April 9, 2025 • 28 mins
Being good at your job doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be good at managing people. So why do so many companies treat management as the default next step?
In this episode, Indra and Amanda dig into the myths and realities of people management—why some folks are promoted before they’re ready, what actually makes a great leader, and why management isn’t just a promotion but an entirely different job. They explore the essential skills needed to succeed, the emotional labor of leadership, and alternative career paths for those who want to grow without managing people.
Thinking about stepping into management? Already dealing with a less-than-stellar boss? Either way, this episode is for you!
Useful Links
- Register for the May/June So Now You’re a Manager (SNYAM) Workshop with Jen Dary: https://www.beplucky.com/pluckyevents/so-now-youre-a-manager-may-june-2025/
- Coaching with Indra: https://www.peopleprocessthings.com/coaching
- The Messy Middle Matters Glossary: www.themessymiddlematters.com/glossary
- Feedback for The Messy Middle Matters: www.themessymiddlematters.com/feedback
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Indra Klavins (00:06):
I'm Indra,
Amanda Jane Lee (00:08):
and I'm Amanda,
Indra Klavins (00:10):
and we'd like to welcome you to the messy middle
matters.
Hey, Amanda, how are you?
Amanda Jane Lee (00:18):
I'm good. How are you, Indra?
Indra Klavins (00:20):
Good, good, good, good. Today we gotta, we see we
got a good topic, like, aspeople management. It's people
management, you know. Andbecause that's like a it's there
are certain, like, leaps asyou're moving up within an
organization, and going intopeople management is one of
those. So,
you know, I know you're, I, myopinion, I think you're an
(00:41):
incredible people manager, and alot of that has to do with the
back barrier background. It hasa lot has to do with with, yeah,
a lot has to do with yourbackground. So where I'd love to
start our conversation today isjust like, you know, as you're
entering in, as you entered intopeople management, like
reflecting back on your career,what were the things that really
helped to set you up to be tomake that transition smoother
(01:05):
than it might have been forsomeone else.
Amanda Jane Lee (01:07):
Yeah. I mean, as a program manager, manager
was already in my title,
Indra Klavins (01:15):
that titles is a whole nother podcast of titles.
But anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah.Yeah.
Amanda Jane Lee (01:23):
So program management is about influencing
without direct authority. Andyou know it, it's being able to
take in the big picture of, youknow, all the pieces at play,
all of the things take note ofall of the things that can
impact the delivery of yourprojects, your programs,
(01:47):
just all of that context. And Ithink if you replace delivery of
projects and programs withpeople like understanding that
there's context and thingsoutside of like what's directly
in front of you that can impactthings, or, in the case of
people management, people,
(02:07):
I think that's half the battle.
Indra Klavins (02:09):
Yeah, I think, I think we're going to talk a lot
about that today. Is like,specifically, also you use the
word influence. Like, I thinkthat the fact that both of us
came up, came of age, so tospeak, professionally speaking
in careers where you haveinfluence and no authority,
really forces you to hone awhole bunch of skills, including
paying attention to people andunderstanding their motivations
(02:32):
and, you know, and the rolesthat we've had are really about
helping, helping people andteams and projects succeed,
Right? So I think we had, we hadthe luxury of
practicing some of those skillsbefore we actually were in
people management roles.
Amanda Jane Lee (02:48):
But it's a soft skills. It's a It's the it's the
glue work. If you haven'tlistened to our glue work
episode,
Indra Klavins (02:56):
it is the glue work. The glue work is a big
chunk of that is a big chunk ofwhat it requires for people
manager, at least understandingthe glue work is important for a
people manager,
but you know, so I'm going toask you the loaded question. So
have you ever seen someone who'sill equipped to be a people
manager, but be anointed apeople manager, and what was
(03:17):
that like?
Amanda Jane Lee (03:18):
Yes. Next question, no, yes, yes, and
Indra Klavins (03:24):
I've also seen it not be their fault they weren't
set up for success. You know, atsome organizations, the only way
to make more money is to getpromoted. And at those
organizations, sometimes theonly way to get promoted is to
be promoted to a manager. Andsome people who are really good
(03:48):
at their craft, whether that'ssoftware engineering or, you
know, creating marketingcampaigns or whatever it is that
they do, are just not good atbeing a people manager, and
don't have the skills, or werenot trained to have the skills
to be a successful peoplemanager, and they fail there.
(04:11):
There's a name for this, andit's called The Peter Principle,
and I'm going to pull up thedefinition and read it, and
we'll add it to our glossary aswell. But the Peter Principle is
when employees are promotedbased on their success in
previous jobs, until they reacha level at which they are no
(04:32):
longer competent, as skills inone job do not necessarily
translate to another, so justbecause you're a really good
engineer does not necessarilymean you'll be a good people
manager
100% like, what is it? And thenwhat I've seen is when somebody
(04:52):
gets promoted into, let's say, apeople management role and
leadership sees that they're notsucceeding. Yeah. So sometimes
the next thing that happens isthat the person gets another
promotion and they just keep onfailing upwards. Because
everyone's like, Oh, maybe it'sthey're just like, a bigger
picture thinker. Maybe it'sthis, or maybe it's like, not
getting in the day to day of thepeople management. Maybe it's
(05:13):
other things, and, you know,it's and the soft skills that
Amanda talked about weren't theonly things that are, that are
required. But that's a really,that's a really, really crucial
part of it, right? So, like,there's, there's a the skill
sets that got you to where it'sthat is that cliche statement,
like, the skill set that got youto where you are is not what's
going to help you succeed in thefuture is pretty darn true,
(05:35):
because they're two completelydifferent careers, right? It's,
it's a or two different skillsets, understanding one you have
to understand kind of both to beable to to to do that people
management role. But
right, just because you got heredoing what you were doing
doesn't mean that doing thosesame things will get you to
where you need to be 100%
(05:55):
and you know what I've seen soI've spent, I've spent at least
a decade, if not more, eithermentoring or coaching peers and
friends and whatever. You knownow I do it as my day job, you
know, but, but I'm just lookingback at various places in my
career, you know, especially inlike a larger organization, like
(06:17):
in a startup, it's a little bitdifferent. There things are
moving really, really fast. Sothe ability to move up is
sometimes a lot easier. Is alittle easier. It's different,
at the very least, um, in largecorporations, it can be really
stagnant. It can be what you'retalking about Amanda, like, I
need to make more money, so Ineed to move up in this career.
