February 15, 2025 • 62 mins
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In this episode:
Unlock the secrets to becoming a "Supercharged Leader" as we chat with leadership gurus Mandy Flint and Elizabeth Vinberg-Hearn.
Promising a unique take on leadership that veers away from traditional HR-driven methods, Mandy and Elizabeth enlighten us with strategies that synchronize personal leadership skills with business goals.
They draw from their rich experiences at American Express, illustrating how self-leadership is crucial for navigating today's fast-paced corporate world. Prepare to explore the six superchargers that could transform your leadership style and elevate your impact.
The conversation takes a deep dive into the qualities leaders need to thrive amidst rapid technological and global shifts. Mandy and Elizabeth discuss the mindset and skillsets that leaders must cultivate to tackle unforeseen challenges, especially those brought on by events like COVID-19.
They also touch upon the evolving role of AI and how leaders can harness collective intelligence to stay ahead. Expect to gain insights into balancing strategic thinking with daily operations and the role of trust in creating high-performing teams in a VUCA world.
For middle managers and leaders transitioning from individual contributor roles, this episode offers invaluable guidance on fostering trust and collaboration.
Learn how to effectively manage your emotional state to influence positive team dynamics and understand the ripple effect of self-leadership.
As AI continues to shape the business landscape, Mandy and Elizabeth stress the importance of continuous learning and adaptability.
Curious?
Listen now to discover how embracing humility and openness to new ideas can prepare you for the future challenges of leadership.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Leading People with me Gerry Marais.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is the podcast for leaders and HR decision
makers who want to bring out thebest in themselves and others.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Every other week I sit down with leading authors,
researchers and practitionersfor deep dive conversations
about the strategies, insightsand tools that drive personal
and organizational success.
And in between, I bring you onesimple thing short episodes
that deliver practical insights,and tips for immediate use.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Whether you're here for useful tools or thought
thought-provoking ideas, LeadingPeople is your guide to better
leadership.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
What does it take to be a supercharged leader?
What benefits does being asupercharged leader bring, and
do you know anyone who is asupercharged leader this week?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
leadership experts and best-selling authors Mandy
Flint and ElizabethVinberg-Hearn join leading
people to explore how greatleaders don't just lead others,
they lead themselves first.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
In this episode, you'll discover why
self-leadership is thefoundation of great leadership,
how to manage your energy andstate of mind for maximum impact
, and the small but powerfulchanges that can transform your
leadership effectiveness.
If you're ready to take yourleadership to the next level,
(01:42):
then this is the conversationfor you.
Elizabeth and Mandy, welcomeback to Leading People.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Yeah, good to be here .
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So you're back on the show because you recently
published yet another book.
I think it's your fourth, ifI'm not mistaken.
Yeah, and we'll get to the newbook in a minute.
But first, even though you wereon the show about two years ago
now I think it was we have lotsof new listeners since then, so
(02:17):
that everybody out there canget to know you a little bit.
How did you both get into theworld of leadership development?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
well, elizabeth and I uh worked together in american
express and we were really keenon leadership development there.
We both came from a leadershiprole, so I myself ran a division
and then went from that intothinking it's really, really
intriguing how stuff gets doneas well as what gets done.
So how do we help people andleaders and executives really
(02:49):
understand why it's so importantto focus on behaviors and think
about how they're doing stuffas well as what they're doing?
And we really enjoyed doingthat and got into it in a sort
of rhythm, with a way of lookingat it from a number of
different perspectives.
So we'd look at what'shappening in the world, what's
(03:09):
happening in the world,therefore, what's happening in
business, therefore what'shappening in leadership and that
got really interesting andhelping people with that.
We found some great results andthought, oh, why not?
Why don't we get into this inmore depth?
So moved out of runningdivisions and into helping
others do that.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
And I would say as well I'd add to that that we've
never been in HR, so we're notdoing leadership development as
an HR function, if you like.
So we're really coming at itfrom being leaders ourselves and
thinking about it, from how youlead people and business in a
very sort of both strategic andoperational way.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
And just taking your point then, before I get into my
other questions, what is thedifference that you notice
between the way you've come intothis versus maybe somebody
coming in from a more classictraining and learning and
development background?
Speaker 4 (04:07):
I think what you do is is you.
It's valuable to come from bothangles, but I think from the
being in a leader's seat, Ialways think of how practical
and how can I use this as aleader.
So if someone comes and talksto me, I think that's great, but
day to day, practically, how amI going to put this into
practice?
How am I going to make thiswork?
How does this sit and fitalongside the strategy for the
(04:30):
business, the vision, thedirection we're heading in, all
of those things that we thinkabout?
Putting it alongside that.
So sitting in the seat of thatleader constantly to think how's
it going to impact?
What difference is it going tomake?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
constantly to think how's it going to impact?
What's difference is it goingto make?
Okay, sort of looking from theinside almost, it's almost like
being insiders and coming at itfrom there, and, of course, in a
lot of organizations we workwith, that's obviously in in
line with and with support fromhr as well as relevant yeah,
okay.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
so for our listeners benefit, we're going to tap into
some of that as we go along, sostay tuned, everyone out there.
So the latest book is calledSupercharged Leader.
Supercharged Leader.
So what is Supercharged Leaderall about and who did you write
(05:22):
it for?
Speaker 3 (05:30):
all about and who did you write it for?
Well, it's about what's neededfor leaders to, to be good at,
and focused at, andsupercharging themselves with,
in order to really deal with anever-changing world that's just
continuously evolving andspinning, and a lot of leaders
are overwhelmed, so we werereally looking at what is it
that people need?
How do people charge themselves, tap into what they need to
(05:54):
continue to develop in order tobe able to deal with absolutely
anything?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
okay, and so why did you write?
Why did you write this book atthis moment in time, and what
are you trying to, or what isyour goal with the book?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
So right now, we're both kind of leadership and
cultural change strategists.
So what that means is lookingat the world and saying what's
going on in the world, what arethe future trends coming up?
What does that do to business?
Therefore, what does that do toleadership?
And with the speed of changeand transformation, increases
that the need for sharedleadership, for greater
leadership, for more collectiveintelligence, globalizations,
(06:32):
picking up speed, the whole,working from home, working from
the office, the remote versusthe need for psychological
safety, organizational purpose.
Why am I here?
Why am I doing this?
Ai and leadership, needing to beeven more people focused, even
in an AI world, is how do people, you know, if we think of all
(06:54):
of that, then how do we helpleaders get ready for that and
actually, with AI, get ready foranything, so they don't know
what the next thing could be.
So, for example, when COVIDcame around, it fundamentally
changed leadership.
So what does that mean in termsof it fundamentally changed
leadership.
So people felt, you know, I hadto suddenly learn how do I lead
(07:14):
virtually everything that I do,and there was various levels of
people already doing that, butthen people had to shift very
quickly and learn very quicklyand they weren't ready for that
and so't ready for that, and sobeing ready for anything.
So we don't know what the nextthing that could come up could
be.
Could be COVID.
What is it?
What is the next thing?
So how do we equip people withevergreen leadership skills they
(07:36):
need to be thinking about asthese current and future trends
drop into the world.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
OK, I think there's a lot of stuff there that I'm
going to hopefully cover withyou as we go through the next
half an hour or so.
I'm really curious, being asort of linguist in my early
career.
Where did the title come from?
Speaker 3 (08:03):
It was.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I mean, and you mean, the main title as in
supercharged yeah, like, like, Imean the word leader I kind of
get you know, but the otherbecause I think that's kind of
contextual there.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, no, we have a subtitle as well on it, and
that's why I just wanted todouble check okay.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Well, this is your moment, yeah, to do not just do
titles, but you do subtitles aswell.
This is your big moment.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
I mean supercharged.
What we really mean with thatis that you can't run on empty
as a leader in a fast-changingworld.
You have to continuously chargeyourself up and you need to be
supercharged.
You need to be able to find theright things to focus on in
order to be truly impactful andand therefore have almost
(08:47):
injected yourself sort of withthat energy.
Almost that comes from the, thenew skills or the mindset and
the skill sets that will helpyou do that.
So it's really saying it'salmost like you need to go plug
yourself into a new type ofleadership so it's easy, and
that and that that uh, that sub.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
You know that.
That subtitle is develop yourmindset and skill set to deal
with anything.
And when the publishers talkedto us about that, we said, gosh,
to deal with anything.
That's a big thing to say,isn't it?
And they said, yeah, but youare dealing them, you are
getting them ready to deal withanything, because you don't know
what's coming next and you'repreparing them to prepare
themselves to be ready for that.
So a leader I was talking torecently was saying I don't know
(09:32):
, the AI world is moving so fast.
And they were in the bankingtech industry and they were
saying the world's moving sofast.
I don't know how to help myteam because I don't know what's
coming next.
So what do I do with that?
And you know, well, I need toget them to.
I'm the leader, but I'm notsupposed to.
I can't possibly know that.
So how do I get the best frommy people and use the collective
(09:54):
intelligence in the team to dothat?
So what is it that I can bethinking about there?
So I think, although we saythat anything is the, is the is
the title, you know we mean.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Well, we mean anything and it's quite, it's
quite a big statement, I thinkyeah, okay, um, I'm looking at
my my sort of talking points andquestions here and I have ai is
a bit further down, so maybewe'll keep that one on the back
burner for a few minutes becauseI think we can certainly
explore that, because it'spretty much in the news at the
(10:28):
moment.
I'm not sure if the AI, maybeChatGPT, is writing all the news
stories.
I'm not sure about thatSelf-promotion, I'm not sure,
who knows.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
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Speaker 1 (11:19):
Let's get to this.
You have six superchargers, sotell us about how you identified
six, not five, not seven, andwhat sort of research did you do
to identify these and formulatethem.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
So our research that we've been going through is sort
of operates on two levels.
One of them is the work that wedo, and we work with
organizations all around theworld in our two separate
companies and at times wecollaborate as well.
But through the work that we'redoing, we're constantly
collecting data around what'sgoing on out there, what are
(11:53):
people doing, what challengesare they facing?
Are there any differencesbetween different industries and
differences between countries,and all of that.
And through that, as we startedto collect, I mean, we're also
obviously continuously ourselvesdoing research from other
sources and looking at are thereany recent data that's relevant
, that can sort of validate someof our own findings?
(12:18):
And that's really what we'vedone as we put this book
together.
So we basically put everythingon the table.
We said, okay, what are weseeing?
What's going on out there, whatare the trends in the world for
people, and also what are thechallenges that we can see the
leaders have?
And from that we started to seea pattern.
There were some key trends thatwere coming out and we then,
(12:43):
from that, started to say, okay,what are we actually seeing?
