May 14, 2025 • 34 mins
What if your well-intentioned leadership style is holding your team back? Kevin sits down with Sabina Nawaz to discuss the illusion of "bad bosses," the myth of singular authenticity, and the impact of pressure on leadership behaviors. Sabina introduces the idea that it’s pressure, not power, that corrupts and outlines the three primary pressure pitfalls leaders fall into: controlling, abdicating, and automating. They talk about why delegation often fails and how unexamined internal “hungers” sabotage our best efforts and intentions, as ell as how leaders can learn to shift their identity to better serve their teams.
Listen For
00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview
00:37 Join the Community Live on Facebook/LinkedIn
01:28 About Flexible Leadership (Book Promo)
02:22 Meet Sabina Nawaz
03:04 Sabina’s Career Journey and Background
03:56 Becoming a “Bad Boss” After Parental Leave
05:49 Are There Really Bad Bosses?
06:48 Pressure vs. Power What Really Corrupts?
07:41 Myth of Singular Authenticity
09:08 Identity and the Limits of Authenticity
10:41 Promotion and the Danger of Strengths
11:44 The Power Gap in Leadership
13:01 Understanding the Impact of Your Authority
15:36 Pressure Pitfalls Overview
16:27 Pitfall 1 Unmet Hungers
17:43 The Trap of Needing Approval
18:40 Sole Provider Syndrome
20:22 Pitfall 2 Abdicating Responsibility
21:51 The Delegation Mistake Most Leaders Make
23:32 Abdication vs. True Delegation
24:01 Sabina’s Self-Diagnostic Questions
25:28 Avoiding the “Yeah, But” Trap
26:27 Communication Fault Lines Just Shut Up
27:56 The Power of Listening in Leadership
29:01 Every Action Has a Reaction
30:10 Sabina’s Personal Interests and Books She’s Reading
32:10 Where to Connect with Sabina and Get the Book
32:52 Final Leadership Challenge and Episode Wrap-Up
Sabina's Story: Sabina Nawaz is the author of You’re the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need). She is an elite executive coach who advises C-level executives and teams at Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, nonprofits, and academic institutions around the world. Sabina routinely gives speeches each year and teaches faculty at Northeastern and Drexel Universities. During her fourteen-year tenure at Microsoft, she went from managing software development teams to leading the company’s executive development and succession planning efforts for over 11,000 managers and nearly a thousand executives, advising Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer directly. She has written for and been featured in Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, and Forbes.
This Episode is brought to you by...
Flexible Leadership is every leader’s guide to greater success in a world of increasing complexity and chaos.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Wherever you
sit as a leader, you have a bossand sometimes communicating with them,
given the power and positional difference,it can be hard.
And that's why I'm excited for you aboutthe conversation that is about to begin.
Welcome to another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast,
where we are helping leaders
(00:28):
grow personally and professionally to leadmore effectively and make a bigger,
positive difference for their team'sorganization and the world.
If you are listening to this podcastin the future, you could join us live.
When we do these on videoand with the chance for people to engage
and share with us and for youto get this information sooner.
(00:49):
So if you'd like to join usin the future, live, the best way to do
that is to join one of our, Facebook groupor our LinkedIn group.
You can go to remarkablepodcast.com/facebook
or remarkablepodcast.com/linkedin to do that.
Take your pick up to you.
Not the only places that we sharethe info, but it's a good place to start.
(01:11):
So today's episode is brought to youby my latest book, Flexible Leadership.
Navigate Uncertaintyand Lead with Confidence.
It's time to realize
that styles can get in our way,and that following our strengths might not
always be the best approach in a worldmore complex and uncertain than ever.
Leaders need a new perspective,a new set of tools
to create the great results their teams,organizations, and organizations need.
(01:35):
That'swhat flexible leadership provide you.
Learn more.
And order your copynow at remarkable podcast.com/flexible.
And with thatI'm going to introduce my guest.
You already see her there.
Sabina I'm going to ask youto pronounce your last name.
Since we didn't have a chance ahead oftime, I want to make sure I get it right.
No worries.
(01:55):
Oh that's good. That'show I had it in my head.
So, Sabina Nava Navas is our guest today.
She's a speaker.
Oops. Hold on a second.
I lost, I lost it.
There it is.
She is a speaker executive coachwho advises C-level executives and teams
at fortune500 corporations, government agencies,
(02:17):
nonprofits and academic institutions,
around the world.
She is also teaches facultyat Northeastern and Drexel universities.
During her 14 year tenure at Microsoft,she went from managing software
development teams to leading the company'sexecutive development and succession
planning efforts for over 11,000 managersand nearly a thousand
(02:39):
executives, advising both Steve Ballmerand Bill gates directly.
She has written for and been featuredin the Harvard Business Review,
Wall Street Journal, and Forbes,and now she has a brand new book out.
It's called You're the Boss, Become theManager You Want to Be and Others Need.
It's fabulous book,and I'm so happy that she's here with us.
(03:00):
Sabina, thanks for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me, Kevin.
I'm looking forward to this.
All right.
So, so let's just dive in.
And, you know,I gave a little bit of a of the storyline
of your career,but what sort of leads you specifically
to this book?
(03:21):
And then tell us a little bitabout why this book.
Well, I'll start with the personal reason
why this book and what led me to thisin terms of my journey.
It started with being a lousy manager.
Now I didn't start out that way.
Interestingly,when I was managing software teams
(03:44):
and in my early first years of managingMicrosoft management development,
people gave me feedbackthat I was the best boss they ever had
because I cared,I coached them, I nurtured their careers.
It was fantastic.
And then everything changed.
The dayI was coming back from parental leave,
putting on lipstickfor the first time in five months.
(04:05):
My assistant Laurie calls me going,where are you?
Steve expects you in 30 minutes.
Laurie starts reading me the memothat I'm supposed to discuss
with Steve Ballmer,the CEO of the company, as I hit warp
speed on my way to work the first dayafter parental leave.
And that sets the tone.
Kevin, that overflowing inbox,a jam packed calendar, an infant at home
(04:27):
that doesn't sleep.
So for me,no sleep, no peace, no patience.
I'm sureyou found yourself and the listeners
have found themselves in places like thiswhere overnight I morphed
from being caring and compassionateand nurturing
to short and snippy and
the worst part of this,because I'm thinking, you know,
(04:49):
we're dealing with high level executives.
I need to micromanage.
I need to be on top of every detail sothat I or my team don't look incompetent.
Who has time to explain things,let alone repeat things?
Just let's go.
We'll deal with empathy later.
We'll have time for itlater. Of course, we don't.
My fingers are always on the keyboardwhen someone comes
to talk to me, indicatingyou're less important than me.
(05:11):
I'm very, very busy.
Spit it out.
Move on and the worst part of all of this,Kevin, is I'm thinking I'm killing it.
I'm doing a really good job.
Look at how efficientI am, how many boxes I can check.
And then my
colleagueJoe comes into the office and says, do
you know that Zach is crying in his officebecause of something you said?
