LAMA Leadership: A Conversation with Tal Gale

Discover a new dimension of leadership where language is the compass guiding us through the maze of human connection. TK Gale, founder of LAMA Leadership, joins us to illuminate the profound influence language has in shaping our realities and its vital role in effective leadership. We'll explore the power of words to transcend cultural barriers and unite diverse teams, diving into how language can be a tool for creating possibilities and transforming organizational dynamics.

Embark on a personal transformation journey with us as we investigate how embracing our own cultural and linguistic identities can elevate leadership styles. Ms. Gale shares the significance of self-awareness and its ripple effect on team cohesion, emphasizing the importance of creating a space for open communication. We'll reveal how setbacks can be surprising springboards for growth and how nurturing human connections can build resilient teams, ready to thrive in an ever-changing global landscape.

Finally, we champion the cause for multilingualism and cultural understanding, drawing attention to the immense benefits these bring to both individuals and societies. I share my own experiences with multilingualism, reflecting on the unexpected insights gained and the collective responsibility in language education. Together, we reflect on the transformational power of language, inviting listeners to join us on this journey of discovery, where language is not just a means of communication, but a bridge to a more connected and empathetic world.

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Chapters

• 0:03 Language, Culture, and Effective Leadership
• 18:00 Leadership Development Through Language and Culture
• 35:23 Promoting Multilingualism and Cultural Understanding
• 40:44 The Power of Language and Leadership

Transcript

Norah Jones: 0:03

Why does leadership depend on the understanding of language and culture? My guest this week, TK Gale, educator, author and founder and director of LAMA Leadership, gives us insight into exactly how language and leadership fit together

Voice: 0:24

Welcome to episode 123 of It's About Language, hosted by Norah Lulich Jones. We're thrilled to have you join us once again. Today, we're honored to be joined by the remarkable TK Gale, an educator and author who is the driving force behind LAMA Leadership. Together we'll delve into the intriguing question: Why does leadership hinge on a profound grasp of language and culture? Get ready for an enlightening discussion as we explore the intricate relationship between language, culture and effective leadership.

Norah Jones: 0:58

It's my pleasure to welcome my listeners to my guest today, TK Gale Hi TK.

TK Gale: 1:07

Hi Norah, how are you?

Norah Jones: 1:09

I'm doing very well. I'm very, very excited about our conversation today. I'm looking forward to all of the different insights that you provide, and I'd like to start with the leadership that you do. You are the founder and executive and leadership coach of LAMA Leadership, and it's based in the idea about language and what language can do. Please give us the background of that coaching company, what you do, and this connection to language.

TK Gale: 1:49

Well, first of all, thank you for having me.

TK Gale: 1:51

It's a pleasure to be able to speak about probably my favorite topic, which is language, and, in terms of your question, LAMA Leadership really came to existence after a long journey that I continued to go on. But the two major pathways that I've been pursuing professionally over the past 20 to 30 years, depending on which pathway I'm talking about, are both language as well as leadership, and I've worked in both of those realms.

TK Gale: 2:28

I've studied in both of those realms, I've learned from a tremendous amount of people, and I just have to say everything I say today. I need to note that I stand on the shoulders of giants. Giants being from a five-year-old to someone who's been in the field for many years. And in my journey and where I am today and where LAMA Leadership kind of allows me to do the work that I want is to really look at that space between leadership and language and how do the two interact, how do they influence each other? I'm a big fan of cross-field thinking and I think that I've landed on something that at least seems to resonate with many people, and I would say, especially today, in the world that we live in.

Norah Jones: 3:25

That was an interesting last item. Why, specifically in this time, the world that we live in, would that be an especially important aspect of what you love and do?

TK Gale: 3:39

So that's a fabulous question, and I think I have to also maybe say a few words about the fact that language is a human action, and so this is really the beginning of who we are and what we are as a creature, and very much I believe, and as do many other scientists, that it actually has informed and has made us who we are today. That language has… We're created through language. Language has created with us our reality. Language has a history. Language is very powerful.