And you know, people when Iwould be in these coaching and
(06:41):
mentoring conversations withfolks like some like, the first
question asked, like, they're,like, I want to be a people
manager. I want to, I want to goto senior manager, or whatever,
director or whatever. I'm like,why? My first question is, why?
And, you know, I've got a littlebit of a snark to my attitude in
general. It's, it'sgenerational, it's whatever.
It's a lot of New Jerseyoriginally. I mean, snark comes
with me, but, but, you know, itsometimes is really hard for the
(07:06):
person to answer that question.They're like, because it's the
next thing that I do, you know,they think that it's, they're
going to have to, they're goingto have more
power, I mean,
Amanda Jane Lee (07:17):
or a fancy title,
Indra Klavins (07:18):
or a fancy title. And, you know, in some
organizations, you know,remember, it's like, we've
talked about this, like, someorganizations, especially, like,
if you're talking aboutfinancial services, like,
there's, you'll see it show upin the news, but it's like, I
don't think people understandwhat the title is. Like, there's
VPS. Like, VPS are a dime adozen in some financial services
companies, right? It's not to,I'm not being disparaging to the
people. I'm not beingdisparaging to the role. But
(07:41):
there's, there's sometimes theseabundance of titles, and these
titles can be
wielded around like swords insome of these companies, like, I
won't talk to anybody below adirector level. Like, in that
scenario, I used to have to myteam members would send me an
email, like, Indra, can you sendthis to this person? Because
they won't talk to anybody belowa director I'm like, sure. Got
(08:02):
it. They pre write the email forme. I'd tweak it just a little
so it sounded a little bit morelike me, and I'd send it on and
then, then we get a response,but if they'd sent it, they
wouldn't get it. So there's someof those things that are more
power. And we already talked alittle bit about more money,
right? More power,
more prestige, more perceivedprestige. You know, it looks
(08:24):
good on a business card. I wantto tell my family and friends
that I'm a VP or a director orwhatever, right? But
I think
Amanda Jane Lee (08:33):
just going back to why? Yeah, those aren't,
those aren't the right reasonsto go into people management.
No, not at all. Like, you know,I think that maybe this is where
we talk a little bit about thethings that you know, the skills
that really make a good peoplemanager. I know you talked about
some of them, but let meintroduce some. Well, we'll
revisit those. But like, youneed to understand the business,
(08:56):
to
Indra Klavins (08:58):
understand a business, the business in a
different way. And with eachtime that you move up the
ladder, the you'll need tounderstand a different facet, or
different you need to understandhow other teams function, right,
you know, as part of that. Sosome of that is, some of that is
in there. And what are some ofthe ones that you found as you
were, you know, going throughyour, your transition into
(09:19):
people management. I mean,again, you were probably doing
it in some form before that, butyeah, it's
like you said, it's a differentunderstanding of the business.
It's a different understandingof the different parts of the
business. It's not just aboutyour immediate team or the teams
that you work most directlywith, but it's how every team
(09:43):
creates impact in theorganization at like, every team
has its place in theorganization, and understanding
that
Amanda Jane Lee (09:51):
it's,
Indra Klavins (09:53):
I'm gonna say, politics, but like, office
politics is workplace politics.It's not. Politics in a bad way,
but it's just understanding thethe processes and the the
interactions and how things getdone and the information flow,
(10:14):
and just the way the businessworks, the inner the behind the
scenes, inner workings, the theunsaid, the hidden things,
right? So it's having anunderstanding of that, um, it's,
you know, it's just being ableto think more big picture and
more strategically, like what,what is good for, for the
(10:38):
business, but also being able toto understand and influence
Amanda Jane Lee (10:47):
what
Indra Klavins (10:49):
what is best for my team, what is best for the
people who report to me. How youknow, how do I want to grow
their careers? Like, does thatbring me joy? Like, does that
bring me satisfaction? Becauseif it doesn't, then people
management isn't for you. Like,if you are not, if you're not
(11:13):
committed to doing what's bestfor your team, for the people
that you manage, for growingpeople's careers, growing people
professionally and evenpersonally. In some cases,
Amanda Jane Lee (11:26):
if you don't care about the people who report
to you, then you're just gonnaget burnt out 100% and I think
that there's, I think that whatyou spoke about is like my
favorite, some of my favoriteparts of people management.
There's also some parts that area little bit darker. Yeah,
darker. I'll say darker, harder.Maybe harder is like a better
(11:47):
word. But like, you were talkinga lot about, like, stakeholder
management, stakeholdering,which is exhausting. It's
exhausting, you know, that's,that's probably an episode onto
itself, stakeholdering,
Indra Klavins (11:59):
but that is, you know, working with the folks
across the organization. Butlike, sometimes you're put in a
position where you can't doright by your team. Like the
business needs are X, Y and Z,you know, I'll, I'll think about
it. Business needs are x, y andz, and your team wants to do a B
and C. And A, B and C are, youknow, antithetical. I'm using a
(12:24):
big word, but like, they'recompletely against. They would,
they would sabotage thecompany's goals, or they would
get in the way of Make, makereaching the company's goals
really hard. Sabotage sounds sonegative, but like, and it's not
to say that the goals weremalicious. It's just, they're
just not they're they're justnot meshing. They're just not
mentioning for this moment inthis quarter, at this time,
(12:44):
right, right,
and being able to assess thesituation and make what is
sometimes a very hard decision,very
hard decision, and then not justmake that decision, but
communicate it to your team,explain to them why they're not
going to get quote their way.Explain to them what you're
going to do to help them advancethat in the future, and do all
(13:05):
the work that's necessary to tryand retain them, because you
don't want them leaving becausethey're upset because they can't
do X, you know, the thing thatthey wanted to do, right? I
can't remember which letters Iuse for which, but, you know,
that's, that's a really hardthing. Or, you know, some of the
other things that you have todeal with is, you know,
promotion cycles or annualbonuses, like figuring out how
(13:26):
that money gets distributed. Oh,you think it's fun. You're like,
oh, you get to like, no. Like,the reality of it is what
happens behind those and thosedoors are closed for good
reasons. So it's, it's not, youknow, some things cannot be
transparent, and should not betransparent, but like the
constraints and challenges andthe hard decisions that you need
(13:46):
to make in that moment, or inthe moment when you know that
you need to you're having budgetcuts and you need to say goodbye
to some of your team members,like this, this is the stuff
that you need to really be awareof, and it's, You know,