(05:34):
And my whole body turns hot with shame.
And that's when I realize,oh my gosh, what has happened?
I've gone from best bossever to somebody that people apparently
fear and don't want to work for.
So. So after telling us this story,
people are saying, wow,this is the person that wrote
this book called You're the Boss,the kind of manager we want to be.
(05:57):
But early in the book, you say somethingthat's a little bit, controversial or
or some might not agree, at leastnot until you unpack it a little bit.
So you say
there are no bad bosses.
Well,you just described yourself as being one.
So what do you mean by no bad bosses?
(06:18):
Yeah,
well, there area few controversial things in the book,
including me disagreeing with PresidentAbraham Lincoln.
Maybe we'll go into that later, but the
the notion is that it's not a binary.
First of all,you're not a good boss or a bad boss.
Both of those things residewithin the same person,
(06:38):
just like they did with me.
So it's not about being a bad boss.
It's about having bad behaviorsthat are forged under pressure.
Bad boss behaviors are not the sameas being a bad boss.
Yes, it does not define you.
See, this is where I.
My other point that I just brought upis that it is not power that corrupts.
(06:58):
It is pressure that corrupts pressurethat corrupts
who here is not under tremendousamounts of pressure these days.
And who here hasn't done something
at some point when under pressurethat they're not proud of?
Yeah, I think that's a
if we were in an actual room,it would be pretty quiet.
(07:20):
After you make that comment and yes,I truly agree
there's a difference between the behaviorand the behavior.
And that's clearlywhat we're talking about here.
And you just hinted at something.
One of the things that I really like,there's there's so much talk
about being authenticand about authenticity.
(07:41):
And in the book,
you talk about some mythsand the myth that I want us to talk about.
Listen, I don't know.
I'm not looking at it right now,but you're episode number 480,
some of this show,and I don't know how many times you talked
about authenticity and authentic behaviora lot.
You say something that's,I think, incredibly important.
(08:02):
And it's basedaround this idea of myth number four,
which is that authenticauthenticity is singular.
What do you mean? And why is that a myth?
Yeah. Back to something controversial.
I don't believe in a singularauthenticity.
You know, Kevin, I'msure you you've experienced this as well.
(08:25):
When I'm talking to a prospectivecoaching client, a CEO
and the CEO is receive, say, some feedbackthat they're hard on other people
and they come and say, you know,I don't want coaching to change who I am.
I've got to be me.
And and, so we have this conversation
that authenticity is never meantas a singular word.
(08:47):
Here's why.
Are you truly the exact same person as CEO
as you are as partner
at home, as you are, as parent
as you are, as best friendas you are to investors,
versus to your direct reportsversus to the entire organization.
(09:08):
Which of those is the true you?
And the answerwould be all of the above, right.
They're all true.
Now, there might be some basicthings that remain true regardless.
I think that when people
talk about those things,they're more about values
that are underneath all of this,rather than this word authenticity.
(09:31):
I mean, think about this.
This is, as HerminiaIbarra says from Insead.
I love her chapter on authenticityin her book where she says, you know,
if we were truly authentic to who we are,we'd still be a five year
old having a temper tantrum on the floorwhen we didn't get our way.
Authenticity can also
be a ruse for not actually wantingto grow and change.
(09:54):
You have to question, right?
I'm seeing your reaction, Kevin.
Yeah,
I mean, now we're now we're connecting itto how we frame our identity.
Right?
If if we say, well,this is the kind of yes,
that's my identity,then we then it does become a ruse.
So so go ahead. Continue.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
So just like if I call myself a good bossor a bad boss, it becomes my identity.
(10:17):
And it'sreally the behaviors underneath it.
It's the same with this.
Which of those thingsthat you have authentically
held true are now getting in your wayand need to be busted.
You need to bust out of those becauseit goes to another key point in my book,
which is getting promoted is oftenthe most dangerous time in your career,
(10:39):
most dangerous time in your careerwhen you're getting promoted. Why?
Because the very strengths that were quoteunquote authentic strengths
that have propelled you here are goingto be viewed very differently
from the next that are craning up nowto look at you there.
They will have a less charitable viewof your attention to detail
(10:59):
and call you a micromanager,or of your being strategic,
and call you manipulative,or you being calm and call you
lacking passion.
So you've got to look at the worldin a different way
every time you're going up the rung.
100%.
And, and everything that we can see
(11:21):
as a strength
can becomeand does become for us often a weakness.
And that's that whole point of, well,this once I framed myself
as this is who I am that causes
that's that's wonderfuluntil it's not right.
And and that's
exactly the thing that I was struckas I was reading your book or talking with
(11:42):
Sabina was, the author of the new book,You're the Boss.
I was struck,
Sabina, as I was reading it,about how many things connected
with my new book, Flexible Leadership,
even though really going in different,doing different things in many ways.
There are some great connections.
And so you talked aboutyou hinted at one of the big ideas
in the book, and that is that pressurecorrupts more than power.
(12:03):
But you do spend some time in the booktalking about power and the power gap.
You know, if we're the boss,
if we're the what I callcapital leader leader with the job title.
Then there's
there is a there is a positional powerdynamic.
Right.
So what would you say about power gapsbefore I want to get this,
(12:26):
I want to get to some stuffabout pressure.
But what would you say
to folks listening about power gaps,whether they're listening for themselves
or whether they're thinkingabout developing organizations.
Yeah.
So there's a natural gapas you get promoted into positions
of greater authority.
(12:46):
And some of that is healthy of course,because don't delude yourself.
You're no longerone of one of the guys, you're no longer
somebody just their friend.
You have different perks in your office
that alone separates you from others.
But power gaps, the idea beingwhen it's not useful
(13:06):
is that the higher the higherwe go, the less we end up knowing.
The lesswe end up knowing about the effect
our behavior is having, the impactour behavior is having on other people.
Just like me.
When I thought I was doing a great joband I was being really efficient
and actually the realitywas completely different.
(13:28):
Power.
It is a it's like a distorted volume knob.
Everything that we see from up
to down becomes louder, becomesharsher, and people perceive
it is directly targeting them.
When we toss off a casual hey,can we talk on Monday?
(13:51):
That ruined somebody's weekend? Yeah,
certainly the oh my word,what are they going to talk to me
about on Monday?
Right.
Do I, do I need to do I need to gointo the office on Sunday and and and
clearout the things I really like in there
because I'm going to be escortedout on Monday for sure
(14:12):
that recognizing the impactof that downward.
And by the way, here's the other thing.
You cannot believe fully everythingthat's coming up because that volume knob
gets distorted in the opposite directionwith everything
that's being said up is is muted.
It's way milder than whatthe person is experiencing.
(14:32):
So when someone says, yes boss,everything is fine.
What they truly mean is
I've started a secret group chatabout your management style.
So so you've got to be mindful of this gapthat gets created
when authority walks in the room.
And we and and we're blind to it.
Often.
(14:53):
Because we, we, we look in the mirror
every morning and we see the same personwe saw the day before.
But the minute that, we have a job
title attached to us,we're seeing differently by folks. Yes.