TK Gale: 4:19

Language can be used as a tool for multiple purposes. And when I look at the world today, which is very fast-paced. We now are living in a global world geography…the barriers and boundaries are used to live with no longer exist.

TK Gale: 4:37

The potential and the opportunities and the challenges of that leave us in a space where we have, I believe, the opportunity to really look at language and think about what is our relationship to language. How do we take ownership of language per se and as the languages, and how do we make sure that it's not being used to distract us from really what's important. Language can create and language can be used to weaponize. Language can have many roles in our society and so, really, my call with LAMA Leadership is to harness and to lean into language and to see how we can really leverage this wonderful tool, which many believe is the essence of what we are, to make the world the kind of world we would like to see, maybe one that has more connection, maybe one that has more understanding, maybe one that is a bit more what I would say is human.

Norah Jones: 5:49

So many powerful human concepts there and I'm going to tap on that word create. There's a dynamism there in what you've just said, Tal, about creating possibilities, creating the direction we go. So, in your creation of and your work with LAMA Leadership, how do you bring that focus, that creative, positive focus, to play with the various organizations, industries and businesses you work with?

TK Gale: 6:22

So I think one of the primary things that I like to bring to everyone that I work with, as well as people that I just converse with, is a little bit of history and understanding of what language is, as well as its history and how it's actually informed our culture as in our world. One of the things that I love to share, which I think people can connect to from different places, is this notion of the connection between language and speech and creation. So, if I may, I'd like to share just two examples, one from, I would say, western culture and one from more folkloric culture. We all know this term, “abracadabra,” and we associate it with magic. Many people have different associations and “abracadabra” actually has a meaning. The meaning of “abracadabra” in Aramaic is “I create,” like the word, and what it means in Hebrew is “I will create as I speak.” So this word, that kind of, is in our space that we use frequently, again, mostly in the magic world, but you know I use it in my teaching when I'm about to unfold something.

TK Gale: 8:01

The language itself and the words and the history can really provide for us a lot of information. And again I go back to what you said about the opportunity. What do we want to do with that information? If we understand this about language, what do we want to do with that? If we can harness really language to create possibilities, what can that look like? What can that look like in your life as an individual? What can that look like in a team of an organization? How do you use language? How do you make sure that language is a one of your tools that you really leverage to reach your goals and your vision as an organization? What role would language play? And by language I mean words, but language I also mean culture. And so it's an awesome opportunity to explore cross-cultural spaces when we understand fundamentally what language is.

Norah Jones: 9:06

What kinds of insights do you find people especially responding to, reacting to, being astonished by, being moved by and being changed by?

TK Gale: 9:18

That's a wonderful question. I think that, in terms of language, I think what's most exciting to people is that people see an opportunity to own language, to interact with language. They realize it's a tool that they can… Actually… it's not a tool like a hammer that has very specific purposes and we can use it for a limited amount of activities. Language really has the potential to be a tool that changes the way we communicate, changes the way we treat each other and it changes the way we think Again, I think this is and this is where a place where I really love to spend some time is I was actually. Can I share a story about a work meeting that I had yesterday along these lines?

Norah Jones: 10:17

Please. Those are so helpful as illustrations and as just fun old experiences. Yes, please.

TK Gale: 10:23

So it seems perfect that this happened last night. It was actually at a meeting at 11pm here in California and I was meeting…. It was a leadership training session for an international organization and we were being trained on a tool and the three participants, each of us was to deliver this content after discussion in different languages. So one of the participants was from Korea, one was from Greece and I, while I live in the United States, I am going to work with Israel, and our instructor was sitting in India And so we were discussing the tool and the program and asking questions and interacting and learning, and at some point, one of the participants asked, I thought, a fabulous question that really brought to light something about the nature of language and she asked what do we do when the terminology or like, are we just doing translation, like, are we just translating this into Hebrew or Korean or Greek, and is that enough? That is, if we're trying to convey concepts and ideas and ways of being and working, what else do we need to consider as people who are using this language tool to share information and to learn and to grow with other people?