And we came up that is sort ofgot summarized into these six
superchargers and that the waythey come up in the book has a
certain order as well, becauseit's really talking about.
So the first supercharger isstrategy.
I'm not going to run throughthem all now, but uh, and it's
because strategy is almost likethe first step.
(13:05):
It has a natural order to saythat in order to do anything, we
first need to be strategic, sothat we know in what context and
for what purpose we're doingsomething, and then the other
ones sort of flow from there, sothey have a really nice flow
together.
And the idea is that once youstart to engage with your super
(13:25):
charges and really look look at,am I strategic enough, am I
inclusive enough, and so on, andyou start to really tap into
that in your own leadership,then they also feed each other.
So the more you do one thing,that starts to have a knock on
effect on the next one, and thenext one, and the next one.
So it's almost like it becomesa spinning wheel when all of
(13:47):
these sort of engage with oneanother, if that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
I think, mandy, you wanted to add something yeah and
I think I just added that wealso interviewed a number of
CEOs along the way, in part ofthe research, to find out what
they were thinking, to find outwhat they were thinking and it
came out with the strategyinclusion, connectivity,
collective intelligence beingneeding to use our collective
intelligence because we can'tpossibly all know it ourselves
(14:13):
or know it all, because theworld's moving too fast.
Another one of them is learning.
So there's a great chapter onlearning, because we almost have
to learn, to learn again, to bein a constant learning mindset.
And the last one is agility.
You know the ability to beagile, but you still need to be
able to stick to the strategyand the plan.
(14:33):
So, as Elizabeth says, theykind of link together.
But we also got some input froma number of CEOs on what they
were seeing as coming up and youknow, we also got them to
reflect back on where.
Where have we been and whereare we now and where do you
think we're heading?
And some of those, some ofthose things are, as we said at
the beginning, are evergreen.
So some of them you need toconstantly be looking at, but
(14:55):
you also need to be looking atthem if you are coming.
If you are going to be thinkingof what am I sticking my head
up and looking at what's on thehorizon and what we're finding,
when people are busy and busy,and busy, and busy, and busy and
busy, is that they tend to nottake that step back and step up
and look in that reflectivespace, that true reflective
(15:17):
executive reflection, to stepback to say where are we heading
?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
And and you know we do, we do have those
conversations frequently withpeople to say, well, if you're
not doing it, it's a bit scarybecause who's doing it as a
leader, so so, so you're kind ofum, introducing or pre-empting
some of the questions I havehere, and I know I have to make
a choice about which one I go tonext.
Um, because, elizabeth I thinkI'll come back to yours in a
(15:42):
minute, liz, elizabeth becausethis whole idea of it being a
system, which I think is whatyou were saying let's explore
that in a minute or twoSomething that you wrote you
sent me a little bit of apreview of the book and I went
through it and something thatyou wrote and it's actually, I
think, reflecting what you justsaid, mandy, towards the end
there, which grabbed myattention.
(16:04):
You, you kind of say leaders arejust so busy with the
day-to-day that they don't havetime for many important things
such as strategic thinking.
Now, if I put myself in theshoes of a leader listening to
this today, um, they might begoing.
How the hell am I going to findthis extra time when I, my
resources get more limited, mypeople are stretched, more
(16:26):
people want connectivity with me, which you're advocating in the
book.
And you know, actually, unlessyou give me eight days in the
week and add another 26, makethem 26 hours long.
I'm not sure.
I know I need to be doing thisright, but how am I going to do
it?
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Yeah, and that's such a fabulous question that's
asked over and over again by allthe people that Liz and I work
with how am I going to get timeto be strategic?
And it's it's seeing that kindof importance of it.
Why the big?
Why?
Why am I doing it?
I'm so busy.
I can't, I can't take time outto that and it's also how you
see it, so some people will seeit as right.
I'm going to sit down in acorner and sit on my own and be
(17:04):
really strategic in this cornerand I've got to reflect and I
don't really want to do that, Idon't want to spend time doing
that.
And it's got to be authenticfor you as a leader in the way
that you operate.
So what works best?
If being authentic, if beingstrategic means to you sitting
in a corner on your own thinking, then that's what you do.
If it means engaging withsomeone else and having some
(17:27):
dialogue and bouncing ideas,then it's that.
It's whatever it means for you.
But it's not saying that oh myGod, you've got to change it to
80% of your time is in thestrategic space and 20% of your
time is in the non-strategicspace.
It's saying just turn up thedial on the amount of time
you're doing it already.
So, whatever you're doingalready, turn the dial up and
don't see it as an extra thingto do.
Put it in as something that youwhat are you already doing that
(17:50):
you could be thinkingstrategically about, because
everybody always says I haven'tgot extra time to do it.
Well then, if it's extra time,don't make it extra time.
Put it in as what have Ialready got on my agenda and
already got in that I need to bejust spending some strategic
space in it's, taking thosethings, the steps, rather than a
massive leap.
And some people may need totake a big leap, because some of
the leaders we work with andsome of the CEOs will say if
(18:12):
you're not thinking about it,then who is?
Who is spending that time?
Your people need you to bespending time in that space.
So it's not for you, it's forthose people.
Think about how much they wouldlike you to be doing it, how
much value they would say you'regoing to add to me if you do it
.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah, and what I would add to that is it's
intended to save you time.
So it's the whole idea ofinstead of just running around
being busy, busy, busy, it's aquestion of taking a step back
and being strategic and reallythinking about the strategy, of
what needs to happen next, whatdirection you're going in, being
(18:53):
strategic about your leadershipas well, and, rather than sort
of trying to be everywhere foreveryone, be really strategic
and think about what's going onnow, what's needed for you know
what's the direction we're goingin and therefore, what's needed
right now.
It's shaping that sort ofcarving out the time at regular
(19:14):
intervals to be able to havethat kind of conversation with
yourself, or indeed, as Mandysays, together with other people
.
Wherever you do your beststrategic reflection.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
So I'm going to a little bit bounce spontaneously
listening to what you're bothsaying there.
One of the things that strikesme because you mentioned it
quite a bit at the early stageabout this kind of VUCA world
there's the whole AI thing,there's been the pandemic a few
years ago and all of this wouldadd up to one of the yeah, one
(19:52):
of the you, the you and vuka,the uncertainty thing.
But the brain doesn't like anyof vuka.
It kind of it'll set off thatsort of fight or flight response
.
And I'm just wondering and you,I'd like you to comment on this
with the virtual hybrid modelthat has emerged and all this
(20:12):
stuff which is kind of probablycreating a high alert status in
people's mind, how many leadersare actually going back to
worrying about?
Are people doing what I wantthem to do and over-controlling
situations, because it's notbecause it's a cognitive thing,
(20:32):
it's because they're inneurology is saying, oh, you
need to check.
Just, you never know what'sgoing to happen, and so they're
spending more time in theseoperational spaces than they may
need to.
Like you probably say to theguys you don't need to do all of
that stuff, you could step back.
And how much of this are youseeing where, since the pandemic
, the people aren't visibleanymore in the office?
(20:54):
In a lot of offices I knowthere's a big drive at this
moment in time to get morepeople back to offices.
What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
There's I mean there's there's so much to say
about that.
A their leaders are obviouslyneeding to trust people and to
some degree, that's part of whatthis book is all about.
How do you really connect withyour people and with team and
help people see the overallpicture so that you can also
(21:25):
start to trust people, becauseyou have to be able to trust
people in order for everythingto work.
But it's not just a question ofsay, okay, and now I'm going to
trust everyone.
There is a process to that.
Of course.
It's actually something thatyou, with your leadership, can
do.
But through your leadership aswell and this is something we
talk about in the book you needto communicate with people in
(21:48):
such a way that they are notfearful or overwhelmed, which
can be a challenge.
But there's a lot we can dothere.
Do with that by understandinghow the brain works and how we
don't sort of throw people intofight or flight mode, but
actually allow them to to haveaccess to the brain chemicals
that will allow them to do bothcritical and creative thinking,
(22:11):
and that's a big part of thekind of leadership that's in the
supercharged leader.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
And I would add there also what happens sometimes.
As you said, it happens a lotwhen people can't see people.
And you know what are you doing?
Are you doing the thing?
So you do get a lot of leaderswho will move more towards the
controlling element of that, andyou know.
So trust is a thing and youknow letting go and saying you
know what if you?
(22:37):
Because what happens if youcontrol that?
And we work with many leaderssaying, if you're controlling
that, what you're doing isyou're, you are taking away that
person's ability to learn andgrow because you're doing it for
them or you're doing it so, sohow?
So if you think of it like thatas a leader, think what value
am I adding?
At this point, over-controllingisn't adding a lot of value.
(22:58):
So you know, so let go.
And we're seeing more and morepeople learning to do that.
But also you know, I think morepeople after the pandemic are
having to learn to be a greatleader.
Self-leadership is a huge partof that.
So your impact and the effectthat you have minute by minute,
day by day, second by second, ismore important, even more
(23:19):
important than it has beenbefore.
So that whole ripple effect,what are you creating, what
impact does that have on thefuture?
You play a huge part in thatand so you can set the tone, set
the culture by notover-controlling.
And what does that create andwhat does that give and how much
(23:39):
do people learn and grow withthat and what's the part that
you play and how much value areyou adding Okay, I'm going to
come to you in a minute,elizabeth.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Um, uh, you're giving me so much rich stuff here that
, uh, now that I have two peopleto work with on this, I, I, I
because most one of the reasonsI do this is and this is no
secret is I.
My guests are so brilliant.
They feed me lots of greatthings I can bounce off.
You're listening to LeadingPeople with me, gerry Murray.
(24:15):
My guests this week areleadership experts Elizabeth
Vinberg-Hearn and Mandy Flint.
Coming up next, mandy andElizabeth share how to recognize
when your leadership energy islow, why trust is the fuel for
high-performing teams and themindset shifts that separate
good leaders from truly greatones.
(24:37):
We also explore how leaders areresponding to AI, and Mandy and
Elizabeth have a special offerfor you.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
So let's get back to our conversation.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Self-leadership that's one of the kind of
qualifiers for this podcast ishow can you bring out the best
in yourself and others?
So leading people is not aboutleading everybody else, it's,
first and foremost, how can youbring out the best yourself.
So what would you say toleaders out there?
Because if they can't get theirown stuff sorted I was going to
(25:14):
use a technical term, but theycan't get their own shit sorted
how are they going to sort outthe shit of other people and the
business and everything else?
So what sorts of things are youteaching them or advising them
to do to get that their ownhouse in order?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
well, it's actually taking time and and reflecting
on and saying it starts with me.
It's not just what I do when Ishow up, it's how I show up, who
I am, what kind of impact I'mhaving with others.