When that job title changes,we get seen more differently.
Again, it's.
Exactly, exactly, Kevin.
We haven't changed,but our position has changed.
(15:13):
Yeah.
And the expectations of us have changed.And we could. Yes.
And so there's awhole conversation there too.
So you talk in
the book, there'sso many things we could talk about.
I want to go right to the pressure piece,because I think you already said it.
And I think that, that might be thethe truly unique sort of approach
that you've taken in the book that maybeis sets this book apart from others.
(15:37):
Not not that you're the firstto acknowledge that we feel pressure.
Right.
But you've talked about it
in terms of how thosehow it falls out in terms of pitfalls.
And you say that there are threebig areas of those pitfalls.
And, I'm, I'mgoing to have us dive into each of them,
but just tell everybody whatthe pitfalls are first at a high level,
and then we'lldive into them a little bit.
(16:00):
Are you talking aboutthe the specific pressure pitfalls? The.
Yes. Pressure pitfalls, controlling,abdicating, automating.
I just did that.So let's just talk about each one.
Let's just go into.
So give us an overview of that.
So what you're saying iswe we do one or more of these things
when we feel under pressure.
You already talkedabout your pressure situation.
(16:22):
So when you talk about,
those pitfalls say a little bitmore about them and then we'll dive.
Yeah, there's, there'sseveral different pitfalls.
The one of the very
there are a couplethat are that come up over and over again.
One is the pitfall of our ownunmet hungers.
And what I mean by that is our innerdesires are very human inner desires
(16:47):
to be loved, to be universally beloved,
to be seenas the smartest person in the room to,
never age out, to,
or be relevant,to build dependency on ourselves,
to be seen as a hero or a martyr,
(17:08):
or a victim.
These are not necessarily noble desires.
They're self-serving,but they come packaged in our psychology
as human beings and just likewhen you go to the grocery store hungry
and you buy junk food, if you go to workhungry, you indulge in junk behaviors.
It's the pressuresyou're putting on yourself
(17:29):
because of these these hungers,these unmet hungers to do that,
a client I coach,
has a insatiable,
need to be adored by everybody.
And and they told me I'm. This is it.
I'm going to goread them the riot act about the budget.
(17:50):
It's got to be cut.
They're they're dragging their heels.
And, after
in the next session, I said,so how did that go?
Oh, we didn't really get to thatbecause we started talking about this
amazing presentationI did with these clients.
And of course,the team knows how to play you.
They started flattering this personand off they went from their main track.
(18:14):
So recognizing what are the unmet hungers
that can sidetrack you,that can take you off on junky parts.
And another really commonone is being a sole provider.
Sole as solid as an.
I am the only one who it's theI've got this mantra
(18:36):
and I could again do thisfor the best of intentions.
And some of it is great in moderation,as you said, Kevin.
So a sole provider, as a caretaker,you know, my team is under a lot of
pressure.
I'm going to just jump inand help them out, or I can get this done
faster than I can explain it to somebody,or I can do this better.
(18:59):
Or no one's ever said those things, ever.
You know, and here's the other thing.
Going backto this whole getting promoted thing.
One of the things,
those things that you just described,being able to do something better,
being able to do something faster,being able to, you know, to get a lot
accomplished are often how we got promotedand how we view ourselves.
(19:20):
And so why wouldwe want to let go of that stuff? Right.
So we end up being in thiscontrolling mode as a way
to try to deal with the pressure, right?
Yes, yes, yes.
And again,because the more we know the less the more
the more we grow, the less we know.
Nobody's telling you that.
So. So you you think you're doing great.
(19:41):
You're doing a great job.
Look, I just jumped in with my capeflying, and I rescued the team.
But how many?
Then you basically put yourselfin as a perpetual motion machine.
You're constantly having to rescue,and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Nobody can do it betterbecause you've never given them a chance
to learn and grow.
(20:01):
How could they possibly do it?
Because you keep doing it for them.
So I think everyone sort of seesthat sort of controlling stuff
and how those hungers can feed into that.
One of the things you talk about,some as well, is this idea
that often we dothe opposite of controlling, we abdicate.
So when you talk about abdicate, what doesthat look like for us as leaders?
(20:23):
And for those of you as you are listening,
don't just listen and say,oh, yeah, I know someone who did that.
I want
you to be holding up the mirroras Sabina says this,
because we all have done it, some of usmaybe way more than others.
But rather than saying,oh man, I know who needs to listen
to this conversation,make sure you're listening yourself.
(20:45):
So when you when you talk aboutabdicating here, what do you mean?
I will answer that question,but I have to.
I cannot help but comment on what you justsaid, Kevin, I have now had three people
tell me that they have anonymousdropped off a copy of the book
to their boss, and but these are peoplewho are managers as well.
(21:07):
And I said,have you read the book fully yourself?
So yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
We as.
Authors, we are happy forpeople to buy multiple books.
But I don't think either of you.
Guys are happy if you aren't.
Taking action yourself to it.
Yeah, right. Right.
And there are four questionsthat you can ask yourself to give yourself
(21:30):
a quick diagnostic.
We can get to that as to whether you needto look in the mirror yourself.
Abdicating thethe antidote to sole provider
is to delegate.
However,
almost 100% of my clients
make a cardinal mistake when delegating,
(21:51):
and so it doesn't work.
And then they go see they.
I delegated Sabina, but it didn't work.
And I'm like, yeah, not because of them.
That's a new problem rather than problem.
Yeah. You didn't really delegate. Yes.
So or you didn't delegate. Right.
The number one mistake people
make with delegation is treating itlike an on off switch.
(22:12):
That is, they abdicate all responsibility
until the Friday nightbefore the deadline, when the person,
the hapless person brings over whatevertheir best guess is of what you wanted.
And then you go, that's not what it is.
And then you swoop in
and there goes your weekend,there goes their blood pressure, etc.
so that delegation, quoteunquote, of here, you take it, Kevin,
(22:35):
I know you're great.
You're going to do a fantastic jobdelegating.
Meaning I don't have to do anythingwith it that is completely wrong.
What do I call dumping?
I'm just gonna dump it on them. Right now.
We're saying the same thing.
Exactly. Love your.
We're abdicating herebecause we're abdicating it, but.
Well, allowing ourselves to change.
Well, we can't let the whole thing fail.
(22:56):
So we then write back and put our cape onwhen we have to write.
Exactly, exactly.
And and that just causesmore harm than not.
And you're better offbeing the sole provider in those cases.
Instead,you got to treat delegation like a deal.
So you do itnot by not based on the capabilities,
the knowledge, the skills of the personwho you're delegating to.
(23:17):
And in all cases,you want to have checkpoints
if the task is important enough.
So you're not surprised on a Friday night.
And so that we can can be
coaching them to, to, to to.
Exactly.
Get what they're missing along the way.
Otherwise you're just dumping it on them.
(23:38):
They make that their highest prioritybecause the boss just gave it to them.