it sounds like you have power,but you know, you have a lot of
responsibility. You have a lotof responsibility, and some
(14:07):
people thrive with that, andsome people don't, yeah, and it
requires a different skill set.It's, it's a different kind of
leadership. Um, it requires that
that emotional intelligence andemotional labor piece, yeah,
yeah, yes, there's a lot ofemotional labor. Like, there,
(14:30):
there's a there's a lot ofemotional labor. Like, I was
like, Mike said, drum, yeah, youthink I make more money, but I
it all goes to my Excedrin bill.But you know, the reality of it
is, here's the good news, here'sthe good news again. Podcast is
not just about pointing outthings that are wrong in the
world. It's about trying toprovide solutions. The good news
is, and the reason that we'resharing some of these, you guys
(14:51):
already, might already knowabout this, but in enough
organizations,
they've taken their careerladder that. That, that that
articulation of roles andresponsibilities for people at
different levels of theorganization, and they've
created a fork at a certainlevel where you can go that
people manager track, whichwe've just talked about, or the
(15:13):
individual manager, individualcontributor track, visual
manager, I guess you aremanaging yourself, but
individual contributor track,so, and that's, that's where
it's just like the non peoplemanagement track. And that's
come largely out of theengineering world, the software,
software engineering world,where, you know, they've
developed analogous, you know,like this. The some of the
(15:35):
responsibilities are the samefor the individual can track and
the manager track at certaincareer stages, right? They've
created those careers for eachcareer stage. There is a staff
level, there's is what is like,often, the first step that you
go into when you're when you'regoing that more senior
individual contributor route,the principal, the fellow, I've
been in organizations with datateams where there's the esteem,
(15:58):
the you know fellow, I mean, youcan go higher and higher, and
there's there's all sorts ofdifferent types of titles, but
what that allows you to do is itallows that people manage can
for team leads, can create theseother opportunities, so your
person doesn't get maxed out orforced in at that manager level
because they don't want to leadpeople, or they don't wind up in
(16:19):
a situation where they're havingto lead people, and not only are
you putting that person that youpromoted because you want to
keep them, you're puttingeverybody below them at risk,
because it's just not theirtemperament, and that's okay.
The world takes all kinds ofpeople. So yeah,
I like the fork in the twocareer tracks, because it's
formal recognition that theseare different careers, these are
(16:42):
different careers.
They're different careers. Andthe other thing that I will say
is that, you know, and I have, Ihave feelings, this is a much
longer discussion, but because Ithink that, yeah, the reality of
it is, sometimes you can makeeven more money staying on that
individual contributor trackthat you can do in the people
(17:02):
manager track, again, twocompletely different skill sets,
and the markets for each ofthose that that talent is very
different, and you could wind upin a situation where the people
manager who overseestechnically, the individual
contributor is making less thanthe individual contributor, And
that's okay. That's completelyokay, and that's completely
(17:22):
appropriate in a lot ofscenarios, you know, not every
scenario, but enough scenariosthat's, that's appropriate, you
know, it's, maybe a lot is toostrong of a word, but hopefully
everybody gets what I'm saying.Yeah, right.
It again, it's, it's twodifferent jobs, right? It's, you
know, it and it's two differentjobs. And when you're asking
yourself, why? Ask yourself,like, what do you want to be
(17:45):
doing? Yeah, do you want to bedo you want to spend your time
doing, you know, what you'vebeen doing all this time? That's
okay. That's perfectly okay. Andand at companies that have this,
this fork, like you, like youdescribed, there is a path for
(18:06):
you to promotion. There is apath to grow your skills and
your your level of influence andand all of the things that come
with a promotion and more money.Probably, if you don't want to
go into a people managementrole, and like, you don't want
to be
Amanda Jane Lee (18:24):
tasked with, you know, the emotional labor
and the the dark side and andall of the things, as well as
the the positive things of beingable to grow people's careers
and and be responsible for, forthe people around you or who
report to you? Yeah, and I wantto be clear, like, people on the
individual contributor track,they are still leaders of the
(18:46):
team, and they still have a lotof responsibility to make sure
that the team succeeds. It's notlike you're going to get to go
to your outpost and just like,have an edict and just like,
because I'm the most seniorperson, I get to say X, Y and Z.
Like, you still need to be partof the team. You still need to
mentor people. You still need tohelp people shape their careers.
But it's in a it's in aninfluence capacity. It's not in
(19:08):
a I need to like a person ishaving a performance issue, and
you need to manage them out andget them on a performance plan,
or manage them out or or helpthem to to succeed, or whatever
it is. You don't necessarilyneed to do that, but you you do
need to make sure that you are apillar, a pillar, and someone
for the more junior folks tolook up to, which I think is
(19:29):
important. Yeah, that's a that'sa good distinction. Indra of the
if you stay on the individualcontributor track as a more
senior person, you are yourleadership is more influence
influencing,
Indra Klavins (19:43):
whereas if you go the people management route,
it's more formal and direct. Ofyou know you, these are the
things we're expecting you todo, because these are our HR
processes, right? These are,these are the expectations of
you as a. Formal people manager,I you know, HR, wants you to
(20:03):
have a regular one on one checkin with each of your individual
reports. You need to do the theformal performance review. You
need to manage the the raisesand the budget. It's
bureaucratic. Let's call it whatit what it is. It's a little bit
of bureaucracy, which is fine,which is fine, which is
just fine. And people thrive inthat role,
(20:27):
yeah, I mean, and, you know, butso as people are sitting here
and approaching that, that thatthat that potential for, again,
it's usually around that seniormanager level. In most
organizations where I've seenlike, manager, Senior Manager,
there's like, it depends onwhich, which, how your
organization is done, but rightaround there is where it starts
to the decision needs to bemade. I think that it's
(20:48):
important, you know, like, whyare you trying to do this? Are
you looking for status? Right?
If you're looking for status, ifyou're looking for title, if you
think, you know, if you thinkthat with a manager title, you
can all of a sudden embosspeople around and be directly in
control of more things. Guesswhat? That's not always true. No
(21:09):
one has control. I got, I got, Igot news for y'all, like, part
of, part of the title, the messymiddle matters where, like this
all came from. Like, over theyears, I got stuck in I got
stuck in my career for aboutseven years of the senior
manager role, which is fine,whatever it happens. It happens.