So in order to lead effectively, I need to to lead myself
effectively.
So some of the things that wedo there, there's a lot, and
we've spent a lot of time in theself-leadership space to really
(25:51):
help equip people that way.
But it's really daring to lookat ourselves and say what am I
best at?
What am I struggling with?
How do I?
For example, it can be as simpleas imagine you're having a
meeting and you're gettingreally frustrated because you're
in a meeting with someone thatyou you just it was a bit of a
(26:12):
conflict and you go out of thatmeeting and it can be online or
it can be in in person and thenyou go straight into the next
meeting and if you don'tunderstand what that first
frustration has brought into howyou're feeling, you're going to
walk right into the nextmeeting with that bristling,
with that frustration, and youmay not think that anyone else
is picking that up, but there'sgoing to be a ripple effect to
(26:35):
to the next meeting, so it's awhole you went, you're going to
contaminate the next exactlyyeah, it's a good way of
describing it um, this conceptof states, um, states are
contagious?
Speaker 1 (26:49):
yes, definitely.
It's the first thing.
If I'm working with somebody ina coaching capacity who isn't,
let's say, managing their statewell enough in terms of what's
the appropriate state for thatcontext.
Um, one of the first things wework on is um, you, you, your
state is going to affect thepeople around you, particularly
(27:12):
if you're going to report withthem, because they pick up it's
energy essentially at the end ofthe day.
So they're going to pick up onyour vibe.
Whether you're in a positivestate, you know, positive mood,
whatever you want to call it oryou come in negative, it's going
to affect everybody else aroundyou.
And some ladies lack theself-awareness they say how
going to affect everybody elsearound you.
And some leaders are lack theself-awareness.
They say how come I just wentinto that media, came out that
(27:32):
terrible meeting, going to thisother meeting.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
It's just as bad because you took it you took it
from one to the next and and Ithink that it makes me think
really much about you know howleaders prepare for those things
, like the state management, butrather than people, leaders
prepare a lot for what do I needto do in this meeting, rather
than how do I need to be in thismeeting, spend so much time in
(27:54):
that, yeah, that I couldprobably do that standing on
their head.
It's the to be bit, that's theyou know.
So if I and I'll say to some ofthem are really in a hurry,
I'll say, look, even if you justtake a breath between one
meeting to the next, and to youthat seems like if someone, if
someone's really fast moving,you can hardly say to them stop,
think about it for a minute.
It's like, just take a breath,that'll, that'll do.
Just do that to give you chanceto move to the right state.
(28:16):
Because how do these peopleneed you to be and how do you
need to be?
And I think that's such asimple thing.
You know, how do you need to be, not what you need to do and
the interesting thing linking tothat is that it's almost like
at every.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Every time you have an interaction with someone and
it's a negative one, and this istrue in any kind of
constellations.
But it can be particularlyrelevant to look at from a team
perspective.
It's almost like a bank accountthat you have together and if
you had a negative experiencewith someone, you need to have
three and a half positiveexperiences to make up for the
negative one, which means thatif you don't know how many of
(28:51):
these negative ones you youcreate, it might be a really
long way back to to get back tosome kind of a good balance.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
That's another reason why self-leadership is so
important yeah and yeah, andthat ripple effect you said, you
know, like leading yourself,self-leadership is really at the
core of all of it, which is,you know, as you say, part of
your podcast, but the leadingself, you know, one of the
things we talk about in the bookis that it starts with leading
yourself, then it's aboutleading your people, then it's
(29:20):
leading the business, then it'sleading the teams within that,
then it's leading thetransformation and fast-paced
change that comes with that andleading the culture.
So they all link together andif you do a route map on that,
it all comes back to oh, wheredoes it start?
It starts with me.
So it's that really, once youget that, once people get that,
they really can fly, becausethey get the fact that this
(29:44):
ripple effect is starting withme and it's coming back to me,
and you'll create that culture,whether you're paying attention
to it or not.
And I think that's, um, that'swhat we talk a lot about as well
.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
we talk about the cultural effect, okay so, um,
I'm going to take a lot of thatnow, what you said and I'm going
to.
I mean, I, I like you, I, Ilike to read a lot and have an
extensive book collection overhere.
What about middle managers inall of this?
(30:16):
Some of the most recent stuffthat's come out from McKinsey
and from Gallup about?
You know, the downsizingmovement?
Remember the re-engineeringmovement way back 25 years or so
ago?
Speaker 4 (30:30):
um, we do we do.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
You might have been re-engineered as part of it, and
and the all the craze in the90s around that.
And then, um, there was thisidea that well, we don't need
middle managers.
I mean, organizations can beflattened, and mckinsey, the
book that they wrote it's themore recent of the two um,
they're really pushing this ideathat middle managers have a
(30:56):
real important role intranslating and and and you go
back to overwhelm and an awfullot of middle managers feel like
the, the cream and the cake.
They're're getting squeezed,just going everywhere and
they're trying to keep all thesepeople happy and they're trying
to, you know, defend the cause.
You know the stand up for whatthe organization stands for, but
(31:18):
they feel that they're notgetting the support.
What have you been discoveringas you, because you're probably
working with some of thesemiddle managers who are
transitioning to what they tendto call senior leadership roles
what are you learning frommeeting those people and what
can you say to those people outthere listening to this podcast?
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Well, of course, we see leaders at all levels and
the middle managers.
They are indeed, as Mackenziesaid, very, very important, and
all the things that we talkabout in the book is just as
important for them as for anyoneelse, you know, and because
it's got to do with careerprogression, of course, but also
(32:00):
because, ultimately, thegreatest impact on employees is
from the immediate leader.
Employees is from the immediateleader.
So, for that reason, leadersthat are somewhere in the middle
there need to become reallygood at managing expectations in
all directions, because I thinkoften the problem for middle
(32:20):
managers is that, as you say,they feel squeezed from both
ends, and one of the reasons forthat is also that there are
often very mixed expectationsfrom different directions within
an organization.
So leaders, by becoming moreeffective self-leaders as well,
be able to understand andquestion and clarify what the
(32:42):
expectations are, so that theycan start to manage expectations
more effectively.
And this is quite a big topic.
We could probably expand a lotmore on that, but all the whole
ideas of creating the kind ofmindset and skill set that you
need to be able to deal withanything is something that can
very much strengthen this middlelayer as well.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
And this middle layer .
I think what happens there isthat they have they're a part of
many teams and I think thatbecomes, you know that matrixing
of teams whether that's theright word or not, I don't know,
but you're a part of many teamsand in that middle they then
have a sort of transportableteam skillset that they have to
(33:27):
take from team to team.
And what we say to them is justreally think about what's your
role in this team?
I don't mean your job, I meanwhat's your role in this team,
in this particular team thatyou're operating in at the
moment, so in this particularteam that you're functioning, in
this particular team thatyou're a part of right now, and
how are you leading that, whatpart are you playing in that and
(33:50):
what part could you play andwhat part could you play that
would help support or add valueto that.
And I think the other thing thatwe're seeing a lot of now and
we're doing a lot of work on isigniting that peer-to-peer
interaction, because there's alot more in that middle
(34:12):
management phase of the morepeople open up to the
peer-to-peer part of that, themore they learn, the more they
develop, the more they grow,because they start to think in
the middle layer.
They tend to think, oh, I'mgonna lead up, I'm gonna lead my
boss, I'm gonna manage my bossand I'm gonna lead my people.
They don't necessarily thinkabout that that group in the
middle themselves, as a reallygood set of learning from their
(34:32):
peers and developing with theirpeers and that becoming so
fundamental in that middlemanagement layer and support as
well.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
I would say they have , can have support from each
other if they truly look at eachother as as that strong force
that they can actually maketheir own situation more
enjoyable, even.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
You mentioned transportable skill set and I
have a question here relating tothe way you present the six
superchargers again as a systemand what some of the, the key
skills that underpin the, theconcepts and mindsets that
you're talking, the six mindsetsor concepts, uh and I'm
(35:16):
thinking about this idea of redthread, you know fil rouge skill
sets, that sort of transversalskill sets what are some of this
, that, those fundamental skillsthat you?
You say well, regardless ofwhere you are on the six
dimensions, you really need tohave these.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
One of the key ones and I think a lot of it starts
from there is the ability to seethe bigger picture and to see
the interconnection.
So that whole idea of reallybeing able to understand the
bigger picture and to see theinterconnection, so that whole
idea of really being able tounderstand the systems that you
operate within.
It's so easy to become verysort of tunnel visioned and
saying I'm focusing on this, myteam and we're doing this, and
(36:01):
it becomes a bit like thisYou're really just looking
straight ahead and theimportance of understanding what
piece are we in the biggerjigsaw when we do something here
, what happens here, the wholeidea of really starting to think
about the knock-on effect andagain how things, just really
everything we do matters, andsometimes that can almost feel
(36:23):
overwhelming, but actuallythat's also a promise of how
great things can be, because themore we understand that and the
more we start to explore whatare the connections that we have
with other groups and otherareas or the outside world,
because with that that gives youa better understanding and also
(36:44):
therefore more strengths totake on anything really that
comes your way.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Yeah, the challenge also with the big picture is, as
you create a bigger picture itdoes become overwhelming because
it becomes more vague and more.
There's less specificity in abig picture than when you're
looking at it from a distance,and so people have to understand
where their their boundariesare, on how far they can know
those edges of where their bigpicture is, and so my big
(37:13):
picture might be somebody else'sdetail, like if I'm head of
finance, my big picture might bethe ceo's specificity in this
right and I'm, you know.
So it's understanding theboundaries of big pictures.
And actually I think personallyand this is just my personal
view, and the poor man is dead,I mean a lot of people didn't
(37:33):
like him, but uh, he did do somegreat things.
Steve jobs, I think, had one ofthe most amazing abilities to
go from big picture, put a dentin the universe, down to fussing
about a little piece of plasticthat sat on a, on a wire, on a
on a, you know, on a headheadset thing, and said he sent
it back, I think 35 or 40 times.
(37:55):
He said it just isn't rightthat.
You know, that's a quite animpressive, impressive skill set
to be able to go, when it'sappropriate, really big yeah and
big often inspires becausepeople can find their place in
big and then being able to goright down and say but I'm still
looking at the specificities ofwhat makes the system work.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Yeah, and I think with that you know to be able to
do that, that thinking go up,you know, go big picture, go to
detail.
And I think you know, in doingthat, sometimes that's really
obvious to the person who'sdoing that, but it's not so
obvious to everyone around.
So I think, being you know wehave to work with leaders to say
, be more intentional abouthelping other people.