And then yes, when it doesn't go well,we as you said,
first thing you said was, well,I tried that, but it didn't work
well because to your point that you didn'treally do it well or correct.
Exactly. Exactly.
So you mentionedthose four diagnostic questions.
(23:59):
I would be remissas the host, you know, questions.
Well,there's right at the end of the book,
there's a set of 42 questions called 360yourself.
That is, get a, feedback for yourself,because not everybody
is going to give you direct feedback.
And here's a way to check
which power gaps or which pressurepitfalls you might be falling into.
(24:19):
Now, if you don't want to takeat the time. Yes.
That's it.
If you don't want to time to take the timeto do those 42, here's a few.
Number one, does anybody bring up
ideas or disagree with you,or are you the only one bringing up ideas?
Are you?
Secondly, are you the one who's
(24:41):
working the hardest, as in
coming upwith all the agendas for the meeting,
bringing in speakers,figuring out how person
should talk to person B, etc.?
I'll stick with three.
The third one.
Yeah, but
are you justifying your actions
(25:02):
that you know are badboss behaviors with a.
Yeah, but yeah, butthis is an especially busy time of year.
When is it not.
Yeah.
But they're not going to be ableto pay attention to X or Y.
So whenever you have a. Yeah.
But coming on likely you are you are
(25:24):
falling into one of these traps
and pitfallsthat you need to look in the mirror for.
I completely agree.
And those are,those are excellent questions that.
Yeah, but one I think will hit for mosteverybody.
And it gets at some of those hungersthat you mentioned earlier as well.
It's actually really important.
(25:44):
And it really
does connect back to that identity piecethat we talked about before.
Right. Well, yeah.But that's just the way I lead.
That's you have to understand,that's how that that the assessment
I took said these are my strengths.
And so you just take a yes.
Right.
And it's all of that is just a ruse to usethe word that you used earlier. Yes.
Yes for. Sure.
So there's plenty of stuff.
(26:08):
I mean, there's lots of great stuffin here about,
in the book about communication.
You have,you have a number of communication
fault lines that you talk about.
Let's just we've got time maybe to dowhat's one piece of advice
that you would give people listeningto help them be a better leadership
communicator or to avoid a pitfallthat many leaders. Yes.
(26:29):
Fall into?
Oh, it's very clear to me,Kevin, one thing.
Shut up.
And what I mean by that is, no.
We're pretty clear on what that means.
Everyone'spretty clear on what that means.
And you don't need them.You don't need to modify it.
You can just leave it right the way it is.
Awesome.
(26:50):
Right?
I mean, we all need to hear that.
And and.
There are some of us as leaders
who are more naturally extroverted,who may need to hear it more.
And yet, every leader I've ever observedand coached
needs to hear itsometimes, regardless of where they are.
(27:10):
On introversion extroversion, it'sadd to that comment on that.
Yes, myself included, myself included.
You know, I've written the book on it,but I, you know, because I'm
the more experiencedyou have, the harder it is to shut up.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Because we think we know.
(27:31):
We know.
And we and we do know.
And we are right a lot of the time.
But what is that doing to the peoplewho also want to climb up the ladder,
who might have ideaswhere we have blind spots,
who might have ways to enrichwhat we're saying?
And do you want to leave the meeting
feeling satisfied that you werethe smartest person in the room,
(27:55):
or do you want to leave the meeting?
Having other people believe
that they were really smartand they had an opportunity to shine?
If you want to continue to be overwhelmed,
have a packed calendarand no sleep and no peace.
Continue to be the smartest person in theroom and talk all the time.
(28:16):
Oh and oh, by theway, when you do all those things, you.
That's what you'll get.
But what you won't get is commitment. Yes.
You won't get the commitment of your team.
And so you wonderwhy you're not getting that.
And you might look at how much of the timeyou're spending talking.
None of the commitmentand all of the blame.
Because of course,it was all your idea in the first place.
(28:36):
But what?
And then the time you really do want help?
They're not going to.
And they're not going to answerbecause they want.
I figured this out. This is just a
they just listen to some podcast,get some training, read some. Yes.
Thank God I ask it because they'renot going to buy it because you've never
you've never cultivated that.
Is there anything I didn't ask
(28:57):
Sabina that you really wish I would have?
What a great question.
I spent all the timeand I'm thinking, Kevin,
if there was one thing I want people
to really sit with and ponder,
goes back to Isaac Newton.
Every action has a reaction
(29:20):
in your position as a boss.
Every actionyou take, every twitch of your eyebrow,
every little wincebecause you have indigestion,
has a reaction
because you're no longerjust managing yourself.
You're managing an organization.
Other people.
Do you know what that reaction is
(29:42):
and how will you find that out?
And trust me, everybody they're watching,
they are watchingand they're interpreting all of it.
Right? Good. Bad.
You're wrong.
A couple of other things.
Sabina,before we go, one is I'm really curious.
I like to
(30:02):
to help everyone.
And for me to, to learn a little bitmore about our guests.
And so I'm curious what you do for fun.
Well, I ran 20 miles yesterday, and,
you could call it a really twistedsense of fun, but I loved it.
I loved being in a little cocoon,listening to,
(30:22):
a thriller on my earbuds
and just running in this gorgeoussunny day with beautiful vistas.
I also love to cook, and, host people.
I'm an extrovert, so for me, fun.
And, even though running is a solitarypiece, I love connecting with people
and spending timein a variety of different ways.
(30:45):
So usually I've had the chanceto talk to my guests
for a minute or two before we start.
We didn't get the chance to do that today.
And I have a question.
The only questionI tell people I'm going to ask and,
I might notask you, except I'm looking behind you.
And so I'm confidentyou won't have a problem with the answer.
So are you ready?
Here it is.
I rarely ask this without telling peopleI'm going to.
(31:06):
So it's okayif you have to ponder for a second.
Bring it. On. Yes.
What are you reading these days?
I read, so I simultaneously
read 4 or 5 books at the same, time.
Right now my book club is reading Autumnby Ali Smith, and I've just started,
so I don't really havea lot of, comments on that.
(31:27):
I've also reading, Martyr by Akbar Covey.
And founder's Dilemmas,
which is about, startups and,
and some of the myths that we go into,
as we found companies
and the, the problemswith being overly optimistic, for example,
(31:48):
when you set up an organization,those are the three I'm reading right now.
We will have all of those in the shownotes.
Everybody along, of course, with Sabina,his book, You're the Boss,
become the Manageryou want to be and others need Sabina.
Where can you point people?
Where do you wantpeople to go to get the book,
to connect with you?
(32:09):
Like where would you like to point people?
Yeah.
The book you can you can go anywhere.
Books are sold.
Probably the best way to connectis through my website.
Sabina was.com.
You can sign up for my Substack there or,
message me if you've used downloaded
the tools that I'm giving awaywith the with the book.
(32:30):
And you use them.
Message me, tell me how it goes.
All right. Awesome.
So before we say our goodbyes, everybody
who's listening,I have a question for you.
It's a question I ask youevery single week, and it is simply this.
Now what?