Um, it's a story for anotherday. But as I've moved up and
out of that role, like I stillfeel like I'm in the middle. You
(21:30):
think that you're going to moveup, you're gonna have a little
bit more authority, and you'llget to, you'll be you'll be able
to make those decisions, oryou'll be able to influence the
way things. The reality is,we're all stuck in the middle.
You need to be happy to, or mostof us are, until you hit that
CEO level, right? But you know,you need to, you need to, you
need to enjoy that. You need toenjoy that to be in a people
(21:51):
manager role, right? It's
just a shift in how you're inthe messy middle, yeah.
But I mean, I think that, youknow, when we're thinking
through some of the things, likebeing hands on and hands off,
like, of of the work, the workitself, that's a shift. That's a
differentiation,
right? That's a differentiation.You're you're less hands on, but
(22:13):
that doesn't mean you get towalk away from that completely,
right?
So like, when we say hands on,it's like in the creation of the
work product. So like, if you'reon a team of writers, you're
probably writing less copy. Ifyou're, you know, a team of
designers, probably, you know,designing less right doesn't
mean that you're never designingright. And every organization
has different there's theconcept of the player coach kind
(22:36):
of leader, which is, you know,but,
yeah, you're, if you want tounderstand that, you're going to
have to let go of your craft alot. If you go into that people
manager, as you move up thatladder, that's, if that's that's
like, oh, I don't want to dothat, then I don't want to let
go of that. Yeah, that could bea red flag, right? Or, like, if
(22:57):
you're not choosing that route,which is totally fine, right?
Just think, just think about itsome more, right? Like, I think
the point of this topic is tonot, it's not to deter anyone
from going into the peoplemanagement. I love it, right?
But it's to just bring to lightthe realities of people
(23:20):
management. When I stepped intoa people management role,
Amanda Jane Lee (23:24):
you know, I've had emotional labor, like I'm
coming back to that emotionallabor. And, you know, I had a
conversation with my husband,and I was like, you know, I've
had jobs that have been reallystressful before, but why does
this one feel so different? Andhe was like, it's because you
care about the people who reportto you
Indra Klavins (23:46):
100% and I think that the other thing to
acknowledge here too is like,it's okay to it's not for
everyone. So like, what I'mabout to say, but it's okay to
shift back and forth between thetwo. Like some people have
whether it's whether it'swhether it's their temperament,
and they kind of like a littlebit of both, you know, like,
sometimes I like being anindividual contributor.
Sometimes I want to be a peoplemanager. Like moving back and
(24:09):
forth across that laterally,that's acceptable. There might
be a life stage, like, let's sayyou've got a lot, you know,
you're dealing with a lot ofemotional labor in your day to
day life. And you're like, youwant to stay with the company,
you can, you want to be able todo things and have a
conversation with your yourpeople manager say, hey, lots
going on. You know, it's goingto go be going on like this for
(24:30):
quite a while. I think that, youknow, I would love to stay with
the team, but I don't think Ican do this. Can we explore
moving me into a principal role,and you know, the person I've
been mentoring, we've talkedabout succession planning, which
topic for another day.Succession Planning is not it's,
I guess it is kind of like theTV show, but it's about making
(24:51):
sure that when you do, you know,move up into a different role,
that there's someone there thatcan step in for you, right? You
already identified that person.You. Have that conversation,
have my succession plan. They'reready for it. I'll be here. I
can still mentor them. Can wework this out in some sort of
way? And that's a that's adialog that can be opened up,
or, you know, you might go intofigure out, like, I thought I
(25:12):
was good at this, and I'm reallynot, and I really don't like it.
Okay, good. You learned early,right? And
Amanda Jane Lee (25:18):
now you know, and now you know, and now you
can have start having thoseconversations and figuring out
what what to do next. Yep,
Indra Klavins (25:24):
yep. So I think, you know, it's a different job,
not just a promotion, I think isreally, you know, like the crux
of it, it's a completelydifferent skill set. I think
that it's something that youneed to be really intentional
about if you want to do it.Well, you know there are
different leadership styles fordifferent industries and
different organizations anddifferent people, but know that
(25:46):
you'll be tested every singleday, every single day, and you
know you got to be, you got tobe a life learner. You got to be
a life learner. I'd like to bethe people who are the leaders I
admire. I'll be specific. Ourlife learners, our life
learners, for sure, yeah, and
Amanda Jane Lee (26:05):
it's not going to look busy. It's going to look
different with every team thatyou manage, because different.
Because, as we mentioned in aprevious episode, we're not
robots, we're all people. We'reall people with different
personalities and work stylesand situations, and it's just
(26:27):
being able to continuously learnand be adaptable and and just be
able to to apply what youlearned 100% and
Indra Klavins (26:39):
you know, just to I love giving people resources.
So if you have found yourself ina people management role in your
life and their your organizationdidn't give you a ton of
training, let's be honest, mostof them don't. They just it's
one of the more underservedareas of learning and
development, just in businessperiod full stop. So if you're
(27:02):
looking for resources, I'll postthem in the show notes. My
career coach, Jen dari, has gota wonderful program called the
acronym is sniam, so now you'rea manager. And so I think, if I
remember correctly, it's like atwo or three day workshop, and
she has cohorts that go throughit. And, you know, like, there
you get to work through learningand understanding some of the
(27:24):
skills that your company is notjust they're just not able to
support you in that. So thereare programs like hers out
there. I'll make sure I addthose notes. There are plenty of
career coaches out there. I'mone of them. You know, like I
just mentioned, Jen, there's,there's plenty of folks out
there that have different typesof, different types of
offerings, like, I've got apackage specifically for people
(27:44):
who are looking to explore thisand want to talk through it.
It's just a, you know, a fewseries, or you can go to long
term engagement with folks, ofcourse, but that's another we'll
probably throw in a couple ofother things in the show notes.
Amanda, anything that comes tomind that you wanted to give a
shout out for or add to beforewe wrap things up. No, I think,
I think we covered lot. Yeah, wecovered a lot in this one. I'm
(28:06):
sure there will be anotherepisode or a related episode to
this, because this is a veryreal scenario that a lot of
people find themselves in, yep,yep, yep, yep. And, you know,
it's a wonderful it's a it's afun transition, if you if you do
it thoughtfully, if you do itmindfully, and if you really
(28:27):
honest with yourself when you'redoing it
Amanda Jane Lee (28:30):
again, I think that's the key. I think the key
is to really sit down and behonest with yourself about why
do you want to be a peoplemanager
Indra Klavins (28:41):
100
per cent anyway, we'll end itthere. Thank you everyone for
joining us for another episodeof the messy middle matters. And
I hope you join us next timewhen we cover another topic for
the messy middle Bye.