(38:39):
See some of the steps that youmade between that massive big
picture and that you know thatlittle piece of detail and join
the dots, add the red thread,get, help people connect those
dots and make the links, cause Ithink that's another thing that
people can get it again, it'llbe different for different
people in the way that they doit, but make the links and
connections for people becauseit's so obvious to you and when
(39:01):
you have a natural beautifulstrength that you do yourself,
it's so obvious you don't knowhow you do it.
So sometimes you know, I know, Ihave in my head that if I, if
I'm screaming in my head oh, mygod, that's so obvious um, then
I have to say to myself hang ona second, is that a screaming
strength that you've got, thatthey haven't necessarily got?
So now, how do you articulatethat to build the connection for
(39:23):
them, because they may not beable to see that massive big
picture and then right, let'sjump from there to there, but
actually take them along thatpath.
So I think we often do that bynot necessarily acknowledging
our own strengths to do that.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
I just want you remind me of.
I've been involved in a highpotential program with an
organization since 2007.
So we're taking people who aresuccessful individual
contributors, who are now goingto be, and one of the things
they really struggle with isthat they're rewarded for being
systematic and very focused andvery much in their frame of
(39:58):
reference and they they've cometo this, they've rose in sort of
, let's say they've come toprominence as being good at
their job.
Yeah, and some of them kind of,I've noticed can adjust to the
big picture.
A lot of them find it reallydifficult because their world
has been defined by somebodyelse is doing big picture.
(40:18):
They tell me where I fit in.
I just do my job, and so what'syour experience of of loosening
that up for people?
Because it is so fundamental,because if you can't, it's not
just about being able to see thebig picture, it's about being
able to tolerate and work within, yeah, the all the, because
that's VUCA.
You know VUCA is the kind ofindeed, let's say, downside of
(40:41):
the big picture, but it is aworld that you start to have to
inhabit, where things are notclear anymore, some things are
not certain.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
You know lots of ambiguity and it takes a reset,
almost you have to rethinkeverything that you knew about
the world.
But you could put it as wellnot not quite as big as that,
maybe, but one of the thechallenges that a lot of people
experience as they progressthrough their career and they go
into more senior roles is thatthey tend to often fall back to
(41:11):
habits of their previous rolesbecause they are comfortable
there.
They've done that a lot of timeand therefore it almost goes.
It's almost a little bit likean autopilot and anything that's
different to that.
Whether that, then, is reallylooking at an unpredictable
world with curiosity and joy maynot be the most obvious thing
(41:34):
to do, so it takes specificfocus and action to get to there
.
Amanda, you want to add to that?
Speaker 4 (41:41):
Yeah, I was just going to say I think it takes
one of my favorite chapters inthe book, if I'm allowed to.
It's a bit like children you'renot allowed to have a favorite
chapter.
But I've got one Learning andit's about the learning.
You know your ability to learnand to continue to learn and you
know having creating a cultureof learning, but I mean letting
(42:01):
people not the whole, let peoplefail.
I mean really creating aculture where you're learning.
You have a mindset, people arecurious, you have your curiosity
, there's a drive to learn, butit also means it starts with us
and I think sometimes peopleit's like that how coachable are
you?
So sometimes, when people getto a certain level, people think
they're not coachable, althoughthey are coachable, but because
(42:23):
they kind of normally do havethe answer and they know the
answer.
So people think, oh, they'renot, really are they?
Can you coach them or are theycoachable?
That whole coachability thing,not because that's their
intention, but because they justdo know.
By that point they know.
So it's taking that and reallyyou know how coachable are you
and do you need to learn tolearn again or show people that
(42:45):
you can learn again and shareyour wisdom with people and have
those kind of constantconversations.
So, elizabeth and I in the bookwe're on a campaign whether
it's just the two of us or not,I don't know to stop the word
feedback.
We want to change the wordfeedback and just call it
constant conversations.
Now why do we need to havefeedback?
(43:05):
It's like we should just behaving these conversations all
the time.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
It's not just about you know, when you get to an
appraisal time or something,it's actually having the
conversation as we go along andthat's part of learning there's
also almost a trap in being anexpert, and I think you the more
senior you become, the more youoften become known for being an
expert in a field you're veryexperienced.
(43:29):
So people sort of turn to youand, even if it's not
intentional, a lot of leadersthen think, therefore, I should
be able to just do this now.
So it's.
It's actually also part ofbeing a supercharged leader is
to be so strong that you dare tobe humble and say okay, I I'm
(43:50):
very happy to listen to whatyou've got to say.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
I don't have all the answers and that's okay, but
that might go against what youactually really are used to if
that makes sense, there was asort of question formulating in
my head and you kept feeding it,so I'm going to ask it um, how
do you deal with the situations?
Because you talk a lot hereabout the learning and the
(44:15):
failure and various otheraspects of that.
We talk about trust and that,but in some leadership teams
there's a lot of posturing goingon and a lot of I don't want to
look weak in with my peers,because you mentioned peers
earlier in that.
Um, and one of the things I'malways curious about with
(44:36):
whether it's a senior team orany type of team is I spend the
first 90 minutes doing some verylight stuff because they think
I'm just doing these kind oficebreakers.
I'm actually trying to measurethe psychological safety aspect
in the room, see who actually iscomfortable being themselves,
volunteering information withoutchecking and looking, who's
(45:00):
posturing, who's trying to getone up on somebody else, et
cetera.
And the reason I ask thequestion is because you know I
was chatting to somebody fromgreat places to work recently
and that'll be another podcastepisode and you mentioned it
yourselves earlier.
Trust is fundamental andwalking the talk, you know this
(45:20):
is what people are looking forfrom their leaders, but if they
can't sort that out at their ownlevel.
And the Japanese phrase thefish rots from the head.
How do you get that messageacross to people that you know
they've got to lighten up andloosen up themselves amongst
themselves, right?
Speaker 3 (45:46):
To be able to be vulnerable, to be humble,
whatever it is you want them tobe.
That's a whole podcast initself.
It's almost like where do westart with our one.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
It's obviously.
You know those little, thedutch call them happiest.
You know the aperitif, you knowthe little little, uh, finger
food.
You get the amuse girl, thefrench call.
You know, give us the thatversion of it.
What would be a couple ofthings that that you've?
You've noticed that kind ofhelp.
The leaders feel morecomfortable with each other and
they don't have to be the bestin the room would be a couple of
things that that you've?
You've noticed that kind ofhelp.
The leaders feel morecomfortable with each other and
they don't have to be the bestin the room again it happens.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
It's a question of them actually getting together
and knowing each other andbecoming very clear about how do
we, how do we lead together?
Um, as in how do we?
We're not just responsible forour division or our area, our
space, but ultimately, as aleadership team, we're all
(46:36):
ultimately responsible for whathappens to the business.
So it's a question of startingto talk about it, helping them
to think about their reflectionas a team and yeah and and there
I think, helping them with thatreally knowing each and
diversity being beyond what weknow today.
Speaker 4 (47:10):
But it's about difference in style, difference
in not just about what weunderstand diversity to be today
, but in the future it's goingto be about style differences.
So, you know, really usingstrengths and differences in a
way in a team that works, and ifI know that you're really good
at that and I can rely on that,then how can I you know I might
(47:30):
not have that how can we do thattogether?
So, getting that feeling ofthat and having some fun in a
team, I think that's reallyimportant.
We spend so much time in teams,yet the simple thing is we
don't have, are we allowed tohave fun?
Can we have fun?
How do we have fun?
It's not like we have to havefun at four o'clock this
afternoon, it's it's.
How do we build that into ourway of being as a team and
(47:53):
sharing with each other andbeing open, um and and do
something so we don't think allthink alike, we haven't got
group think going on, because ifyou've got people who are
saying in a team where it's alittle bit, why can I say that
can't?
I say that it's normallybecause people are.
You know, there could be somedifferences, or it could be that
everyone's just doing a wholegroup think and we're all
thinking the same and actuallywho's doing the different
(48:14):
thinking.
So you know how do you bringthat into it and making sure
that you're you're celebratingthings it occurred to me that in
Sweden, at four o'clock in theafternoon they have fika, don't
they?
Speaker 1 (48:25):
and then you all have fun yeah, it's actually a
requirement we need more fika inour um in our leadership
program so it's hey guys, weneed to stop now.
We need to go have the cake andcoffee and the tea and stuff.
It's beneficial for everyone sothe last big topic which we had
at the beginning and everybody'sbeen waiting and waiting to get
(48:46):
to this topic which we touchedon and we're coming back to.
There's a lot of hype out thereabout AI, and I mean to the
point where it's actually quiteoverwhelming the type of hype
and now it used to be like didyou see the match on Saturday?
Now it's like have you usedChatGPT?
Yet you know you had a cocktailparty or whatever.
(49:06):
Are you using it?
How do you find it?
You know you're the cocktailparty or whatever.
Are you using it?
How, how do you find it, youknow?
So what's your take on ai andits impact on how organizations
will be led in the future?
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Well, we're all on a learning journey when it comes
to AI and when it comes toleadership.
It's also a question ofthinking about being strategic
about AI and thinking about whatis really AI, what does it mean
for us, what does it mean forour people and therefore, how do
we create an ethical, healthyAI that actually is useful for
(49:46):
everyone and where we can reallyalso use the collective
intelligence with the machineintelligence and the human
intelligence?
So it's really for leaders tobecome really clued up and not
just we're using chat GBT it'smuch bigger than that.
So it becomes, because I knowthat sometimes some of the
practical things are easier toget into, but as leaders, it's
(50:09):
really important to have leadersat all levels understand the
whole opportunity and some ofthe challenges with ai.
So it needs to be anintentional learning journey for
everyone within theorganization, but it really
starts with the leaders you usethe term clued up.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Um, how clued up are the leaders that you're meeting?
I mean it's it's.
The challenge with all theseterms is that people throw them
around and they form a referencepoint even without even trying
them out.
And you know chat, gpt I use itbecause it's the kind of
topical one.
We know that there's a lot morein a ai enabled tools out there
(50:50):
.
Even they've been there forquite some years behind the
scenes doing lots of littleautomations and things like that
.
But how, how clued up are ourpeople at the moment?
Speaker 4 (51:01):
well, I think people are clued up as they can be at
the point.
They're aware, and that's why Ithink the learning thing comes
in, because you know.
Again, talking to so manyleaders saying I'm actually
really afraid of this, I don'tknow how it's going to go, I
don't know what's going tohappen next to the business, I
don't know and I'm quite fearful, but I don't I said it earlier,
I don't know how to lead myteam through that.
(51:21):
And it's like you need to getback to some of the points we
talked about.
You've got to use thecollective intelligence because
you can't do it on your own.
You can still lead withoutknowing the answer, and I think
that's the fearful thing forleaders is I don't know the
answer to this and none of usknow the answer.
