to be here at all.

Linnie Haynesworth
So your little garden of confidence is just growing.

Priscilla
That’s right. Thank you for helping me tend my garden

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Priscilla
Thank you for sharing your time with me today. On our next episode we welcome, Avril Sisk
who sits on the Board of Managers, NextUp Solutions, chairs the Arlington Economic Development Commission, is a Member of the International Association of Women Judges and an Ethics Attorney for the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development.
If you are a member and would like to be featured on an episode, please reach out to me at [email protected]
Your story matters.