Amanda Jane Lee (28:56):
Bye.
I'm Indra,
Amanda Jane Lee (00:08):
and I'm Amanda,
Indra Klavins (00:10):
and we'd like to welcome you to the messy middle
matters.
Hey, Amanda, how are you?
Amanda Jane Lee (00:18):
I'm good. How are you, Indra?
Indra Klavins (00:20):
Good, good, good, good. Today we gotta, we see we
got a good topic, like, aspeople management. It's people
management, you know. Andbecause that's like a it's there
are certain, like, leaps asyou're moving up within an
organization, and going intopeople management is one of
those. So,
you know, I know you're, I, myopinion, I think you're an
(00:41):
incredible people manager, and alot of that has to do with the
back barrier background. It hasa lot has to do with with, yeah,
a lot has to do with yourbackground. So where I'd love to
start our conversation today isjust like, you know, as you're
entering in, as you entered intopeople management, like
reflecting back on your career,what were the things that really
helped to set you up to be tomake that transition smoother
(01:05):
than it might have been forsomeone else.
Amanda Jane Lee (01:07):
Yeah. I mean, as a program manager, manager
was already in my title,
Indra Klavins (01:15):
that titles is a whole nother podcast of titles.
But anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah.Yeah.
Amanda Jane Lee (01:23):
So program management is about influencing
without direct authority. Andyou know it, it's being able to
take in the big picture of, youknow, all the pieces at play,
all of the things take note ofall of the things that can
impact the delivery of yourprojects, your programs,
(01:47):
just all of that context. And Ithink if you replace delivery of
projects and programs withpeople like understanding that
there's context and thingsoutside of like what's directly
in front of you that can impactthings, or, in the case of
people management, people,
(02:07):
I think that's half the battle.
Indra Klavins (02:09):
Yeah, I think, I think we're going to talk a lot
about that today. Is like,specifically, also you use the
word influence. Like, I thinkthat the fact that both of us
came up, came of age, so tospeak, professionally speaking
in careers where you haveinfluence and no authority,
really forces you to hone awhole bunch of skills, including
paying attention to people andunderstanding their motivations
(02:32):
and, you know, and the rolesthat we've had are really about
helping, helping people andteams and projects succeed,
Right? So I think we had, we hadthe luxury of
practicing some of those skillsbefore we actually were in
people management roles.
Amanda Jane Lee (02:48):
But it's a soft skills. It's a It's the it's the
glue work. If you haven'tlistened to our glue work
episode,
Indra Klavins (02:56):
it is the glue work. The glue work is a big
chunk of that is a big chunk ofwhat it requires for people
manager, at least understandingthe glue work is important for a
people manager,
but you know, so I'm going toask you the loaded question. So
have you ever seen someone who'sill equipped to be a people
manager, but be anointed apeople manager, and what was
(03:17):
that like?
Amanda Jane Lee (03:18):
Yes. Next question, no, yes, yes, and
Indra Klavins (03:24):
I've also seen it not be their fault they weren't
set up for success. You know, atsome organizations, the only way
to make more money is to getpromoted. And at those
organizations, sometimes theonly way to get promoted is to
be promoted to a manager. Andsome people who are really good
(03:48):
at their craft, whether that'ssoftware engineering or, you
know, creating marketingcampaigns or whatever it is that
they do, are just not good atbeing a people manager, and
don't have the skills, or werenot trained to have the skills
to be a successful peoplemanager, and they fail there.
(04:11):
There's a name for this, andit's called The Peter Principle,
and I'm going to pull up thedefinition and read it, and
we'll add it to our glossary aswell. But the Peter Principle is
when employees are promotedbased on their success in
previous jobs, until they reacha level at which they are no
(04:32):
longer competent, as skills inone job do not necessarily
translate to another, so justbecause you're a really good
engineer does not necessarilymean you'll be a good people
manager
100% like, what is it? And thenwhat I've seen is when somebody
(04:52):
gets promoted into, let's say, apeople management role and
leadership sees that they're notsucceeding. Yeah. So sometimes
the next thing that happens isthat the person gets another
promotion and they just keep onfailing upwards. Because
everyone's like, Oh, maybe it'sthey're just like, a bigger
picture thinker. Maybe it'sthis, or maybe it's like, not
getting in the day to day of thepeople management. Maybe it's
(05:13):
other things, and, you know,it's and the soft skills that
Amanda talked about weren't theonly things that are, that are
required. But that's a really,that's a really, really crucial
part of it, right? So, like,there's, there's a the skill
sets that got you to where it'sthat is that cliche statement,
like, the skill set that got youto where you are is not what's
going to help you succeed in thefuture is pretty darn true,
(05:35):
because they're two completelydifferent careers, right? It's,
it's a or two different skillsets, understanding one you have
to understand kind of both to beable to to to do that people
management role. But
right, just because you got heredoing what you were doing
doesn't mean that doing thosesame things will get you to
where you need to be 100%
(05:55):
and you know what I've seen soI've spent, I've spent at least
a decade, if not more, eithermentoring or coaching peers and
friends and whatever. You knownow I do it as my day job, you
know, but, but I'm just lookingback at various places in my
career, you know, especially inlike a larger organization, like
(06:17):
in a startup, it's a little bitdifferent. There things are
moving really, really fast. Sothe ability to move up is
sometimes a lot easier. Is alittle easier. It's different,
at the very least, um, in largecorporations, it can be really
stagnant. It can be what you'retalking about Amanda, like, I
need to make more money, so Ineed to move up in this career.
And you know, people when Iwould be in these coaching and
(06:41):
mentoring conversations withfolks like some like, the first
question asked, like, they're,like, I want to be a people
manager. I want to, I want to goto senior manager, or whatever,
director or whatever. I'm like,why? My first question is, why?
And, you know, I've got a littlebit of a snark to my attitude in
general. It's, it'sgenerational, it's whatever.