Who knows where it's going togo?
But being okay with that, beingokay that you don't know where
(51:42):
it's going to go and you don'tknow how it might come out and
you don't know what that mightplay, but you do know that there
will always be a humaninteraction part at some point
around it and therefore you'llbe needed to make that
connection at some point.
So you can do that and I thinkwhat it does is.
It does affect, like personaland team self-esteem.
(52:03):
So you have to go to you knowour self-esteem's eroding
because we don't know.
We're feeling uncomfortable andnot confident about this.
So how do we rebuild our ownself and team self-esteem to?
To build to say it's okay thatwe don't know this answer?
Let's just we've all got tolearn to work with this and I
think that's where that's whereit's a real, can be a real
(52:24):
challenge for leaders to notknow that you know you've
disappointed me now, mandy,because I thought I found the
answer last night.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Tell us it was 42, like it always has been.
You know, no, I mean it is true.
And look at I I suppose, theother challenges out there is.
You know, I listen to a lot ofstuff around AI, in the world of
HR and the world of HR tech andthat, and sometimes I go and
come away from it thinking, ohmy God, when it's almost like
(52:55):
trying to cross the autobahn inGermany or the motorway, like
it's kind of going, how am Igoing to get across this street?
And sometimes I I try and usethis zooming out thing which is
to go.
You know, when you think of it,um, whilst it's happening and
it's got, it's almost got itsown legs, because that's kind of
the worrying part about whathow many legs will it have?
(53:18):
And it it's, it's sort of anexponential impact in some
sectors.
There's also the other businessside to this, which is it's
it's sort of an exponentialimpact in some sectors.
There's also the other businessside to this, which is it's
potentially very risky on manylevels.
It's going to require hugeinvestments.
It requires massive changemanagement like you've never
known before.
Like think of what used tohappen when people got their
(53:38):
powerpoint software upgraded andthey complained for weeks about
it.
You know, and and said, oh myGod, these Microsoft guys have
changed the features again.
I have to go on a training, andthat you remember those days.
And so this stuff's going tocome at us.
And you know, I read a veryinteresting article recently
where the person writing itbecause of course the knowledge
(53:59):
worker world is where a lot ofthe AI seems seems to it's not
going to come in and paint yourhouse for you.
I mean that that's kind ofreassured for a while anyway.
But the commentator said well,you're actually less likely to
lose a job to ai than to lose ajob to somebody who's using ai.
And more and more I'm hearingthe real power of AI is going.
(54:22):
You know there's an awful lotof talk about agents in the
workplace.
You know AI-based agents whichare going to help us be more
efficient at what we do, and theactual dream of a lot of people
it goes back to some of yourstarting point here is it will
free up a bit more of that timeto maybe, if we take advantage
of of it, to do a bit morethinking, because we're going to
(54:44):
have to be very cerebral abouthow we use these tools.
That's where the new skill setsare starting to emerge.
Are you hearing leaders talkinglike that, or am I living in my
echo chamber?
Speaker 3 (54:56):
I think there are a lot of leaders that are
constantly going around thinking, thinking about some of this,
uh.
But to some degree, that's alsowhy we have written this book,
because this book is all about.
You will be overwhelmed attimes and you might think I
don't know where we are at thisand it's overwhelming and I
don't know what to do with it.
But it's the mindset andtherefore the skill sets that
(55:20):
goes into this book that reallyhelps you to take a step back
and say it's okay, I'm not gonnaknow everything, it's all right
, but if I look foropportunities, if I really
connect with other people, if Idare put my guard down and
really learn from other peopleand really having those kind of
(55:41):
creative conversations and thinkit's okay to take in new
information and all of that,then actually we're going to
find a solution.
So it's really intended to bethis kind of when you're in
those moments, there will besomething for you to read in in
this book.
Even that will help you to totake a step back a little bit,
(56:01):
like we talked about earlier.
You talked about zooming in andzooming out, and I think that's
the key to a lot of this.
At any given time you'resometimes too much in the
details and you need to zoom outand look more big picture and
if you're overwhelmed in the bigpicture, then you zoom in and
you focus in on something thathelps you get a little bit more
tangible again.
(56:22):
So it's the ability to do thatreally go from from one extreme
to another.
Speaker 4 (56:27):
That is another way of helping with this and I think
your your point earlier aboutyou said it was, you know,
managing your state.
You know you've got to manageyour state in this because it
can become a frenzy that peoplegive you information and it's
overwhelming and it's anotherone of those.
You know what?
There's always going to behuman to human in all of this.
(56:47):
So you know, I mean I'm sayingthat, I'm hoping it's.
You know, I'm not, I'm not, I'mnot seeing so far ahead what
could that look like.
But you know there's going tobe a form of human to human in
it.
So take that, take that aspectof it and think about how that
can fit together, becauseotherwise it just can be
overwhelming.
And I think it's justcomfortable being comfortable to
say do you know what, doesn'tmatter what happens, I can
(57:09):
handle that.
You know, I'll take it, I'llhandle it.
And putting yourself in a stateof that state, getting yourself
in that right state.
Back to your point earlier.
Speaker 1 (57:23):
Ok, so the six superchargers foundational stuff
for for whatever the futuregoing to throw at us.
So, coming to the end, uh,there always has to be an end.
So, coming to the end, uh, whatare a couple of key site, key
insights that you'd like ouraudience to take away from this
conversation?
Speaker 4 (57:37):
so I I'll just talk a couple um the reflection time
and space.
You need to hit the pausebutton to be able to look
backwards and look forwards,being strategic about your
leadership.
You have a strategy for yourbusiness, your team, your
department.
Have a strategy for yourleadership as well.
Be a great self-leader.
Self-leadership is, you knowyour impact has a ripple effect.
(57:59):
What are you creating?
What impact does that have onthe future and how you react,
behave and respond to new thingslike ai, no one can predict
everything, so how you react andrespond to that is important,
but still remain to be inclusiveand use your collective
intelligence to do that and justa quick extra dimension to this
(58:20):
.
Speaker 1 (58:21):
If you are listening to this podcast as a new leader,
somebody starting out on theleadership journey, what would
you say to that person who's, insome ways, they may have an
advantage because they haven'tgot all the baggage or, you know
, or maybe not?
What would you say to somebodyout there who's early stage
leader?
Speaker 3 (58:41):
I would say um, enjoy it.
You know, well done forchoosing to, to want to be a
leader.
Enjoy the journey.
It's going to be.
It's going to be challengingand it's going to be fun.
And that's how it's supposed tobe.
You know, it's not.
It's not just going to be thesunshine all the time, but also
be your own best leader, becausea lot of the time people try to
(59:02):
maybe copy what someone else isdoing, and that's where
self-leadership comes in.
The more you understandyourself, the more you
understand what your uniqueleadership qualities are that
you can really use in yourleadership, because you are
going to be your best leaderwhen you tap into who you are
and also remember and this isone of the quotes from the book
that being 100% perfect, 100% ofthe time is 100% impossible.
(59:27):
So don't go into it thinkingI'm going to have to get
everything right here because noone does.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
And that's a great thought to end our conversation.
How do people get in touch withyou and do you have anything
special to offer my listenerstoday?
Speaker 3 (59:47):
so you can.
You can find us on linkedin, somandy flint, my colleague over
there, and elizabeth winberg,hern but the easiest thing might
be to just google the booksupercharged leader.
There's only one with that nameout there, um, so, and so you
can contact us on linkedin.
It's a good way of doing it.
Uh, we also have a sharedwebsite for the books that's
(01:00:11):
called 2020visionleadercom, sothat's also a good, good place
to go for a lot of differentresources.
But we're also we wanted to saythat, uh, for the first four
people who contact both of us onlinkedin and ask to connect, uh
, the first four listeners thatcontact both of us we yeah,
(01:00:32):
we're going to be sending you asigned copy of the book wherever
you are in the world okay, andI'll put links in the show notes
.
Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
And, as as ever, elizabeth and Mandy, thanks for
sharing your insights, tips andwisdom with me and my listeners
here today.
Speaker 4 (01:00:51):
Great, thank you.
It's been real fun to join you.
Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
Indeed.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Coming up on Leading People.
Speaker 5 (01:01:00):
A lot of people get to the C-suite able to manage
much more those lower levels ofdetails that you just described.
So they're comfortable in thatspace and they'll spend a lot of
time there and they'lloccasionally go up to what
you're describing, that back andforth.
The invitation through my bookis to kind of although I don't
(01:01:21):
use this model, this frameworkyou just described, it makes
tremendous sense.
The invitation is to step intoareas that are less comfortable
than when they were younger,because there are new areas that
are developing.
But because they're new they'regoing to feel uncomfortable.
So it's kind of playing more atthat big picture area as
(01:01:42):
opposed to really beingcomfortable at the detail.
If they can bounce aroundbetween them and all that
laterally, that's just fantastic.
Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
Next time, on Leading People, we're joined by
executive coach and author AnisHaddad to explore what truly
changes in leadership as we moveinto midlife.
In his latest book, soaringBeyond Midlife, anis challenges
the idea that aging is aboutdecline, revealing how leaders
(01:02:09):
in their 40s and 50s develop newleadership superpowers.
He explains why embracingambiguity, letting go of
unnecessary details and trustingemerging strengths can make you
an even more impactful leader.
If you're curious about howleadership evolves over time,
(01:02:30):
you won't want to miss thisepisode.
And remember, before our nextfull episode, there's another
One Simple Thing episode waitingfor you, a quick and actionable
tip to help you lead and livebetter.
Keep an eye out for it whereveryou listen to this podcast.
Until next time.
Welcome to Leading People with me Gerry Marais.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is the podcast for leaders and HR decision
makers who want to bring out thebest in themselves and others.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Every other week I sit down with leading authors,
researchers and practitionersfor deep dive conversations
about the strategies, insightsand tools that drive personal
and organizational success.
And in between, I bring you onesimple thing short episodes
that deliver practical insights,and tips for immediate use.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Whether you're here for useful tools or thought
thought-provoking ideas, LeadingPeople is your guide to better
leadership.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
What does it take to be a supercharged leader?
What benefits does being asupercharged leader bring, and
do you know anyone who is asupercharged leader this week?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
leadership experts and best-selling authors Mandy
Flint and ElizabethVinberg-Hearn join leading
people to explore how greatleaders don't just lead others,
they lead themselves first.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
In this episode, you'll discover why
self-leadership is thefoundation of great leadership,
how to manage your energy andstate of mind for maximum impact
, and the small but powerfulchanges that can transform your
leadership effectiveness.
If you're ready to take yourleadership to the next level,
(01:42):
then this is the conversationfor you.
