Human Side Up: Dr. Toyna Hampton on embracing your fears in leadership

Dr. Tonya Jackman Hampton is a seasoned HR leader whose career is rooted in personal experience, cultural legacy, and a deep commitment to inclusive leadership. She grew up in Minnesota, where her family founded the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder—the state’s oldest Black-owned newspaper—and credits that legacy with shaping her early understanding of leadership and advocacy. Over the past 30 years, she’s held pivotal roles across Fortune 500s, healthcare, and nonprofits, always with an eye toward systemic change. Now the founder of Sequel Consulting Group, Dr. Hampton helps leaders rethink fear, equity, and impact through coaching, workshops, and strategy. She sat down with CLARA CEO Natasha Nuytten to discuss leadership, authenticity, and her book “The Myth of the Fearless Leader.”

Inheritance, influence, and intention

Dr. Hampton describes herself as a connector — a trait she now sees as part of her family legacy. Her father, a longtime community member and former co-publisher of Minnesota’s oldest Black-owned newspaper, modeled the value of relationships through both his professional and everyday life. “I learned by watching him, by observing and taking up his habits unbeknownst to me. And then realized that I do enjoy connecting people,” she says.

Another quality that shaped her leadership path: calm. “Little do you know, I’m like the duck right in the water. The legs are going really fast inside. But on the surface, I remain calm.” That calmness, she explains, comes from being a planner — someone who processes information quickly and maps out next steps before others realize the motion is already in progress.

Facing fear, sharing power

Dr. Hampton’s book, The Myth of the Fearless Leader, began as a dissertation and evolved into a broader invitation for leaders to talk honestly about fear. She started writing during a deeply emotional period, while completing her doctorate and facing the loss of her grandmother — a key figure in her life.

“I couldn’t possibly be alone in my fears, worries and doubts,” she says. “I landed on, gosh, how do other people deal with their fears? How do they respond and what’s the relationship?”

She interviewed thousands of leaders, refined her research through workshops and one-on-one conversations, and came to believe that confronting fear can be a catalyst for growth, especially for people in positions of power. That belief helped her bring her own story to the forefront.

One of her deepest fears, she shared, is not death itself but losing someone close. This fear stemmed from the death of a friend when she was five years old. “When you think about it, being five years old and having a very vivid memory of someone passing, that’s pretty significant. It has a bit of trauma interweaved in there. It also has a bit of just emotion and other components of things that impact your personality.”

She also talks openly about her own experience surviving breast cancer. “You don’t hear people talking about the diseases that affect themselves often while at work... when they are ready, hold a space for them and support them.”

Integrity before authenticity

Dr. Hampton believes deeply in showing up authentically, but not carelessly. “What I reminded people is that you cannot often allow authenticity to trump your integrity. Being in a conversation and being authentic does not mean being disrespectful. It doesn’t give you a pass to say something hurtful to an audience in a meeting or to someone one on one.”

For her, that means grounding conversations in care, compassion, and values. She keeps her own top values saved on her phone and uses them as a compass, especially in tough moments. And when faced with uncertainty — which happens every day, she points out — she reminds herself of the small, routine acts we take on faith: eating, sleeping, exercising, attending meetings. “We don’t always know the outcome, but we do them anyway. And that means we’re capable of showing up for harder things, too.”

Creating conditions for trust

As a leader, Dr. Hampton sees vulnerability as not just a personal practice but an organizational one. That starts with sharing something true about yourself — not a perfect story, just a real one. “Generally, there’s something in what we say that people will resonate with. And so we just have to be willing to try to share that story.”

Equally important: making it clear to others that they are safe to do the same.

“Invite other people to share. Make it a safe space. And really listening, being present. Listening happens, hearing what the person is sharing, and then reflecting back — not repeating, but reflecting back what you thought you heard them say.”

Dr. Hampton doesn’t rush to solve problems. Instead, she asks questions that help people surface their own answers. “I would say that most people, when you approach the question, can answer their own question. They just need somebody to help them surface it, and so the power is in the question.”

Leadership isn’t a mask you wear

The ability to lead well, Dr. Hampton suggests, has more to do with presence than polish. It’s about holding space — for fear, for grief, for illness, for uncertainty, and for difference.

She applies this not only to herself, but to the broader context of race and equity. “I talk about that in my book. I think different parts of the US invite that conversation more than other parts. And I think that, in my experience, corporations are less likely to deal with the race issues that are in their environment.”

But she’s not discouraged. She draws on her own resilience — and the knowledge that honest, open leadership has ripple effects. “We have to keep working at it,” she says. “I often equate dealing with race as we brush our teeth. We should brush our teeth every day. If we didn’t they wouldn’t remain clean and taken care of and nicely nourished.”

To hear more from Dr. Tonya Hampton on deconstructing the myths of the fearless leader listen to the latest episode of Human Side Up here.