It's a lot of New Jerseyoriginally. I mean, snark comes
with me, but, but, you know, itsometimes is really hard for the
(07:06):
person to answer that question.They're like, because it's the
next thing that I do, you know,they think that it's, they're
going to have to, they're goingto have more
power, I mean,
Amanda Jane Lee (07:17):
or a fancy title,
Indra Klavins (07:18):
or a fancy title. And, you know, in some
organizations, you know,remember, it's like, we've
talked about this, like, someorganizations, especially, like,
if you're talking aboutfinancial services, like,
there's, you'll see it show upin the news, but it's like, I
don't think people understandwhat the title is. Like, there's
VPS. Like, VPS are a dime adozen in some financial services
companies, right? It's not to,I'm not being disparaging to the
people. I'm not beingdisparaging to the role. But
(07:41):
there's, there's sometimes theseabundance of titles, and these
titles can be
wielded around like swords insome of these companies, like, I
won't talk to anybody below adirector level. Like, in that
scenario, I used to have to myteam members would send me an
email, like, Indra, can you sendthis to this person? Because
they won't talk to anybody belowa director I'm like, sure. Got
(08:02):
it. They pre write the email forme. I'd tweak it just a little
so it sounded a little bit morelike me, and I'd send it on and
then, then we get a response,but if they'd sent it, they
wouldn't get it. So there's someof those things that are more
power. And we already talked alittle bit about more money,
right? More power,
more prestige, more perceivedprestige. You know, it looks
(08:24):
good on a business card. I wantto tell my family and friends
that I'm a VP or a director orwhatever, right? But
I think
Amanda Jane Lee (08:33):
just going back to why? Yeah, those aren't,
those aren't the right reasonsto go into people management.
No, not at all. Like, you know,I think that maybe this is where
we talk a little bit about thethings that you know, the skills
that really make a good peoplemanager. I know you talked about
some of them, but let meintroduce some. Well, we'll
revisit those. But like, youneed to understand the business,
(08:56):
to
Indra Klavins (08:58):
understand a business, the business in a
different way. And with eachtime that you move up the
ladder, the you'll need tounderstand a different facet, or
different you need to understandhow other teams function, right,
you know, as part of that. Sosome of that is, some of that is
in there. And what are some ofthe ones that you found as you
were, you know, going throughyour, your transition into
(09:19):
people management. I mean,again, you were probably doing
it in some form before that, butyeah, it's
like you said, it's a differentunderstanding of the business.
It's a different understandingof the different parts of the
business. It's not just aboutyour immediate team or the teams
that you work most directlywith, but it's how every team
(09:43):
creates impact in theorganization at like, every team
has its place in theorganization, and understanding
that
Amanda Jane Lee (09:51):
it's,
Indra Klavins (09:53):
I'm gonna say, politics, but like, office
politics is workplace politics.It's not. Politics in a bad way,
but it's just understanding thethe processes and the the
interactions and how things getdone and the information flow,
(10:14):
and just the way the businessworks, the inner the behind the
scenes, inner workings, the theunsaid, the hidden things,
right? So it's having anunderstanding of that, um, it's,
you know, it's just being ableto think more big picture and
more strategically, like what,what is good for, for the
(10:38):
business, but also being able toto understand and influence
Amanda Jane Lee (10:47):
what
Indra Klavins (10:49):
what is best for my team, what is best for the
people who report to me. How youknow, how do I want to grow
their careers? Like, does thatbring me joy? Like, does that
bring me satisfaction? Becauseif it doesn't, then people
management isn't for you. Like,if you are not, if you're not
(11:13):
committed to doing what's bestfor your team, for the people
that you manage, for growingpeople's careers, growing people
professionally and evenpersonally. In some cases,
Amanda Jane Lee (11:26):
if you don't care about the people who report
to you, then you're just gonnaget burnt out 100% and I think
that there's, I think that whatyou spoke about is like my
favorite, some of my favoriteparts of people management.
There's also some parts that area little bit darker. Yeah,
darker. I'll say darker, harder.Maybe harder is like a better
(11:47):
word. But like, you were talkinga lot about, like, stakeholder
management, stakeholdering,which is exhausting. It's
exhausting, you know, that's,that's probably an episode onto
itself, stakeholdering,
Indra Klavins (11:59):
but that is, you know, working with the folks
across the organization. Butlike, sometimes you're put in a
position where you can't doright by your team. Like the
business needs are X, Y and Z,you know, I'll, I'll think about
it. Business needs are x, y andz, and your team wants to do a B
and C. And A, B and C are, youknow, antithetical. I'm using a
(12:24):
big word, but like, they'recompletely against. They would,
they would sabotage thecompany's goals, or they would
get in the way of Make, makereaching the company's goals
really hard. Sabotage sounds sonegative, but like, and it's not
to say that the goals weremalicious. It's just, they're
just not they're they're justnot meshing. They're just not
mentioning for this moment inthis quarter, at this time,
(12:44):
right, right,
and being able to assess thesituation and make what is
sometimes a very hard decision,very
hard decision, and then not justmake that decision, but
communicate it to your team,explain to them why they're not
going to get quote their way.Explain to them what you're
going to do to help them advancethat in the future, and do all
(13:05):
the work that's necessary to tryand retain them, because you
don't want them leaving becausethey're upset because they can't
do X, you know, the thing thatthey wanted to do, right? I
can't remember which letters Iuse for which, but, you know,
that's, that's a really hardthing. Or, you know, some of the
other things that you have todeal with is, you know,
promotion cycles or annualbonuses, like figuring out how
(13:26):
that money gets distributed. Oh,you think it's fun. You're like,
oh, you get to like, no. Like,the reality of it is what
happens behind those and thosedoors are closed for good
reasons. So it's, it's not, youknow, some things cannot be
transparent, and should not betransparent, but like the
constraints and challenges andthe hard decisions that you need
(13:46):
to make in that moment, or inthe moment when you know that
you need to you're having budgetcuts and you need to say goodbye
to some of your team members,like this, this is the stuff
that you need to really be awareof, and it's, You know,
it sounds like you have power,but you know, you have a lot of
responsibility. You have a lotof responsibility, and some
(14:07):
people thrive with that, andsome people don't, yeah, and it
requires a different skill set.It's, it's a different kind of
leadership. Um, it requires that
that emotional intelligence andemotional labor piece, yeah,
yeah, yes, there's a lot ofemotional labor. Like, there,
(14:30):
there's a there's a lot ofemotional labor. Like, I was
like, Mike said, drum, yeah, youthink I make more money, but I
it all goes to my Excedrin bill.But you know, the reality of it
is, here's the good news, here'sthe good news again. Podcast is
not just about pointing outthings that are wrong in the
world. It's about trying toprovide solutions. The good news
is, and the reason that we'resharing some of these, you guys
(14:51):
already, might already knowabout this, but in enough
organizations,
they've taken their careerladder that. That, that that
articulation of roles andresponsibilities for people at
different levels of theorganization, and they've
created a fork at a certainlevel where you can go that
people manager track, whichwe've just talked about, or the
(15:13):
individual manager, individualcontributor track, visual
manager, I guess you aremanaging yourself, but
individual contributor track,so, and that's, that's where
it's just like the non peoplemanagement track. And that's
come largely out of theengineering world, the software,
software engineering world,where, you know, they've
developed analogous, you know,like this. The some of the
(15:35):
responsibilities are the samefor the individual can track and
the manager track at certaincareer stages, right? They've
created those careers for eachcareer stage. There is a staff
level, there's is what is like,often, the first step that you
go into when you're when you'regoing that more senior
individual contributor route,the principal, the fellow, I've
been in organizations with datateams where there's the esteem,
(15:58):
the you know fellow, I mean, youcan go higher and higher, and
there's there's all sorts ofdifferent types of titles, but
what that allows you to do is itallows that people manage can
for team leads, can create theseother opportunities, so your
person doesn't get maxed out orforced in at that manager level
because they don't want to leadpeople, or they don't wind up in
(16:19):
a situation where they're havingto lead people, and not only are
you putting that person that youpromoted because you want to
keep them, you're puttingeverybody below them at risk,
because it's just not theirtemperament, and that's okay.