Now that you've listenedfor the last 30 minutes or so,
what are you going to do with whatyou learned?
Taking in the information is goodlistening is wonderful.
(32:54):
Taking action iswhen differences will begin to occur.
So whether it's asking yourselfthose questions that you heard earlier
or whether it's thinking about delegationas a dialog, and how might you need
to change that dial, whatever it mightbe that you took from today?
The only way
this is of real value to youis if you take action on those things.
(33:16):
And if you're saying, Kevin,I got a bunch of stuff, great.
Pick one.
What are you going to do today or tomorrowwith what you got here?
Because it's thatthat will make a difference for you
to help you become the leaderyou want to be, and you were born to be.
So, Sabina, thank you for being here.
It was a pleasure to have you.
I'm glad we were able to make this happen.
(33:38):
Thank you so much, Kevin.
I've just youryour questions are $1 million worth it?
This is this is,
this is really, really important right nowfor people
to look in the mirror and examine
how they're leading at the timethat we find ourselves.
And so thank you for having me.You're so welcome, everybody.
If you enjoyed this,make sure you subscribe
(33:59):
so you don't miss next week's episode.
And if you enjoyed this,make sure you tell somebody else
so they can come and join us.
In the past looking at the archive.
But always next week
there'll be another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.
Thanks everybody.
Wherever you
sit as a leader, you have a bossand sometimes communicating with them,
given the power and positional difference,it can be hard.
And that's why I'm excited for you aboutthe conversation that is about to begin.
Welcome to another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast,
where we are helping leaders
(00:28):
grow personally and professionally to leadmore effectively and make a bigger,
positive difference for their team'sorganization and the world.
If you are listening to this podcastin the future, you could join us live.
When we do these on videoand with the chance for people to engage
and share with us and for youto get this information sooner.
(00:49):
So if you'd like to join usin the future, live, the best way to do
that is to join one of our, Facebook groupor our LinkedIn group.
You can go to remarkablepodcast.com/facebook
or remarkablepodcast.com/linkedin to do that.
Take your pick up to you.
Not the only places that we sharethe info, but it's a good place to start.
(01:11):
So today's episode is brought to youby my latest book, Flexible Leadership.
Navigate Uncertaintyand Lead with Confidence.
It's time to realize
that styles can get in our way,and that following our strengths might not
always be the best approach in a worldmore complex and uncertain than ever.
Leaders need a new perspective,a new set of tools
to create the great results their teams,organizations, and organizations need.
(01:35):
That'swhat flexible leadership provide you.
Learn more.
And order your copynow at remarkable podcast.com/flexible.
And with thatI'm going to introduce my guest.
You already see her there.
Sabina I'm going to ask youto pronounce your last name.
Since we didn't have a chance ahead oftime, I want to make sure I get it right.
No worries.
(01:55):
Oh that's good. That'show I had it in my head.
So, Sabina Nava Navas is our guest today.
She's a speaker.
Oops. Hold on a second.
I lost, I lost it.
There it is.
She is a speaker executive coachwho advises C-level executives and teams
at fortune500 corporations, government agencies,
(02:17):
nonprofits and academic institutions,
around the world.
She is also teaches facultyat Northeastern and Drexel universities.
During her 14 year tenure at Microsoft,she went from managing software
development teams to leading the company'sexecutive development and succession
planning efforts for over 11,000 managersand nearly a thousand
(02:39):
executives, advising both Steve Ballmerand Bill gates directly.
She has written for and been featuredin the Harvard Business Review,
Wall Street Journal, and Forbes,and now she has a brand new book out.
It's called You're the Boss, Become theManager You Want to Be and Others Need.
It's fabulous book,and I'm so happy that she's here with us.
(03:00):
Sabina, thanks for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me, Kevin.
I'm looking forward to this.
All right.
So, so let's just dive in.
And, you know,I gave a little bit of a of the storyline
of your career,but what sort of leads you specifically
to this book?
(03:21):
And then tell us a little bitabout why this book.
Well, I'll start with the personal reason
why this book and what led me to thisin terms of my journey.
It started with being a lousy manager.
Now I didn't start out that way.
Interestingly,when I was managing software teams
(03:44):
and in my early first years of managingMicrosoft management development,
people gave me feedbackthat I was the best boss they ever had
because I cared,I coached them, I nurtured their careers.
It was fantastic.
And then everything changed.
The dayI was coming back from parental leave,
putting on lipstickfor the first time in five months.
(04:05):
My assistant Laurie calls me going,where are you?
Steve expects you in 30 minutes.
Laurie starts reading me the memothat I'm supposed to discuss
with Steve Ballmer,the CEO of the company, as I hit warp
speed on my way to work the first dayafter parental leave.
And that sets the tone.
Kevin, that overflowing inbox,a jam packed calendar, an infant at home
(04:27):
that doesn't sleep.
So for me,no sleep, no peace, no patience.
I'm sureyou found yourself and the listeners
have found themselves in places like thiswhere overnight I morphed
from being caring and compassionateand nurturing
to short and snippy and
the worst part of this,because I'm thinking, you know,
(04:49):
we're dealing with high level executives.
I need to micromanage.
I need to be on top of every detail sothat I or my team don't look incompetent.
Who has time to explain things,let alone repeat things?
Just let's go.
We'll deal with empathy later.
We'll have time for itlater. Of course, we don't.
My fingers are always on the keyboardwhen someone comes
to talk to me, indicatingyou're less important than me.
(05:11):
I'm very, very busy.
Spit it out.
Move on and the worst part of all of this,Kevin, is I'm thinking I'm killing it.
I'm doing a really good job.
Look at how efficientI am, how many boxes I can check.
And then my
colleagueJoe comes into the office and says, do
you know that Zach is crying in his officebecause of something you said?
(05:34):
And my whole body turns hot with shame.
And that's when I realize,oh my gosh, what has happened?
I've gone from best bossever to somebody that people apparently
fear and don't want to work for.
So. So after telling us this story,
people are saying, wow,this is the person that wrote
this book called You're the Boss,the kind of manager we want to be.
(05:57):
But early in the book, you say somethingthat's a little bit, controversial or
or some might not agree, at leastnot until you unpack it a little bit.
So you say
there are no bad bosses.
Well,you just described yourself as being one.
So what do you mean by no bad bosses?
(06:18):
Yeah,
well, there area few controversial things in the book,
including me disagreeing with PresidentAbraham Lincoln.
Maybe we'll go into that later, but the
the notion is that it's not a binary.
First of all,you're not a good boss or a bad boss.
Both of those things residewithin the same person,
(06:38):
just like they did with me.
So it's not about being a bad boss.
It's about having bad behaviorsthat are forged under pressure.
Bad boss behaviors are not the sameas being a bad boss.
Yes, it does not define you.
See, this is where I.
My other point that I just brought upis that it is not power that corrupts.
(06:58):
It is pressure that corrupts pressurethat corrupts
who here is not under tremendousamounts of pressure these days.
And who here hasn't done something
at some point when under pressurethat they're not proud of?