Elizabeth and Mandy, welcomeback to Leading People.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Yeah, good to be here .
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So you're back on the show because you recently
published yet another book.
I think it's your fourth, ifI'm not mistaken.
Yeah, and we'll get to the newbook in a minute.
But first, even though you wereon the show about two years ago
now I think it was we have lotsof new listeners since then, so
(02:17):
that everybody out there canget to know you a little bit.
How did you both get into theworld of leadership development?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
well, elizabeth and I uh worked together in american
express and we were really keenon leadership development there.
We both came from a leadershiprole, so I myself ran a division
and then went from that intothinking it's really, really
intriguing how stuff gets doneas well as what gets done.
So how do we help people andleaders and executives really
(02:49):
understand why it's so importantto focus on behaviors and think
about how they're doing stuffas well as what they're doing?
And we really enjoyed doingthat and got into it in a sort
of rhythm, with a way of lookingat it from a number of
different perspectives.
So we'd look at what'shappening in the world, what's
(03:09):
happening in the world,therefore, what's happening in
business, therefore what'shappening in leadership and that
got really interesting andhelping people with that.
We found some great results andthought, oh, why not?
Why don't we get into this inmore depth?
So moved out of runningdivisions and into helping
others do that.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
And I would say as well I'd add to that that we've
never been in HR, so we're notdoing leadership development as
an HR function, if you like.
So we're really coming at itfrom being leaders ourselves and
thinking about it, from how youlead people and business in a
very sort of both strategic andoperational way.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
And just taking your point then, before I get into my
other questions, what is thedifference that you notice
between the way you've come intothis versus maybe somebody
coming in from a more classictraining and learning and
development background?
Speaker 4 (04:07):
I think what you do is is you.
It's valuable to come from bothangles, but I think from the
being in a leader's seat, Ialways think of how practical
and how can I use this as aleader.
So if someone comes and talksto me, I think that's great, but
day to day, practically, how amI going to put this into
practice?
How am I going to make thiswork?
How does this sit and fitalongside the strategy for the
(04:30):
business, the vision, thedirection we're heading in, all
of those things that we thinkabout?
Putting it alongside that.
So sitting in the seat of thatleader constantly to think how's
it going to impact?
What difference is it going tomake?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
constantly to think how's it going to impact?
What's difference is it goingto make?
Okay, sort of looking from theinside almost, it's almost like
being insiders and coming at itfrom there, and, of course, in a
lot of organizations we workwith, that's obviously in in
line with and with support fromhr as well as relevant yeah,
okay.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
so for our listeners benefit, we're going to tap into
some of that as we go along, sostay tuned, everyone out there.
So the latest book is calledSupercharged Leader.
Supercharged Leader.
So what is Supercharged Leaderall about and who did you write
(05:22):
it for?
Speaker 3 (05:30):
all about and who did you write it for?
Well, it's about what's neededfor leaders to, to be good at,
and focused at, andsupercharging themselves with,
in order to really deal with anever-changing world that's just
continuously evolving andspinning, and a lot of leaders
are overwhelmed, so we werereally looking at what is it
that people need?
How do people charge themselves, tap into what they need to
(05:54):
continue to develop in order tobe able to deal with absolutely
anything?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
okay, and so why did you write?
Why did you write this book atthis moment in time, and what
are you trying to, or what isyour goal with the book?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
So right now, we're both kind of leadership and
cultural change strategists.
So what that means is lookingat the world and saying what's
going on in the world, what arethe future trends coming up?
What does that do to business?
Therefore, what does that do toleadership?
And with the speed of changeand transformation, increases
that the need for sharedleadership, for greater
leadership, for more collectiveintelligence, globalizations,
(06:32):
picking up speed, the whole,working from home, working from
the office, the remote versusthe need for psychological
safety, organizational purpose.
Why am I here?
Why am I doing this?
Ai and leadership, needing to beeven more people focused, even
in an AI world, is how do people, you know, if we think of all
(06:54):
of that, then how do we helpleaders get ready for that and
actually, with AI, get ready foranything, so they don't know
what the next thing could be.
So, for example, when COVIDcame around, it fundamentally
changed leadership.
So what does that mean in termsof it fundamentally changed
leadership.
So people felt, you know, I hadto suddenly learn how do I lead
(07:14):
virtually everything that I do,and there was various levels of
people already doing that, butthen people had to shift very
quickly and learn very quicklyand they weren't ready for that
and so't ready for that, and sobeing ready for anything.
So we don't know what the nextthing that could come up could
be.
Could be COVID.
What is it?
What is the next thing?
So how do we equip people withevergreen leadership skills they
(07:36):
need to be thinking about asthese current and future trends
drop into the world.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
OK, I think there's a lot of stuff there that I'm
going to hopefully cover withyou as we go through the next
half an hour or so.
I'm really curious, being asort of linguist in my early
career.
Where did the title come from?
Speaker 3 (08:03):
It was.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I mean, and you mean, the main title as in
supercharged yeah, like, like, Imean the word leader I kind of
get you know, but the otherbecause I think that's kind of
contextual there.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, no, we have a subtitle as well on it, and
that's why I just wanted todouble check okay.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Well, this is your moment, yeah, to do not just do
titles, but you do subtitles aswell.
This is your big moment.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
I mean supercharged.
What we really mean with thatis that you can't run on empty
as a leader in a fast-changingworld.
You have to continuously chargeyourself up and you need to be
supercharged.
You need to be able to find theright things to focus on in
order to be truly impactful andand therefore have almost
(08:47):
injected yourself sort of withthat energy.
Almost that comes from the, thenew skills or the mindset and
the skill sets that will helpyou do that.
So it's really saying it'salmost like you need to go plug
yourself into a new type ofleadership so it's easy, and
that and that that uh, that sub.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
You know that.
That subtitle is develop yourmindset and skill set to deal
with anything.
And when the publishers talkedto us about that, we said, gosh,
to deal with anything.
That's a big thing to say,isn't it?
And they said, yeah, but youare dealing them, you are
getting them ready to deal withanything, because you don't know
what's coming next and you'repreparing them to prepare
themselves to be ready for that.
So a leader I was talking torecently was saying I don't know
(09:32):
, the AI world is moving so fast.
And they were in the bankingtech industry and they were
saying the world's moving sofast.
I don't know how to help myteam because I don't know what's
coming next.
So what do I do with that?
And you know, well, I need toget them to.
I'm the leader, but I'm notsupposed to.
I can't possibly know that.
So how do I get the best frommy people and use the collective
(09:54):
intelligence in the team to dothat?
So what is it that I can bethinking about there?
So I think, although we saythat anything is the, is the is
the title, you know we mean.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Well, we mean anything and it's quite, it's
quite a big statement, I thinkyeah, okay, um, I'm looking at
my my sort of talking points andquestions here and I have ai is
a bit further down, so maybewe'll keep that one on the back
burner for a few minutes becauseI think we can certainly
explore that, because it'spretty much in the news at the
(10:28):
moment.
I'm not sure if the AI, maybeChatGPT, is writing all the news
stories.
I'm not sure about thatSelf-promotion, I'm not sure,
who knows.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
On Leading People.
The goal is to bring youcutting edge thought leadership
from many of the leadingthinkers and practitioners in
leadership today.
Each guest shares theirinsights, wisdom and practical
advice so we can all get betterat bringing out the best in
ourselves and others.
Please subscribe wherever youget your podcasts and share a
(11:04):
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Please subscribe wherever youget your podcasts and share a
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leaders and talent professionals.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Let's get to this.
You have six superchargers, sotell us about how you identified
six, not five, not seven, andwhat sort of research did you do
to identify these and formulatethem.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
So our research that we've been going through is sort
of operates on two levels.
One of them is the work that wedo, and we work with
organizations all around theworld in our two separate
companies and at times wecollaborate as well.
But through the work that we'redoing, we're constantly
collecting data around what'sgoing on out there, what are
(11:53):
people doing, what challengesare they facing?
Are there any differencesbetween different industries and
differences between countries,and all of that.
And through that, as we startedto collect, I mean, we're also
obviously continuously ourselvesdoing research from other
sources and looking at are thereany recent data that's relevant
, that can sort of validate someof our own findings?
(12:18):
And that's really what we'vedone as we put this book
together.
So we basically put everythingon the table.
We said, okay, what are weseeing?
What's going on out there, whatare the trends in the world for
people, and also what are thechallenges that we can see the
leaders have?
And from that we started to seea pattern.
There were some key trends thatwere coming out and we then,
(12:43):
from that, started to say, okay,what are we actually seeing?
And we came up that is sort ofgot summarized into these six
superchargers and that the waythey come up in the book has a
certain order as well, becauseit's really talking about.
So the first supercharger isstrategy.
I'm not going to run throughthem all now, but uh, and it's
because strategy is almost likethe first step.
(13:05):
It has a natural order to saythat in order to do anything, we
first need to be strategic, sothat we know in what context and
for what purpose we're doingsomething, and then the other
ones sort of flow from there, sothey have a really nice flow
together.
And the idea is that once youstart to engage with your super
(13:25):
charges and really look look at,am I strategic enough, am I
inclusive enough, and so on, andyou start to really tap into
that in your own leadership,then they also feed each other.
So the more you do one thing,that starts to have a knock on
effect on the next one, and thenext one, and the next one.
So it's almost like it becomesa spinning wheel when all of
(13:47):
these sort of engage with oneanother, if that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
I think, mandy, you wanted to add something yeah and
I think I just added that wealso interviewed a number of
CEOs along the way, in part ofthe research, to find out what
they were thinking, to find outwhat they were thinking and it
came out with the strategyinclusion, connectivity,
collective intelligence beingneeding to use our collective
intelligence because we can'tpossibly all know it ourselves
(14:13):
or know it all, because theworld's moving too fast.
Another one of them is learning.
So there's a great chapter onlearning, because we almost have
to learn, to learn again, to bein a constant learning mindset.
And the last one is agility.
You know the ability to beagile, but you still need to be
able to stick to the strategyand the plan.
(14:33):
So, as Elizabeth says, theykind of link together.
But we also got some input froma number of CEOs on what they
were seeing as coming up and youknow, we also got them to
reflect back on where.
Where have we been and whereare we now and where do you
think we're heading?
And some of those, some ofthose things are, as we said at
the beginning, are evergreen.
So some of them you need toconstantly be looking at, but
(14:55):
you also need to be looking atthem if you are coming.