TK Gale: 12:00

And so it turned into a conversation about how do we…. we are now trying to translate, but where is the room for the culture? And that really opened up a wonderful that opened up a whole other conversation as to the terms and the models that we're sharing in leadership, for example. Where were they originated, who were they used by most effectively? And it really opened up the door to think about the importance of asking questions and looking at models and learning, but not forgetting the value of bringing one's own culture and way of thinking. And so at the end of this conversation I was thinking, you know, it would be wonderful for the four of us to come together after this session and to look at those models and look at the language and just reflect on what can we bring back to the international conversation about how we understand things, how are the models . And again, it's through language, but it's also what these cultures are.

Norah Jones: 13:31

To observe cultural practices in a way to be able to articulate them then in words so as to make them overt. So there's words about leadership, words about connection, words about identity, and they're connected with the way that behaviors take place as well. That's a powerful and I would say I'm saying the word complex, but that's not designed to frighten people off. It sounds like once you become aware of what it is you need to talk about, that the conversations can grow. Is that true of these experiences? It sounds like from the one you were speaking about just last night. Are there other times in which you have found that to be true?

TK Gale: 14:15

Absolutely. And you bring me back to you know the essence of the work that I try to bring to LAMA leadership. LAMA actually means…while I'm a fan of the animal, this LAMA means, asks the question, “Why?” And to answer your question, the fact that this particular group was clear on why we were having this conversation, which was really to educate and to continue to develop leaders, and that clarity on why we were doing what we were doing, why we were having our conversation, allowed us to look at language intentionally and maybe even importantly, to ask the questions about what might this mean and what can we explore with our you know, the participants, who, in turn, will also be our teachers. As we continue to understand what change can actually come. Now, once we understand and we learn. I do believe and this is the work that I do in the coaching that I do. One of the best decisions I made in 2023 was to continue investing in my own education.

TK Gale: 15:45

I completed a certificate program in executive coaching from UC Berkeley. One of the biggest gifts that I got from that , and this is after being in education for many years and language for many years, was the practice of asking people what they mean by the words that they say. That's not easy. It's a reminder. This practice is a reminder to me not to judge and to be humble, because when someone says something is interesting and I'm coaching them, I need to know what they mean by interesting. They actually more than I need to know what they mean by interesting.

TK Gale: 16:45

I spend a lot of time, I find, in these coaching sessions, it's not the point of it, but really intentionally looking at the words we use. Are they words that someone else gave us? Are they words that we chose? Are they words that society is sharing with us, with their definitions? To really give the respect to, I would say, the person sitting in front of me, the time and the space to explore, how am I using language? How does it inform the way that I think? How does it impact who I am as a person? Then, what do I want to do about it?

Norah Jones: 17:31

What do they want to do about it? You're coaching them specifically about leadership and presumably for some this is a thrilling discovery, something that opens windows and doors and fresh air is blowing through everything that's going on. For others it may be confusing. Can you provide us some insights into what is the impact in this case, specifically on these folks that you're coaching and leadership, of what they're discovering about their own language?

TK Gale: 18:00

I think that what's most surprising to the people that I coach is that we enter this relationship often with the intention of, and we do, focus on the work. Often people are leading a team or they're starting a startup and want to think about how to find the right people and how to set the right tone. They come in eager and ready to think and make plans. What we find always, and I'm very fortunate that the people I work with… Again, I don't call the people I coach coachees, I call them players, because I'm not doing anything to them, we are interacting. And so, while coaching is still finding the right language to really explain that relationship, the players or my partners in this work really understand that in order to finesse and understand how to leverage language, one really has to spend a little bit of time internally. Much like leadership, when we want to lead others, we have to spend some time thinking about who we are as leaders.