Yeah, I think that's a
if we were in an actual room,it would be pretty quiet.
(07:20):
After you make that comment and yes,I truly agree
there's a difference between the behaviorand the behavior.
And that's clearlywhat we're talking about here.
And you just hinted at something.
One of the things that I really like,there's there's so much talk
about being authenticand about authenticity.
(07:41):
And in the book,
you talk about some mythsand the myth that I want us to talk about.
Listen, I don't know.
I'm not looking at it right now,but you're episode number 480,
some of this show,and I don't know how many times you talked
about authenticity and authentic behaviora lot.
You say something that's,I think, incredibly important.
(08:02):
And it's basedaround this idea of myth number four,
which is that authenticauthenticity is singular.
What do you mean? And why is that a myth?
Yeah. Back to something controversial.
I don't believe in a singularauthenticity.
You know, Kevin, I'msure you you've experienced this as well.
(08:25):
When I'm talking to a prospectivecoaching client, a CEO
and the CEO is receive, say, some feedbackthat they're hard on other people
and they come and say, you know,I don't want coaching to change who I am.
I've got to be me.
And and, so we have this conversation
that authenticity is never meantas a singular word.
(08:47):
Here's why.
Are you truly the exact same person as CEO
as you are as partner
at home, as you are, as parent
as you are, as best friendas you are to investors,
versus to your direct reportsversus to the entire organization.
(09:08):
Which of those is the true you?
And the answerwould be all of the above, right.
They're all true.
Now, there might be some basicthings that remain true regardless.
I think that when people
talk about those things,they're more about values
that are underneath all of this,rather than this word authenticity.
(09:31):
I mean, think about this.
This is, as HerminiaIbarra says from Insead.
I love her chapter on authenticityin her book where she says, you know,
if we were truly authentic to who we are,we'd still be a five year
old having a temper tantrum on the floorwhen we didn't get our way.
Authenticity can also
be a ruse for not actually wantingto grow and change.
(09:54):
You have to question, right?
I'm seeing your reaction, Kevin.
Yeah,
I mean, now we're now we're connecting itto how we frame our identity.
Right?
If if we say, well,this is the kind of yes,
that's my identity,then we then it does become a ruse.
So so go ahead. Continue.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
So just like if I call myself a good bossor a bad boss, it becomes my identity.
(10:17):
And it'sreally the behaviors underneath it.
It's the same with this.
Which of those thingsthat you have authentically
held true are now getting in your wayand need to be busted.
You need to bust out of those becauseit goes to another key point in my book,
which is getting promoted is oftenthe most dangerous time in your career,
(10:39):
most dangerous time in your careerwhen you're getting promoted. Why?
Because the very strengths that were quoteunquote authentic strengths
that have propelled you here are goingto be viewed very differently
from the next that are craning up nowto look at you there.
They will have a less charitable viewof your attention to detail
(10:59):
and call you a micromanager,or of your being strategic,
and call you manipulative,or you being calm and call you
lacking passion.
So you've got to look at the worldin a different way
every time you're going up the rung.
100%.
And, and everything that we can see
(11:21):
as a strength
can becomeand does become for us often a weakness.
And that's that whole point of, well,this once I framed myself
as this is who I am that causes
that's that's wonderfuluntil it's not right.
And and that's
exactly the thing that I was struckas I was reading your book or talking with
(11:42):
Sabina was, the author of the new book,You're the Boss.
I was struck,
Sabina, as I was reading it,about how many things connected
with my new book, Flexible Leadership,
even though really going in different,doing different things in many ways.
There are some great connections.
And so you talked aboutyou hinted at one of the big ideas
in the book, and that is that pressurecorrupts more than power.
(12:03):
But you do spend some time in the booktalking about power and the power gap.
You know, if we're the boss,
if we're the what I callcapital leader leader with the job title.
Then there's
there is a there is a positional powerdynamic.
Right.
So what would you say about power gapsbefore I want to get this,
(12:26):
I want to get to some stuffabout pressure.
But what would you say
to folks listening about power gaps,whether they're listening for themselves
or whether they're thinkingabout developing organizations.
Yeah.
So there's a natural gapas you get promoted into positions
of greater authority.
(12:46):
And some of that is healthy of course,because don't delude yourself.
You're no longerone of one of the guys, you're no longer
somebody just their friend.
You have different perks in your office
that alone separates you from others.
But power gaps, the idea beingwhen it's not useful
(13:06):
is that the higher the higherwe go, the less we end up knowing.
The lesswe end up knowing about the effect
our behavior is having, the impactour behavior is having on other people.
Just like me.
When I thought I was doing a great joband I was being really efficient
and actually the realitywas completely different.
(13:28):
Power.
It is a it's like a distorted volume knob.
Everything that we see from up
to down becomes louder, becomesharsher, and people perceive
it is directly targeting them.
When we toss off a casual hey,can we talk on Monday?
(13:51):
That ruined somebody's weekend? Yeah,
certainly the oh my word,what are they going to talk to me
about on Monday?
Right.
Do I, do I need to do I need to gointo the office on Sunday and and and
clearout the things I really like in there
because I'm going to be escortedout on Monday for sure
(14:12):
that recognizing the impactof that downward.
And by the way, here's the other thing.
You cannot believe fully everythingthat's coming up because that volume knob
gets distorted in the opposite directionwith everything
that's being said up is is muted.
It's way milder than whatthe person is experiencing.
(14:32):
So when someone says, yes boss,everything is fine.
What they truly mean is
I've started a secret group chatabout your management style.
So so you've got to be mindful of this gapthat gets created
when authority walks in the room.
And we and and we're blind to it.
Often.
(14:53):
Because we, we, we look in the mirror
every morning and we see the same personwe saw the day before.
But the minute that, we have a job
title attached to us,we're seeing differently by folks. Yes.
When that job title changes,we get seen more differently.
Again, it's.
Exactly, exactly, Kevin.
We haven't changed,but our position has changed.
(15:13):
Yeah.
And the expectations of us have changed.And we could. Yes.
And so there's awhole conversation there too.
So you talk in
the book, there'sso many things we could talk about.
I want to go right to the pressure piece,because I think you already said it.
And I think that, that might be thethe truly unique sort of approach
that you've taken in the book that maybeis sets this book apart from others.
(15:37):
Not not that you're the firstto acknowledge that we feel pressure.
Right.
But you've talked about it
in terms of how thosehow it falls out in terms of pitfalls.
And you say that there are threebig areas of those pitfalls.
And, I'm, I'mgoing to have us dive into each of them,
but just tell everybody whatthe pitfalls are first at a high level,
and then we'lldive into them a little bit.
(16:00):
Are you talking aboutthe the specific pressure pitfalls? The.
Yes. Pressure pitfalls, controlling,abdicating, automating.
I just did that.So let's just talk about each one.
Let's just go into.
So give us an overview of that.
So what you're saying iswe we do one or more of these things
when we feel under pressure.
You already talkedabout your pressure situation.
(16:22):
So when you talk about,
those pitfalls say a little bitmore about them and then we'll dive.