The world takes all kinds ofpeople. So yeah,
I like the fork in the twocareer tracks, because it's
formal recognition that theseare different careers, these are
(16:42):
different careers.
They're different careers. Andthe other thing that I will say
is that, you know, and I have, Ihave feelings, this is a much
longer discussion, but because Ithink that, yeah, the reality of
it is, sometimes you can makeeven more money staying on that
individual contributor trackthat you can do in the people
(17:02):
manager track, again, twocompletely different skill sets,
and the markets for each ofthose that that talent is very
different, and you could wind upin a situation where the people
manager who overseestechnically, the individual
contributor is making less thanthe individual contributor, And
that's okay. That's completelyokay, and that's completely
(17:22):
appropriate in a lot ofscenarios, you know, not every
scenario, but enough scenariosthat's, that's appropriate, you
know, it's, maybe a lot is toostrong of a word, but hopefully
everybody gets what I'm saying.Yeah, right.
It again, it's, it's twodifferent jobs, right? It's, you
know, it and it's two differentjobs. And when you're asking
yourself, why? Ask yourself,like, what do you want to be
(17:45):
doing? Yeah, do you want to bedo you want to spend your time
doing, you know, what you'vebeen doing all this time? That's
okay. That's perfectly okay. Andand at companies that have this,
this fork, like you, like youdescribed, there is a path for
(18:06):
you to promotion. There is apath to grow your skills and
your your level of influence andand all of the things that come
with a promotion and more money.Probably, if you don't want to
go into a people managementrole, and like, you don't want
to be
Amanda Jane Lee (18:24):
tasked with, you know, the emotional labor
and the the dark side and andall of the things, as well as
the the positive things of beingable to grow people's careers
and and be responsible for, forthe people around you or who
report to you? Yeah, and I wantto be clear, like, people on the
individual contributor track,they are still leaders of the
(18:46):
team, and they still have a lotof responsibility to make sure
that the team succeeds. It's notlike you're going to get to go
to your outpost and just like,have an edict and just like,
because I'm the most seniorperson, I get to say X, Y and Z.
Like, you still need to be partof the team. You still need to
mentor people. You still need tohelp people shape their careers.
But it's in a it's in aninfluence capacity. It's not in
(19:08):
a I need to like a person ishaving a performance issue, and
you need to manage them out andget them on a performance plan,
or manage them out or or helpthem to to succeed, or whatever
it is. You don't necessarilyneed to do that, but you you do
need to make sure that you are apillar, a pillar, and someone
for the more junior folks tolook up to, which I think is
(19:29):
important. Yeah, that's a that'sa good distinction. Indra of the
if you stay on the individualcontributor track as a more
senior person, you are yourleadership is more influence
influencing,
Indra Klavins (19:43):
whereas if you go the people management route,
it's more formal and direct. Ofyou know you, these are the
things we're expecting you todo, because these are our HR
processes, right? These are,these are the expectations of
you as a. Formal people manager,I you know, HR, wants you to
(20:03):
have a regular one on one checkin with each of your individual
reports. You need to do the theformal performance review. You
need to manage the the raisesand the budget. It's
bureaucratic. Let's call it whatit what it is. It's a little bit
of bureaucracy, which is fine,which is fine, which is
just fine. And people thrive inthat role,
(20:27):
yeah, I mean, and, you know, butso as people are sitting here
and approaching that, that thatthat that potential for, again,
it's usually around that seniormanager level. In most
organizations where I've seenlike, manager, Senior Manager,
there's like, it depends onwhich, which, how your
organization is done, but rightaround there is where it starts
to the decision needs to bemade. I think that it's
(20:48):
important, you know, like, whyare you trying to do this? Are
you looking for status? Right?
If you're looking for status, ifyou're looking for title, if you
think, you know, if you thinkthat with a manager title, you
can all of a sudden embosspeople around and be directly in
control of more things. Guesswhat? That's not always true. No
(21:09):
one has control. I got, I got, Igot news for y'all, like, part
of, part of the title, the messymiddle matters where, like this
all came from. Like, over theyears, I got stuck in I got
stuck in my career for aboutseven years of the senior
manager role, which is fine,whatever it happens. It happens.
Um, it's a story for anotherday. But as I've moved up and
out of that role, like I stillfeel like I'm in the middle. You
(21:30):
think that you're going to moveup, you're gonna have a little
bit more authority, and you'llget to, you'll be you'll be able
to make those decisions, oryou'll be able to influence the
way things. The reality is,we're all stuck in the middle.