TK Gale: 19:24

One of the models that we are familiar with… I always recommend looking at the models we're familiar with and being appreciative and critical and only then really being able to help others build those skills. And so I think that one, understanding the value of the individual. When you understand how much work you need to do on yourself to be the leader that you want to be or that you can. You don't need to do anything, but you have the potential, you have that ability, and so I think that's usually, and then it tends to translate into how they interact with their team. Now, it's not a team with five positions, it's five people who are a world unto themselves, and now you really have the opportunity to create.

Norah Jones: 20:25

That movement to now I'm turning to the others I've recognized that there is a language and cultural insight going on right inside myself. Although you didn't bring the cultural aspect up there, I presume that there's a revelation in working with language that includes that they may have some cultural expectations of their own, from a personal background. I'll leave you to comment about that as soon as I finish this sentence and question. Then we turn to the team as a whole and they begin to apply these learnings that they've done. How much part of what you're experiencing, then, with having revealed the linguistic and cultural aspect to your coachee, to your player, then do they turn around and work with others? Do they learn to do this effectively with their teams, then with those whom they're leading?

TK Gale: 21:28

So what I've found and the second part of taking the skills that you learned about yourself as a leader moving, translating it into working with others, is not . It doesn't happen overnight. It is a process. I often have the opportunity to coach during this process as well, to work with my partner or the coachee or the person who is now stepping into this leadership role. There is a lot of you know. What I promote and this may come from my background as an educator is experimentation and open-mindedness and question-asking. Walking into you know, on one hand, being very secure in what you know and what you bring and, at the same time, understanding that when you're working with others and again their language and their whole world and their ways of thinking and being you can decide what kind of leader you want to be. So the leaders that I work with and not every leader, I'm not the right coach for every leader you know leaders who want to do work in this realm and want to explore these types of tools and want to make change in real ways. Those are the people that I work with best and when I find those partners, they fundamentally are doing experiments and testing and my work with them is to process that and to see what is working with this group, what is not working.

TK Gale: 23:22

The notion of culture that you brought up before is huge. In some cultures there are hierarchical realities that one lives with. In other cultures there are very laid-back, you know, more relaxed forms of communication. There are different volumes at which, putting words aside, the volumes with which different cultures and languages speak, the pace, those are all and again, this is what we're talking about. World languages and it's also true for the individual, how one expresses themselves, how do I speak.

TK Gale: 24:12

What I find is, fundamentally, the more in touch the leader can be with their own identity as a leader and recognize that they will be on a continual journey and that there will be an intrinsic part of learning and growing is setback and reflection. This is where we see change, this is where we see forward progress, when we're not afraid to ask questions, when we're not afraid to fail, in safe environments and… that word just jumped out for a moment. I think that one of the critical pieces of doing all of this work is creating that safe environment where people can express themselves and can learn together how to communicate, specifically when you're building teams, and how to see the other. So, while my work is focused really on leadership, team development, helping leaders express their visions and you know deliver their messages, I believe this work, and I hope this work is helping human beings be more intentional, more aware.

TK Gale: 25:37

From what I've seen, that lends itself to stronger connection, more understanding and ability to see the commonalities that we share. We all have different volumes, but they're all volumes. We all have words and we do it in different words, and so even exploring the commonalities and differences, that in itself is a practice that brings us closer together.

Norah Jones: 26:17

What a beautiful vision, and so many of my listeners worldwide are in organizations, educational institutions, businesses and industries where there is a leader, be it the teacher in the classroom, the professor, the manager, the CEO, that every single person that's listening is bound to be encouraged tremendously by that vision. There's a sense here of both freedom, the freedom of spirit of mind that you give through the coaching with the understanding of language and culture being in process. And do you have a story or something about someone that found that freedom, if I'm speaking correctly, and were able then to enter into the leadership in front of others that they had and gave them the freedom then to become more themselves? Well, everything still stayed under control. I just want to make sure that people don't feel like it's chaotic by the time they get done, but rather that this created that community that we're searching for. Are there stories about that? Am I speaking correctly about that freedom that's then offered?

