Podcasts

Lyn Lee

Lynn is the first global Asian female Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion officer to execute her job out of Asia for Shell. In terms of DE&I, Shell has a bold goal to become one of the most diverse and inclusive organizations in the world. With 20 years and counting at Shell, Lyn champions the DE&I priorities, focusing very much on accelerating the progress of gender balance in senior leadership and stem roles, ethnicity and local national representation. Lyn is passionate and committed to driving workplace inclusion of people with disabilities, LGBTQIA+, and promoting care and destigmatizing mental illness. She represents Shell as a company which embraces a diverse global workforce to build a strong culture of inclusion, respect and high performance.

In this Episode:

DE&I

Differentiation of Emotional Inclusion and Psychological Safety

Stories and human connection

Mental Illness and seeking professional help

Respect and empathy

Emotionally inclusive leadership

Mental health illnesses and medical care and treatment

Leadership tips

Shell’s “I’m Not OK” initiative (to promote open and honest conversations about mental health)

Important Quotes:

"Inclusion, I think for me it’s really feeling that you are part of that ecosystem, that when I go to work I know that I will be supported. It’s about knowing that I’ll be valued for my contributions and that I’ll be valued for the person that I am. So when I go to work I feel safe. And being able to be myself, I can thrive." - Lyn Lee

"Emotional inclusion for me would mean that no matter who I am that day, whether I'm having a good or bad time, that I can feel almost that the people that I work with have my back." - Lyn Lee

"Psychological safety is really being in an arena that allows you to be safe whilst Emotional inclusion really is about the ability to bring your full self at work with the emotionality component that we all have ingrained within all of us." - Mollie Jean De Dieu

"All of us have a story and when we share that, we connect people because we all have at some fundamental level, we all need that connection; the ability to hear other people’s stories so that it gives us a voice as well to tell our stories." - Lyn Lee

"People really need to hear that navigating or going through difficulty is not an end-all and be-all and that we can survive it all, and we can also still be able to have a career." - Mollie Jean De Dieu

"You have all these vented emotions that you are carrying, worries that you are carrying, and all of these add to an emotional burden and that burden is heavy. It’s heavy unless you share it, unless someone is able to give you feedback. And that’s actually what’s needed in a major crisis like that in terms of dealing with mental health challenges." - Lyn Lee

"Company leadership plays such an important role in creating an environment where employees have the chance to take time off to care for themselves and where worker well-being is really emphasized." - Mollie Jean De Dieu

"For companies to truly put mental health at the centerfold of their agendas, really understanding the full scope of our employees’ humanity both the physical and the mental, and really looking at insurances too or allocated budget, to care for our employees mental welfare because as we know mind and body are so interconnected." - Mollie Jean De Dieu

"The first thing that is the most difficult is having the ability to talk about this [mental health]. This is the most important. This is the start to recovery, the start to being better, the start to gaining back yourself." - Lyn Lee