If you are going to be thinkingof what am I sticking my head
up and looking at what's on thehorizon and what we're finding,
when people are busy and busy,and busy, and busy, and busy and
busy, is that they tend to nottake that step back and step up
and look in that reflectivespace, that true reflective
(15:17):
executive reflection, to stepback to say where are we heading
?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
And and you know we do, we do have those
conversations frequently withpeople to say, well, if you're
not doing it, it's a bit scarybecause who's doing it as a
leader, so so, so you're kind ofum, introducing or pre-empting
some of the questions I havehere, and I know I have to make
a choice about which one I go tonext.
Um, because, elizabeth I thinkI'll come back to yours in a
(15:42):
minute, liz, elizabeth becausethis whole idea of it being a
system, which I think is whatyou were saying let's explore
that in a minute or twoSomething that you wrote you
sent me a little bit of apreview of the book and I went
through it and something thatyou wrote and it's actually, I
think, reflecting what you justsaid, mandy, towards the end
there, which grabbed myattention.
(16:04):
You, you kind of say leaders arejust so busy with the
day-to-day that they don't havetime for many important things
such as strategic thinking.
Now, if I put myself in theshoes of a leader listening to
this today, um, they might begoing.
How the hell am I going to findthis extra time when I, my
resources get more limited, mypeople are stretched, more
(16:26):
people want connectivity with me, which you're advocating in the
book.
And you know, actually, unlessyou give me eight days in the
week and add another 26, makethem 26 hours long.
I'm not sure.
I know I need to be doing thisright, but how am I going to do
it?
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Yeah, and that's such a fabulous question that's
asked over and over again by allthe people that Liz and I work
with how am I going to get timeto be strategic?
And it's it's seeing that kindof importance of it.
Why the big?
Why?
Why am I doing it?
I'm so busy.
I can't, I can't take time outto that and it's also how you
see it, so some people will seeit as right.
I'm going to sit down in acorner and sit on my own and be
(17:04):
really strategic in this cornerand I've got to reflect and I
don't really want to do that, Idon't want to spend time doing
that.
And it's got to be authenticfor you as a leader in the way
that you operate.
So what works best?
If being authentic, if beingstrategic means to you sitting
in a corner on your own thinking, then that's what you do.
If it means engaging withsomeone else and having some
(17:27):
dialogue and bouncing ideas,then it's that.
It's whatever it means for you.
But it's not saying that oh myGod, you've got to change it to
80% of your time is in thestrategic space and 20% of your
time is in the non-strategicspace.
It's saying just turn up thedial on the amount of time
you're doing it already.
So, whatever you're doingalready, turn the dial up and
don't see it as an extra thingto do.
Put it in as something that youwhat are you already doing that
(17:50):
you could be thinkingstrategically about, because
everybody always says I haven'tgot extra time to do it.
Well then, if it's extra time,don't make it extra time.
Put it in as what have Ialready got on my agenda and
already got in that I need to bejust spending some strategic
space in it's, taking thosethings, the steps, rather than a
massive leap.
And some people may need totake a big leap, because some of
the leaders we work with andsome of the CEOs will say if
(18:12):
you're not thinking about it,then who is?
Who is spending that time?
Your people need you to bespending time in that space.
So it's not for you, it's forthose people.
Think about how much they wouldlike you to be doing it, how
much value they would say you'regoing to add to me if you do it
.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah, and what I would add to that is it's
intended to save you time.
So it's the whole idea ofinstead of just running around
being busy, busy, busy, it's aquestion of taking a step back
and being strategic and reallythinking about the strategy, of
what needs to happen next, whatdirection you're going in, being
(18:53):
strategic about your leadershipas well, and, rather than sort
of trying to be everywhere foreveryone, be really strategic
and think about what's going onnow, what's needed for you know
what's the direction we're goingin and therefore, what's needed
right now.
It's shaping that sort ofcarving out the time at regular
(19:14):
intervals to be able to havethat kind of conversation with
yourself, or indeed, as Mandysays, together with other people
.
Wherever you do your beststrategic reflection.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
So I'm going to a little bit bounce spontaneously
listening to what you're bothsaying there.
One of the things that strikesme because you mentioned it
quite a bit at the early stageabout this kind of VUCA world
there's the whole AI thing,there's been the pandemic a few
years ago and all of this wouldadd up to one of the yeah, one
(19:52):
of the you, the you and vuka,the uncertainty thing.
But the brain doesn't like anyof vuka.
It kind of it'll set off thatsort of fight or flight response
.
And I'm just wondering and you,I'd like you to comment on this
with the virtual hybrid modelthat has emerged and all this
(20:12):
stuff which is kind of probablycreating a high alert status in
people's mind, how many leadersare actually going back to
worrying about?
Are people doing what I wantthem to do and over-controlling
situations, because it's notbecause it's a cognitive thing,
(20:32):
it's because they're inneurology is saying, oh, you
need to check.
Just, you never know what'sgoing to happen, and so they're
spending more time in theseoperational spaces than they may
need to.
Like you probably say to theguys you don't need to do all of
that stuff, you could step back.
And how much of this are youseeing where, since the pandemic
, the people aren't visibleanymore in the office?
(20:54):
In a lot of offices I knowthere's a big drive at this
moment in time to get morepeople back to offices.
What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
There's I mean there's there's so much to say
about that.
A their leaders are obviouslyneeding to trust people and to
some degree, that's part of whatthis book is all about.
How do you really connect withyour people and with team and
help people see the overallpicture so that you can also
(21:25):
start to trust people, becauseyou have to be able to trust
people in order for everythingto work.
But it's not just a question ofsay, okay, and now I'm going to
trust everyone.
There is a process to that.
Of course.
It's actually something thatyou, with your leadership, can
do.
But through your leadership aswell and this is something we
talk about in the book you needto communicate with people in
(21:48):
such a way that they are notfearful or overwhelmed, which
can be a challenge.
But there's a lot we can dothere.
Do with that by understandinghow the brain works and how we
don't sort of throw people intofight or flight mode, but
actually allow them to to haveaccess to the brain chemicals
that will allow them to do bothcritical and creative thinking,
(22:11):
and that's a big part of thekind of leadership that's in the
supercharged leader.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
And I would add there also what happens sometimes.
As you said, it happens a lotwhen people can't see people.
And you know what are you doing?
Are you doing the thing?
So you do get a lot of leaderswho will move more towards the
controlling element of that, andyou know.
So trust is a thing and youknow letting go and saying you
know what if you?
(22:37):
Because what happens if youcontrol that?
And we work with many leaderssaying, if you're controlling
that, what you're doing isyou're, you are taking away that
person's ability to learn andgrow because you're doing it for
them or you're doing it so, sohow?
So if you think of it like thatas a leader, think what value
am I adding?
At this point, over-controllingisn't adding a lot of value.
(22:58):
So you know, so let go.
And we're seeing more and morepeople learning to do that.
But also you know, I think morepeople after the pandemic are
having to learn to be a greatleader.
Self-leadership is a huge partof that.
So your impact and the effectthat you have minute by minute,
day by day, second by second, ismore important, even more
(23:19):
important than it has beenbefore.
So that whole ripple effect,what are you creating, what
impact does that have on thefuture?
You play a huge part in thatand so you can set the tone, set
the culture by notover-controlling.
And what does that create andwhat does that give and how much
(23:39):
do people learn and grow withthat and what's the part that
you play and how much value areyou adding Okay, I'm going to
come to you in a minute,elizabeth.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Um, uh, you're giving me so much rich stuff here that
, uh, now that I have two peopleto work with on this, I, I, I
because most one of the reasonsI do this is and this is no
secret is I.
My guests are so brilliant.
They feed me lots of greatthings I can bounce off.
You're listening to LeadingPeople with me, gerry Murray.
(24:15):
My guests this week areleadership experts Elizabeth
Vinberg-Hearn and Mandy Flint.
Coming up next, mandy andElizabeth share how to recognize
when your leadership energy islow, why trust is the fuel for
high-performing teams and themindset shifts that separate
good leaders from truly greatones.
(24:37):
We also explore how leaders areresponding to AI, and Mandy and
Elizabeth have a special offerfor you.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
So let's get back to our conversation.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Self-leadership that's one of the kind of
qualifiers for this podcast ishow can you bring out the best
in yourself and others?
So leading people is not aboutleading everybody else, it's,
first and foremost, how can youbring out the best yourself.
So what would you say toleaders out there?
Because if they can't get theirown stuff sorted I was going to
(25:14):
use a technical term, but theycan't get their own shit sorted
how are they going to sort outthe shit of other people and the
business and everything else?
So what sorts of things are youteaching them or advising them
to do to get that their ownhouse in order?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
well, it's actually taking time and and reflecting
on and saying it starts with me.
It's not just what I do when Ishow up, it's how I show up, who
I am, what kind of impact I'mhaving with others.
So in order to lead effectively, I need to to lead myself
effectively.
So some of the things that wedo there, there's a lot, and
we've spent a lot of time in theself-leadership space to really
(25:51):
help equip people that way.
But it's really daring to lookat ourselves and say what am I
best at?
What am I struggling with?
How do I?
For example, it can be as simpleas imagine you're having a
meeting and you're gettingreally frustrated because you're
in a meeting with someone thatyou you just it was a bit of a
(26:12):
conflict and you go out of thatmeeting and it can be online or
it can be in in person and thenyou go straight into the next
meeting and if you don'tunderstand what that first
frustration has brought into howyou're feeling, you're going to
walk right into the nextmeeting with that bristling,
with that frustration, and youmay not think that anyone else
is picking that up, but there'sgoing to be a ripple effect to
(26:35):
to the next meeting, so it's awhole you went, you're going to
contaminate the next exactlyyeah, it's a good way of
describing it um, this conceptof states, um, states are
contagious?
Speaker 1 (26:49):
yes, definitely.
It's the first thing.
If I'm working with somebody ina coaching capacity who isn't,
let's say, managing their statewell enough in terms of what's
the appropriate state for thatcontext.
Um, one of the first things wework on is um, you, you, your
state is going to affect thepeople around you, particularly
(27:12):
if you're going to report withthem, because they pick up it's
energy essentially at the end ofthe day.
So they're going to pick up onyour vibe.
Whether you're in a positivestate, you know, positive mood,
whatever you want to call it oryou come in negative, it's going
to affect everybody else aroundyou.
And some ladies lack theself-awareness they say how
going to affect everybody elsearound you.
And some leaders are lack theself-awareness.
They say how come I just wentinto that media, came out that
(27:32):
terrible meeting, going to thisother meeting.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
It's just as bad because you took it you took it
from one to the next and and Ithink that it makes me think
really much about you know howleaders prepare for those things
, like the state management, butrather than people, leaders
prepare a lot for what do I needto do in this meeting, rather
than how do I need to be in thismeeting, spend so much time in
(27:54):
that, yeah, that I couldprobably do that standing on
their head.
It's the to be bit, that's theyou know.
