Episode 29: Changing the Climate for Women - Kayla Dawson

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Kayla Dawson, Professional Engineer

Kayla Dawson, Professional Engineer

Guest:

Kayla Dawson
Professional Engineer

Host: Sarah Barr
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Welcome to the Campus Energy and Sustainability Podcasts’ first short-episode series! Each month, we’ll release a half-hour episode based on a pertinent theme in the sustainability sphere, collecting a variety of opinions and viewpoints on important issues throughout the series. Our first theme is “Changing the Climate for Women,” and will focus on women’s experiences in sustainability, energy and facilities. Short series will be hosted by Kaia Findlay, podcast manager, and special guest hosts.

As an engineer, there’s nothing Kayla Dawson finds more frustrating than seeing a problem and being unable to solve it. But in environments where biases - whether they be regarding gender, leadership styles, or communication preferences - influence behavior, she sees this happening all too often. 

In this episode, Kayla and host Sarah Barrr discuss how dominant, “status quo” leadership and mentorship styles favor certain groups of people, and how breaking down that status quo can pave the way for women and other minorities to relax and feel comfortable in the workplace and leading the change necessary to address climate change. Kayla also talks about embracing personal limitations and using them to strengthen communication and collaboration with a work team instead of letting them turn into liabilities.. In this second episode of our ‘Changing the Climate for Women’ series, Kayla gives the insight that it’s not only diversity that matters at the workplace table -- it’s making sure diverse voices are heard, accepted and uplifted.

Resources

Production Team:

Episode Transcript:

The following is an automated transcription of this episode which will include errors and omissions. You can listen and follow along with the text here:

https://otter.ai/s/8A2s_MlxRHmvcYHcGJNdGQ

You can find a text-only version of the transcript here:

Episode 29: Changing the Climate for Women - Kayla Dawson - Transcript