Yeah, there's, there'sseveral different pitfalls.
The one of the very
there are a couplethat are that come up over and over again.
One is the pitfall of our ownunmet hungers.
And what I mean by that is our innerdesires are very human inner desires
(16:47):
to be loved, to be universally beloved,
to be seenas the smartest person in the room to,
never age out, to,
or be relevant,to build dependency on ourselves,
to be seen as a hero or a martyr,
(17:08):
or a victim.
These are not necessarily noble desires.
They're self-serving,but they come packaged in our psychology
as human beings and just likewhen you go to the grocery store hungry
and you buy junk food, if you go to workhungry, you indulge in junk behaviors.
It's the pressuresyou're putting on yourself
(17:29):
because of these these hungers,these unmet hungers to do that,
a client I coach,
has a insatiable,
need to be adored by everybody.
And and they told me I'm. This is it.
I'm going to goread them the riot act about the budget.
(17:50):
It's got to be cut.
They're they're dragging their heels.
And, after
in the next session, I said,so how did that go?
Oh, we didn't really get to thatbecause we started talking about this
amazing presentationI did with these clients.
And of course,the team knows how to play you.
They started flattering this personand off they went from their main track.
(18:14):
So recognizing what are the unmet hungers
that can sidetrack you,that can take you off on junky parts.
And another really commonone is being a sole provider.
Sole as solid as an.
I am the only one who it's theI've got this mantra
(18:36):
and I could again do thisfor the best of intentions.
And some of it is great in moderation,as you said, Kevin.
So a sole provider, as a caretaker,you know, my team is under a lot of
pressure.
I'm going to just jump inand help them out, or I can get this done
faster than I can explain it to somebody,or I can do this better.
(18:59):
Or no one's ever said those things, ever.
You know, and here's the other thing.
Going backto this whole getting promoted thing.
One of the things,
those things that you just described,being able to do something better,
being able to do something faster,being able to, you know, to get a lot
accomplished are often how we got promotedand how we view ourselves.
(19:20):
And so why wouldwe want to let go of that stuff? Right.
So we end up being in thiscontrolling mode as a way
to try to deal with the pressure, right?
Yes, yes, yes.
And again,because the more we know the less the more
the more we grow, the less we know.
Nobody's telling you that.
So. So you you think you're doing great.
(19:41):
You're doing a great job.
Look, I just jumped in with my capeflying, and I rescued the team.
But how many?
Then you basically put yourselfin as a perpetual motion machine.
You're constantly having to rescue,and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Nobody can do it betterbecause you've never given them a chance
to learn and grow.
(20:01):
How could they possibly do it?
Because you keep doing it for them.
So I think everyone sort of seesthat sort of controlling stuff
and how those hungers can feed into that.
One of the things you talk about,some as well, is this idea
that often we dothe opposite of controlling, we abdicate.
So when you talk about abdicate, what doesthat look like for us as leaders?
(20:23):
And for those of you as you are listening,
don't just listen and say,oh, yeah, I know someone who did that.
I want
you to be holding up the mirroras Sabina says this,
because we all have done it, some of usmaybe way more than others.
But rather than saying,oh man, I know who needs to listen
to this conversation,make sure you're listening yourself.
(20:45):
So when you when you talk aboutabdicating here, what do you mean?
I will answer that question,but I have to.
I cannot help but comment on what you justsaid, Kevin, I have now had three people
tell me that they have anonymousdropped off a copy of the book
to their boss, and but these are peoplewho are managers as well.
(21:07):
And I said,have you read the book fully yourself?
So yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
We as.
Authors, we are happy forpeople to buy multiple books.
But I don't think either of you.
Guys are happy if you aren't.
Taking action yourself to it.
Yeah, right. Right.
And there are four questionsthat you can ask yourself to give yourself
(21:30):
a quick diagnostic.
We can get to that as to whether you needto look in the mirror yourself.
Abdicating thethe antidote to sole provider
is to delegate.
However,
almost 100% of my clients
make a cardinal mistake when delegating,
(21:51):
and so it doesn't work.
And then they go see they.
I delegated Sabina, but it didn't work.
And I'm like, yeah, not because of them.
That's a new problem rather than problem.
Yeah. You didn't really delegate. Yes.
So or you didn't delegate. Right.
The number one mistake people
make with delegation is treating itlike an on off switch.
(22:12):
That is, they abdicate all responsibility
until the Friday nightbefore the deadline, when the person,
the hapless person brings over whatevertheir best guess is of what you wanted.
And then you go, that's not what it is.
And then you swoop in
and there goes your weekend,there goes their blood pressure, etc.
so that delegation, quoteunquote, of here, you take it, Kevin,
(22:35):
I know you're great.
You're going to do a fantastic jobdelegating.
Meaning I don't have to do anythingwith it that is completely wrong.
What do I call dumping?
I'm just gonna dump it on them. Right now.
We're saying the same thing.
Exactly. Love your.
We're abdicating herebecause we're abdicating it, but.
Well, allowing ourselves to change.
Well, we can't let the whole thing fail.
(22:56):
So we then write back and put our cape onwhen we have to write.
Exactly, exactly.
And and that just causesmore harm than not.
And you're better offbeing the sole provider in those cases.
Instead,you got to treat delegation like a deal.
So you do itnot by not based on the capabilities,
the knowledge, the skills of the personwho you're delegating to.
(23:17):
And in all cases,you want to have checkpoints
if the task is important enough.
So you're not surprised on a Friday night.
And so that we can can be
coaching them to, to, to to.
Exactly.
Get what they're missing along the way.
Otherwise you're just dumping it on them.
(23:38):
They make that their highest prioritybecause the boss just gave it to them.
And then yes, when it doesn't go well,we as you said,
first thing you said was, well,I tried that, but it didn't work
well because to your point that you didn'treally do it well or correct.
Exactly. Exactly.
So you mentionedthose four diagnostic questions.
(23:59):
I would be remissas the host, you know, questions.
Well,there's right at the end of the book,
there's a set of 42 questions called 360yourself.
That is, get a, feedback for yourself,because not everybody
is going to give you direct feedback.
And here's a way to check
which power gaps or which pressurepitfalls you might be falling into.
(24:19):
Now, if you don't want to takeat the time. Yes.
That's it.
If you don't want to time to take the timeto do those 42, here's a few.
Number one, does anybody bring up
ideas or disagree with you,or are you the only one bringing up ideas?
Are you?
Secondly, are you the one who's
(24:41):
working the hardest, as in
coming upwith all the agendas for the meeting,
bringing in speakers,figuring out how person
should talk to person B, etc.?
I'll stick with three.
The third one.
Yeah, but
are you justifying your actions
(25:02):
that you know are badboss behaviors with a.
Yeah, but yeah, butthis is an especially busy time of year.
When is it not.
Yeah.
But they're not going to be ableto pay attention to X or Y.
So whenever you have a. Yeah.
But coming on likely you are you are
(25:24):
falling into one of these traps
and pitfallsthat you need to look in the mirror for.