You need to be happy to, or mostof us are, until you hit that
CEO level, right? But you know,you need to, you need to, you
need to enjoy that. You need toenjoy that to be in a people
(21:51):
manager role, right? It's
just a shift in how you're inthe messy middle, yeah.
But I mean, I think that, youknow, when we're thinking
through some of the things, likebeing hands on and hands off,
like, of of the work, the workitself, that's a shift. That's a
differentiation,
right? That's a differentiation.You're you're less hands on, but
(22:13):
that doesn't mean you get towalk away from that completely,
right?
So like, when we say hands on,it's like in the creation of the
work product. So like, if you'reon a team of writers, you're
probably writing less copy. Ifyou're, you know, a team of
designers, probably, you know,designing less right doesn't
mean that you're never designingright. And every organization
has different there's theconcept of the player coach kind
(22:36):
of leader, which is, you know,but,
yeah, you're, if you want tounderstand that, you're going to
have to let go of your craft alot. If you go into that people
manager, as you move up thatladder, that's, if that's that's
like, oh, I don't want to dothat, then I don't want to let
go of that. Yeah, that could bea red flag, right? Or, like, if
(22:57):
you're not choosing that route,which is totally fine, right?
Just think, just think about itsome more, right? Like, I think
the point of this topic is tonot, it's not to deter anyone
from going into the peoplemanagement. I love it, right?
But it's to just bring to lightthe realities of people
(23:20):
management. When I stepped intoa people management role,
Amanda Jane Lee (23:24):
you know, I've had emotional labor, like I'm
coming back to that emotionallabor. And, you know, I had a
conversation with my husband,and I was like, you know, I've
had jobs that have been reallystressful before, but why does
this one feel so different? Andhe was like, it's because you
care about the people who reportto you
Indra Klavins (23:46):
100% and I think that the other thing to
acknowledge here too is like,it's okay to it's not for
everyone. So like, what I'mabout to say, but it's okay to
shift back and forth between thetwo. Like some people have
whether it's whether it'swhether it's their temperament,
and they kind of like a littlebit of both, you know, like,
sometimes I like being anindividual contributor.
Sometimes I want to be a peoplemanager. Like moving back and
(24:09):
forth across that laterally,that's acceptable. There might
be a life stage, like, let's sayyou've got a lot, you know,
you're dealing with a lot ofemotional labor in your day to
day life. And you're like, youwant to stay with the company,
you can, you want to be able todo things and have a
conversation with your yourpeople manager say, hey, lots
going on. You know, it's goingto go be going on like this for
(24:30):
quite a while. I think that, youknow, I would love to stay with
the team, but I don't think Ican do this. Can we explore
moving me into a principal role,and you know, the person I've
been mentoring, we've talkedabout succession planning, which
topic for another day.Succession Planning is not it's,
I guess it is kind of like theTV show, but it's about making
(24:51):
sure that when you do, you know,move up into a different role,
that there's someone there thatcan step in for you, right? You
already identified that person.You. Have that conversation,
have my succession plan. They'reready for it. I'll be here. I
can still mentor them. Can wework this out in some sort of
way? And that's a that's adialog that can be opened up,
or, you know, you might go intofigure out, like, I thought I
(25:12):
was good at this, and I'm reallynot, and I really don't like it.
Okay, good. You learned early,right? And
Amanda Jane Lee (25:18):
now you know, and now you know, and now you
can have start having thoseconversations and figuring out
what what to do next. Yep,
Indra Klavins (25:24):
yep. So I think, you know, it's a different job,
not just a promotion, I think isreally, you know, like the crux
of it, it's a completelydifferent skill set. I think
that it's something that youneed to be really intentional
about if you want to do it.Well, you know there are
different leadership styles fordifferent industries and
different organizations anddifferent people, but know that
(25:46):
you'll be tested every singleday, every single day, and you
know you got to be, you got tobe a life learner. You got to be
a life learner. I'd like to bethe people who are the leaders I
admire. I'll be specific. Ourlife learners, our life
learners, for sure, yeah, and
Amanda Jane Lee (26:05):
it's not going to look busy. It's going to look
different with every team thatyou manage, because different.
Because, as we mentioned in aprevious episode, we're not
robots, we're all people. We'reall people with different
personalities and work stylesand situations, and it's just
(26:27):
being able to continuously learnand be adaptable and and just be
able to to apply what youlearned 100% and
Indra Klavins (26:39):
you know, just to I love giving people resources.
So if you have found yourself ina people management role in your
life and their your organizationdidn't give you a ton of
training, let's be honest, mostof them don't. They just it's
one of the more underservedareas of learning and
development, just in businessperiod full stop. So if you're
(27:02):
looking for resources, I'll postthem in the show notes. My
career coach, Jen dari, has gota wonderful program called the
acronym is sniam, so now you'rea manager. And so I think, if I
remember correctly, it's like atwo or three day workshop, and
she has cohorts that go throughit. And, you know, like, there
you get to work through learningand understanding some of the
(27:24):
skills that your company is notjust they're just not able to
support you in that. So thereare programs like hers out
there. I'll make sure I addthose notes. There are plenty of
career coaches out there. I'mone of them. You know, like I
just mentioned, Jen, there's,there's plenty of folks out
there that have different typesof, different types of
offerings, like, I've got apackage specifically for people
(27:44):
who are looking to explore thisand want to talk through it.
It's just a, you know, a fewseries, or you can go to long
term engagement with folks, ofcourse, but that's another we'll
probably throw in a couple ofother things in the show notes.
Amanda, anything that comes tomind that you wanted to give a
shout out for or add to beforewe wrap things up. No, I think,
I think we covered lot. Yeah, wecovered a lot in this one. I'm
(28:06):
sure there will be anotherepisode or a related episode to
this, because this is a veryreal scenario that a lot of
people find themselves in, yep,yep, yep, yep. And, you know,
it's a wonderful it's a it's afun transition, if you if you do
it thoughtfully, if you do itmindfully, and if you really
(28:27):
honest with yourself when you'redoing it
Amanda Jane Lee (28:30):
again, I think that's the key. I think the key
is to really sit down and behonest with yourself about why
do you want to be a peoplemanager
Indra Klavins (28:41):
100
per cent anyway, we'll end itthere. Thank you everyone for
joining us for another episodeof the messy middle matters. And
I hope you join us next timewhen we cover another topic for
the messy middle Bye.
Amanda Jane Lee (28:56):
Bye.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.