TK Gale: 27:47

Absolutely.. And I would love to share a story. Actually, when I coach, I coach executives, I coach managers and directors and I coach young adults, and actually a large part of my training started with creating young leaders. I actually worked on a program, an international program, where we worked with 10 cities in North America and 10 cities in Israel. It was an experiment on how do we develop leaders different local leaders and how do we bring them together and see what they bring forth with the training and the language that we've given them, and with teenagers. What do I love working with young adults and with teenagers is that they have much less fear than we do as adults. They have this desire or openness, like you said, freedom of spirit that I absolutely admire. So I can share a story from this program that I ran and it has to do with leadership and it has to do with language. In an international organization working with other national organizations, there is always politics involved, there are always pressures, there are issues with how do you handle funders. It's very complicated to run one of the things. Having been in those leadership positions on my own self, learned that this is a really hard world to navigate. And in my working with these young people and again, I have had the fortune to work in organizations where I can bring some of the things I really believe in these young people would bring up real challenges. And this is a leadership program and we're training leaders and you can't give them the answer well, that's the way it is. You can't tell them, well, that's what the leader at the top decided. And we've all agreed that we're invested in this process and we're invested in this educational endeavor. And so I think, talking about language and talking about how we communicate, one of the places where, again, this is where I think we can learn from young people is to really dig in and to think about. You do want to make a change, you recognize where you are, you understand the world that you live in and somehow they are able to bring themselves to the table with humility, with authenticity and, quite frankly, with the demand that you told me I'm a leader, so let's bring it on, let's have this conversation. Are you really invested in me? And so I've seen young, I've worked with young leaders who have challenged the structures that we put in front of them, have challenged the organizations that are funding some of these initiatives, but I've always done so and I think this is where the training comes in, in respectful, productive ways. Again, understanding reality, understanding how the world works and yet still challenging, being creative about how one challenges.

TK Gale: 31:59

And for young people, which is again the luxury of being at this stage in life, being really able to choose what kind of leader you want to be, what kind of leadership do you want to live? And in this case I will say again, leadership. It's a relatively new field of study and so, in compared to mathematics or history, we are still at the very onset of understanding this field as a academically, and we have a lot to learn. So that's why I think that this notion of experimentation and the fact that young people really can be a wonderful example, with the tools, with the support on how to leverage language, how to leverage culture, and they can speak with their feet. They're going to do something and so they'll make a decision based on how you interact with them.

Norah Jones: 33:02

Boy, I feel inspired just in listening to this description of what that young leaders in particular can turn around and do for the world. This work specifically, and I have on my website, fluency.consulting, information about your leadership organization and about the work that you do, as well as your biography. We're talking about working with this from your leadership in this, the training that you do, the revelation of language and culture when you look at well the world, and the leadership development in the world. Where do you recommend that? Those that are listening to this podcast, the young people or the ones that are involved in organizations that they're engaged with as well how do they go about discovering some of these pathways, the impact of language and culture, some of the paths to this understanding of what is happening and leveraging these very important aspects of human identity in their work and those with whom they work?

TK Gale: 34:21

Very good question. The good news is that there are leaders everywhere and they're all around you and they're all around us, and so we can find and seek out the leaders that are doing what we think is the kind of work that we want to be doing. So, to some degree, it's actually equal access to all, in the sense that looking around you, conversing with people, meeting people and really seeing them for who they are is the real key to learning about the different facets of how one can be a leader, and everyone does it a different way, so to some degree, it's really a everyone can get to this at the same time. I would say that I have to, at the same time, advocate for making this more prevalent and known to young people who are now choosing what to study, choosing and having to spend their time looking at careers that are offered nationally and internationally. I would love to see a world. This is where I challenge some of us and policy makers and educators to think about. How do we draw in more people to do this kind of work intentionally? How do we value a society of people who are engaged in understanding, I would say specifically the relationship? You know both language and leadership, and I think that it could be an interesting cross-section.