I completely agree.
And those are,those are excellent questions that.
Yeah, but one I think will hit for mosteverybody.
And it gets at some of those hungersthat you mentioned earlier as well.
It's actually really important.
(25:44):
And it really
does connect back to that identity piecethat we talked about before.
Right. Well, yeah.But that's just the way I lead.
That's you have to understand,that's how that that the assessment
I took said these are my strengths.
And so you just take a yes.
Right.
And it's all of that is just a ruse to usethe word that you used earlier. Yes.
Yes for. Sure.
So there's plenty of stuff.
(26:08):
I mean, there's lots of great stuffin here about,
in the book about communication.
You have,you have a number of communication
fault lines that you talk about.
Let's just we've got time maybe to dowhat's one piece of advice
that you would give people listeningto help them be a better leadership
communicator or to avoid a pitfallthat many leaders. Yes.
(26:29):
Fall into?
Oh, it's very clear to me,Kevin, one thing.
Shut up.
And what I mean by that is, no.
We're pretty clear on what that means.
Everyone'spretty clear on what that means.
And you don't need them.You don't need to modify it.
You can just leave it right the way it is.
Awesome.
(26:50):
Right?
I mean, we all need to hear that.
And and.
There are some of us as leaders
who are more naturally extroverted,who may need to hear it more.
And yet, every leader I've ever observedand coached
needs to hear itsometimes, regardless of where they are.
(27:10):
On introversion extroversion, it'sadd to that comment on that.
Yes, myself included, myself included.
You know, I've written the book on it,but I, you know, because I'm
the more experiencedyou have, the harder it is to shut up.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Because we think we know.
(27:31):
We know.
And we and we do know.
And we are right a lot of the time.
But what is that doing to the peoplewho also want to climb up the ladder,
who might have ideaswhere we have blind spots,
who might have ways to enrichwhat we're saying?
And do you want to leave the meeting
feeling satisfied that you werethe smartest person in the room,
(27:55):
or do you want to leave the meeting?
Having other people believe
that they were really smartand they had an opportunity to shine?
If you want to continue to be overwhelmed,
have a packed calendarand no sleep and no peace.
Continue to be the smartest person in theroom and talk all the time.
(28:16):
Oh and oh, by theway, when you do all those things, you.
That's what you'll get.
But what you won't get is commitment. Yes.
You won't get the commitment of your team.
And so you wonderwhy you're not getting that.
And you might look at how much of the timeyou're spending talking.
None of the commitmentand all of the blame.
Because of course,it was all your idea in the first place.
(28:36):
But what?
And then the time you really do want help?
They're not going to.
And they're not going to answerbecause they want.
I figured this out. This is just a
they just listen to some podcast,get some training, read some. Yes.
Thank God I ask it because they'renot going to buy it because you've never
you've never cultivated that.
Is there anything I didn't ask
(28:57):
Sabina that you really wish I would have?
What a great question.
I spent all the timeand I'm thinking, Kevin,
if there was one thing I want people
to really sit with and ponder,
goes back to Isaac Newton.
Every action has a reaction
(29:20):
in your position as a boss.
Every actionyou take, every twitch of your eyebrow,
every little wincebecause you have indigestion,
has a reaction
because you're no longerjust managing yourself.
You're managing an organization.
Other people.
Do you know what that reaction is
(29:42):
and how will you find that out?
And trust me, everybody they're watching,
they are watchingand they're interpreting all of it.
Right? Good. Bad.
You're wrong.
A couple of other things.
Sabina,before we go, one is I'm really curious.
I like to
(30:02):
to help everyone.
And for me to, to learn a little bitmore about our guests.
And so I'm curious what you do for fun.
Well, I ran 20 miles yesterday, and,
you could call it a really twistedsense of fun, but I loved it.
I loved being in a little cocoon,listening to,
(30:22):
a thriller on my earbuds
and just running in this gorgeoussunny day with beautiful vistas.
I also love to cook, and, host people.
I'm an extrovert, so for me, fun.
And, even though running is a solitarypiece, I love connecting with people
and spending timein a variety of different ways.
(30:45):
So usually I've had the chanceto talk to my guests
for a minute or two before we start.
We didn't get the chance to do that today.
And I have a question.
The only questionI tell people I'm going to ask and,
I might notask you, except I'm looking behind you.
And so I'm confidentyou won't have a problem with the answer.
So are you ready?
Here it is.
I rarely ask this without telling peopleI'm going to.
(31:06):
So it's okayif you have to ponder for a second.
Bring it. On. Yes.
What are you reading these days?
I read, so I simultaneously
read 4 or 5 books at the same, time.
Right now my book club is reading Autumnby Ali Smith, and I've just started,
so I don't really havea lot of, comments on that.
(31:27):
I've also reading, Martyr by Akbar Covey.
And founder's Dilemmas,
which is about, startups and,
and some of the myths that we go into,
as we found companies
and the, the problemswith being overly optimistic, for example,
(31:48):
when you set up an organization,those are the three I'm reading right now.
We will have all of those in the shownotes.
Everybody along, of course, with Sabina,his book, You're the Boss,
become the Manageryou want to be and others need Sabina.
Where can you point people?
Where do you wantpeople to go to get the book,
to connect with you?
(32:09):
Like where would you like to point people?
Yeah.
The book you can you can go anywhere.
Books are sold.
Probably the best way to connectis through my website.
Sabina was.com.
You can sign up for my Substack there or,
message me if you've used downloaded
the tools that I'm giving awaywith the with the book.
(32:30):
And you use them.
Message me, tell me how it goes.
All right. Awesome.
So before we say our goodbyes, everybody
who's listening,I have a question for you.
It's a question I ask youevery single week, and it is simply this.
Now what?
Now that you've listenedfor the last 30 minutes or so,
what are you going to do with whatyou learned?
Taking in the information is goodlistening is wonderful.
(32:54):
Taking action iswhen differences will begin to occur.
So whether it's asking yourselfthose questions that you heard earlier
or whether it's thinking about delegationas a dialog, and how might you need
to change that dial, whatever it mightbe that you took from today?
The only way
this is of real value to youis if you take action on those things.
(33:16):
And if you're saying, Kevin,I got a bunch of stuff, great.
Pick one.
What are you going to do today or tomorrowwith what you got here?
Because it's thatthat will make a difference for you
to help you become the leaderyou want to be, and you were born to be.
So, Sabina, thank you for being here.
It was a pleasure to have you.
I'm glad we were able to make this happen.
(33:38):
Thank you so much, Kevin.
I've just youryour questions are $1 million worth it?
This is this is,
this is really, really important right nowfor people
to look in the mirror and examine
how they're leading at the timethat we find ourselves.
And so thank you for having me.You're so welcome, everybody.
If you enjoyed this,make sure you subscribe
(33:59):
so you don't miss next week's episode.
And if you enjoyed this,make sure you tell somebody else
so they can come and join us.
In the past looking at the archive.
But always next week
there'll be another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.
Thanks everybody.
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