Welcome to Franklin Covey on leadership.

I'm Will Hodling, and every week we will unpack the mistakes, methods, and mindsets that built the world's most credible leaders.

We hope their hard-earned insights accelerate your leadership journey.

Today's guest is Dr. Sunita Sa, Professor of Management

and Organizations at Cornell's Graduate School of Management. Dr. Saw is the author of Defy,

the power of no in a world that demands yes. In today's conversation, we will discuss her

personal journey of defiance, we'll share some practical tips for how you can bring defiance into your life.

And we'll discuss advice for business leaders hoping to build more innovative and creative cultures.

Dr. Sunita Sao, welcome to Franklin Covey on leadership.

Great to have you.

It's wonderful to be here.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

Lovely, lovely. So your name, Sunita, in Sanskrit, means she who conducts herself in good

behavior. It's an ironic name for somebody who end up writing a book called Defi, unless you

have a prequel called Compliance that I don't know about.

So I would love to hear, how did your childhood, how did your upbringing lead you to be the person you are today?

Well, I really could have had a prequel called compliance because my childhood was known.

I was known for being an obedient daughter, a good student,

and I really did live up to that aspect of my name meaning good in that I did what I was told.

I went to school on time, did all my homework as expected, even had my hair cut the way my parents

wanted. And this is what many

of us interpret by what does good mean, especially what does a good child mean. And it often means

...