TK Gale: 36:26

So I would love to see more opportunities for people to study this. I would love more opportunities in national and international organizations for people to explore this as part of the missions of organizations. And we will all grow. There's no question in my mind that individuals will grow from this, the organizations will grow from this kind of intentionality and, if we're wise enough and share our learnings and discuss them, we will collectively grow.

TK Gale: 37:00

Now, all of that is impinging on, you know, people wanting to grow and people wanting to learn and seeing the value of connection and being human, and the more people who are engaged in this and thinking about this and really exploring the potential that this can bring to, again from the individual, which is critical to you know, the masses. You know, at the end of the day, history will tell us where we went and where we lean and, at the same time, what can we do as leaders, as people invested in language, again, from language teachers to, you know, language advocates. How do we open up the world to more people, both in terms of giving them access to other languages as well as to other cultures, and I think it's an experiment that's worth investing in, certainly sounds like it in general and, you can imagine, in my particular role and philosophy.

Norah Jones: 38:22

The answer is you betcha, and that actually does bring up something that we have been speaking here in English. You have, we have been talking about the leadership and alluding to language and culture. You mentioned about your international meeting, for example, even last night. But I would like to really address for just a moment your discoveries. Your take your understanding in this direction of the difference between, say, understanding from a monolingual point of view and what happens when a person has a multilingual, at least two-language, background. How does that impact what you're speaking about?

TK Gale: 39:11

So there's a lot of research on this topic and we know that access to another language and culture actually does have physiological and neurological realities. We also know that in terms of development, character development, there are influences there as well as well as ways of thinking. Fundamentally, I think, again, we have the luxury of looking at the world and seeing where there are more monolingual citizens and where there are countries that have more multilingual people. We can study these things and see the differences in terms of having access to another language or even understanding that there are other languages and that there are fundamental differences between languages. Again, one doesn't actually need to. I'm all about proficiency and being able to challenge people to see what they can do in the language and, at the same time, there are some things that are intrinsic to language that allow us and maybe I'll go back to the word that you use to complex, but not in a scary way to have a better understanding of how complex the world we live in is. I'll just give an example of maybe from my childhood for one second.

TK Gale: 40:53

I grew up in a Hebrew-speaking household and Hebrew is my mother's tongue. When I moved to Israel from the States in first grade, I took a test to see how much Hebrew do I know. I did very, very well, but there was one word that I just didn't know, which really surprised me. I went home and I still didn't know what it was and I asked my grandmother what is this thing that's in a tub? And she showed me one. It was the kind of the clip that you put on the rope where you hang the clothes, to try, like that's the name of that clip, I don't know, even know what it's called in English, and I understood it the clothespin. So I in Israel, everyone uses clothespins. I grew up in Los Angeles. I'd never seen a clothespin. Now, this was important culturally and you know as developing this is important for me to know as I grew up in life. But it also was very clear to me that we were not talking about language.

TK Gale: 42:02

Now, the test with this particular question was not about language and words. What it brought up was that I hadn't been raised in Israel, where this is what a word every child knows and sees because it's part of their life, and I think it was at that point that I realized that I'm very fortunate that I straddle these two languages and I, since I've been fortunate enough to learn Spanish as well and a little bit of Yiddish, and I consider music to be a language and being aware of the fact that the language is really kind of brings out secrets about culture that you may you wouldn't know if you didn't straddle two concepts so similar to the idea with my, the conversation with my colleagues last night, the fact that we understand that even though we're using the same word or don't have a word, that in itself is a huge gift to us to really have space to ask questions. Why are there, why are there these kinds of words in Hebrew versus English, versus Spanish? We can even ask questions about the nature of the language and how it is constructed in the grammar and looking at the differences and what does that mean? And today, in a world where gender is a big topic in foreign languages, especially in gendered languages, being able to look at different languages and ask the questions why is it this way? What is the history?

TK Gale: 43:55

And I think again, for me, the most important question when it comes to this is why are we doing this? Why are we talking about language? Why are we learning language? I have my answer and I think part of LAMA leadership kind of you know, in terms of you know, this is a good way for us to be human. It's not the only way but to explore our humanity and to propel ourselves forward. But it's not the only answer to why learn language. There are many worthwhile endeavors, but what I think is fundamental is or critical is that we ask ourselves those questions and that we stay true to our why and that we share our findings.

TK Gale: 44:50

Again, at the end of the day you know part of my journey I would love to see what LAMA leadership can bring to other organizations. I never I don't know what the end result will be, but I know that it will somehow always be involved with this notion of how do we be intentional? And, specifically, since we know language is what it is, how do we use language to move ourselves in the directions that we want to move in? And here I'm really just not being judgmental or directive. I am asking for intentionality and I am asking for openness and I am asking for experimentation, with the belief that we will grow. We'll take two steps back, but we need to take those steps forward.

Norah Jones: 45:43

What an invitation, what a powerful invitation. May my listeners and those with whom they will share this, take that invitation up. Here's an invitation for you too, Tal. There are so many pathways we could go down. We could speak for hours, and I look forward to potentially, indeed, coming back and taking a look at some of the additional wonderful fountains of information and insights that you have. But for the moment, as we do close this podcast, what is it that I have not asked you that you have a burning desire to say, or that you want to reiterate or reemphasize, so that we don't finish today without you leaving the listeners with this clear piece of information?

TK Gale: 46:33

Your questions really, and I really enjoy this conversation and, of course, I've learned throughout and you leave me with homework. I have more questions, which is really a gift and thank you, and I think you really helped me articulate some of the fundamental messages and work in the work that I do, so I want to thank you for that. I do want to share that we're not in this alone. Many of the people who are probably listening to this podcast are aware of how rich the language world is, but I just want to remind us that we have many organizations and many individuals who are either studying this field. We have organizations who advocate for languages in North America. We have assessment organizations and accrediting organizations that give people incentive to learn languages. And we have the teachers that wake up every day and their leaders and their leaders, and we have, fundamentally, the students, who are really there to kind of be with us on this journey, and so I just want to say we're not alone.

TK Gale: 47:57

I will share a few of the partners who I think are critical in this field, but this is really a shared endeavor. Again, if it's language teaching, if it's sociology, if it's leadership education, if it's science, if it's history, let's leverage all of the tools and all of the expertise and all of the knowledge that we have to date and experience and see what we can learn from each other, because language is one of those areas that just lets us be and connect, and I'm really excited to see what this world would look like as we continue to further investigate what language can do for us and what will it make us and what will we make it. And let's not be passive. Let's not be passive, let's take an active role, because this is who we are. So I again call people to step up and to reach out to leaders that exist and are doing wonderful work to help us continue to develop as a people.

Norah Jones: 49:15

May we indeed do that and through language, culture, goodwill or at least getting started on that path, we can get there. Tal Gale, thank you so much for sharing your insights, your compassion and your passion and your skills with us today. Appreciate your being on It's About Language.

TK Gale: 49:39

Thank you, Norah. This is a very important space and I look forward to continuing our conversations.

Norah Jones: 49:46 Thank you again for listening to this podcast with my guest, Tal Gale. Please do go to my website, fluency.consulting, and check out more about Tal, about LAMA leadership, her publications and about the role of leadership in our lives, especially in times of adversity. Remember your role as a leader, using language and culture to help bring peace, to help bring understanding, to help bring connections. I look forward to welcoming you to my next podcast and, until then, take care.