So if I and I'll say to some ofthem are really in a hurry,
I'll say, look, even if you justtake a breath between one
meeting to the next, and to youthat seems like if someone, if
someone's really fast moving,you can hardly say to them stop,
think about it for a minute.
It's like, just take a breath,that'll, that'll do.
Just do that to give you chanceto move to the right state.
(28:16):
Because how do these peopleneed you to be and how do you
need to be?
And I think that's such asimple thing.
You know, how do you need to be, not what you need to do and
the interesting thing linking tothat is that it's almost like
at every.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Every time you have an interaction with someone and
it's a negative one, and this istrue in any kind of
constellations.
But it can be particularlyrelevant to look at from a team
perspective.
It's almost like a bank accountthat you have together and if
you had a negative experiencewith someone, you need to have
three and a half positiveexperiences to make up for the
negative one, which means thatif you don't know how many of
(28:51):
these negative ones you youcreate, it might be a really
long way back to to get back tosome kind of a good balance.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
That's another reason why self-leadership is so
important yeah and yeah, andthat ripple effect you said, you
know, like leading yourself,self-leadership is really at the
core of all of it, which is,you know, as you say, part of
your podcast, but the leadingself, you know, one of the
things we talk about in the bookis that it starts with leading
yourself, then it's aboutleading your people, then it's
(29:20):
leading the business, then it'sleading the teams within that,
then it's leading thetransformation and fast-paced
change that comes with that andleading the culture.
So they all link together andif you do a route map on that,
it all comes back to oh, wheredoes it start?
It starts with me.
So it's that really, once youget that, once people get that,
they really can fly, becausethey get the fact that this
(29:44):
ripple effect is starting withme and it's coming back to me,
and you'll create that culture,whether you're paying attention
to it or not.
And I think that's, um, that'swhat we talk a lot about as well
.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
we talk about the cultural effect, okay so, um,
I'm going to take a lot of thatnow, what you said and I'm going
to.
I mean, I, I like you, I, Ilike to read a lot and have an
extensive book collection overhere.
What about middle managers inall of this?
(30:16):
Some of the most recent stuffthat's come out from McKinsey
and from Gallup about?
You know, the downsizingmovement?
Remember the re-engineeringmovement way back 25 years or so
ago?
Speaker 4 (30:30):
um, we do we do.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
You might have been re-engineered as part of it, and
and the all the craze in the90s around that.
And then, um, there was thisidea that well, we don't need
middle managers.
I mean, organizations can beflattened, and mckinsey, the
book that they wrote it's themore recent of the two um,
they're really pushing this ideathat middle managers have a
(30:56):
real important role intranslating and and and you go
back to overwhelm and an awfullot of middle managers feel like
the, the cream and the cake.
They're're getting squeezed,just going everywhere and
they're trying to keep all thesepeople happy and they're trying
to, you know, defend the cause.
You know the stand up for whatthe organization stands for, but
(31:18):
they feel that they're notgetting the support.
What have you been discoveringas you, because you're probably
working with some of thesemiddle managers who are
transitioning to what they tendto call senior leadership roles
what are you learning frommeeting those people and what
can you say to those people outthere listening to this podcast?
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Well, of course, we see leaders at all levels and
the middle managers.
They are indeed, as Mackenziesaid, very, very important, and
all the things that we talkabout in the book is just as
important for them as for anyoneelse, you know, and because
it's got to do with careerprogression, of course, but also
(32:00):
because, ultimately, thegreatest impact on employees is
from the immediate leader.
Employees is from the immediateleader.
So, for that reason, leadersthat are somewhere in the middle
there need to become reallygood at managing expectations in
all directions, because I thinkoften the problem for middle
(32:20):
managers is that, as you say,they feel squeezed from both
ends, and one of the reasons forthat is also that there are
often very mixed expectationsfrom different directions within
an organization.
So leaders, by becoming moreeffective self-leaders as well,
be able to understand andquestion and clarify what the
(32:42):
expectations are, so that theycan start to manage expectations
more effectively.
And this is quite a big topic.
We could probably expand a lotmore on that, but all the whole
ideas of creating the kind ofmindset and skill set that you
need to be able to deal withanything is something that can
very much strengthen this middlelayer as well.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
And this middle layer .
I think what happens there isthat they have they're a part of
many teams and I think thatbecomes, you know that matrixing
of teams whether that's theright word or not, I don't know,
but you're a part of many teamsand in that middle they then
have a sort of transportableteam skillset that they have to
(33:27):
take from team to team.
And what we say to them is justreally think about what's your
role in this team?
I don't mean your job, I meanwhat's your role in this team,
in this particular team thatyou're operating in at the
moment, so in this particularteam that you're functioning, in
this particular team thatyou're a part of right now, and
how are you leading that, whatpart are you playing in that and
(33:50):
what part could you play andwhat part could you play that
would help support or add valueto that.
And I think the other thing thatwe're seeing a lot of now and
we're doing a lot of work on isigniting that peer-to-peer
interaction, because there's alot more in that middle
(34:12):
management phase of the morepeople open up to the
peer-to-peer part of that, themore they learn, the more they
develop, the more they grow,because they start to think in
the middle layer.
They tend to think, oh, I'mgonna lead up, I'm gonna lead my
boss, I'm gonna manage my bossand I'm gonna lead my people.
They don't necessarily thinkabout that that group in the
middle themselves, as a reallygood set of learning from their
(34:32):
peers and developing with theirpeers and that becoming so
fundamental in that middlemanagement layer and support as
well.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
I would say they have , can have support from each
other if they truly look at eachother as as that strong force
that they can actually maketheir own situation more
enjoyable, even.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
You mentioned transportable skill set and I
have a question here relating tothe way you present the six
superchargers again as a systemand what some of the, the key
skills that underpin the, theconcepts and mindsets that
you're talking, the six mindsetsor concepts, uh and I'm
(35:16):
thinking about this idea of redthread, you know fil rouge skill
sets, that sort of transversalskill sets what are some of this
, that, those fundamental skillsthat you?
You say well, regardless ofwhere you are on the six
dimensions, you really need tohave these.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
One of the key ones and I think a lot of it starts
from there is the ability to seethe bigger picture and to see
the interconnection.
So that whole idea of reallybeing able to understand the
bigger picture and to see theinterconnection, so that whole
idea of really being able tounderstand the systems that you
operate within.
It's so easy to become verysort of tunnel visioned and
saying I'm focusing on this, myteam and we're doing this, and
(36:01):
it becomes a bit like thisYou're really just looking
straight ahead and theimportance of understanding what
piece are we in the biggerjigsaw when we do something here
, what happens here, the wholeidea of really starting to think
about the knock-on effect andagain how things, just really
everything we do matters, andsometimes that can almost feel
(36:23):
overwhelming, but actuallythat's also a promise of how
great things can be, because themore we understand that and the
more we start to explore whatare the connections that we have
with other groups and otherareas or the outside world,
because with that that gives youa better understanding and also
(36:44):
therefore more strengths totake on anything really that
comes your way.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Yeah, the challenge also with the big picture is, as
you create a bigger picture itdoes become overwhelming because
it becomes more vague and more.
There's less specificity in abig picture than when you're
looking at it from a distance,and so people have to understand
where their their boundariesare, on how far they can know
those edges of where their bigpicture is, and so my big
(37:13):
picture might be somebody else'sdetail, like if I'm head of
finance, my big picture might bethe ceo's specificity in this
right and I'm, you know.
So it's understanding theboundaries of big pictures.
And actually I think personallyand this is just my personal
view, and the poor man is dead,I mean a lot of people didn't
(37:33):
like him, but uh, he did do somegreat things.
Steve jobs, I think, had one ofthe most amazing abilities to
go from big picture, put a dentin the universe, down to fussing
about a little piece of plasticthat sat on a, on a wire, on a
on a, you know, on a headheadset thing, and said he sent
it back, I think 35 or 40 times.
(37:55):
He said it just isn't rightthat.
You know, that's a quite animpressive, impressive skill set
to be able to go, when it'sappropriate, really big yeah and
big often inspires becausepeople can find their place in
big and then being able to goright down and say but I'm still
looking at the specificities ofwhat makes the system work.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Yeah, and I think with that you know to be able to
do that, that thinking go up,you know, go big picture, go to
detail.
And I think you know, in doingthat, sometimes that's really
obvious to the person who'sdoing that, but it's not so
obvious to everyone around.
So I think, being you know wehave to work with leaders to say
, be more intentional abouthelping other people.
(38:39):
See some of the steps that youmade between that massive big
picture and that you know thatlittle piece of detail and join
the dots, add the red thread,get, help people connect those
dots and make the links, cause Ithink that's another thing that
people can get it again, it'llbe different for different
people in the way that they doit, but make the links and
connections for people becauseit's so obvious to you and when
(39:01):
you have a natural beautifulstrength that you do yourself,
it's so obvious you don't knowhow you do it.
So sometimes you know, I know, Ihave in my head that if I, if
I'm screaming in my head oh, mygod, that's so obvious um, then
I have to say to myself hang ona second, is that a screaming
strength that you've got, thatthey haven't necessarily got?
So now, how do you articulatethat to build the connection for
(39:23):
them, because they may not beable to see that massive big
picture and then right, let'sjump from there to there, but
actually take them along thatpath.
So I think we often do that bynot necessarily acknowledging
our own strengths to do that.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
I just want you remind me of.
I've been involved in a highpotential program with an
organization since 2007.
So we're taking people who aresuccessful individual
contributors, who are now goingto be, and one of the things
they really struggle with isthat they're rewarded for being
systematic and very focused andvery much in their frame of
(39:58):
reference and they they've cometo this, they've rose in sort of
, let's say they've come toprominence as being good at
their job.
Yeah, and some of them kind of,I've noticed can adjust to the
big picture.
A lot of them find it reallydifficult because their world
has been defined by somebodyelse is doing big picture.
(40:18):
They tell me where I fit in.
I just do my job, and so what'syour experience of of loosening
that up for people?
Because it is so fundamental,because if you can't, it's not
just about being able to see thebig picture, it's about being
able to tolerate and work within, yeah, the all the, because
that's VUCA.
You know VUCA is the kind ofindeed, let's say, downside of
(40:41):
the big picture, but it is aworld that you start to have to
inhabit, where things are notclear anymore, some things are
not certain.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
You know lots of ambiguity and it takes a reset,
almost you have to rethinkeverything that you knew about
the world.
But you could put it as wellnot not quite as big as that,
maybe, but one of the thechallenges that a lot of people
experience as they progressthrough their career and they go
into more senior roles is thatthey tend to often fall back to
(41:11):
habits of their previous rolesbecause they are comfortable
there.
They've done that a lot of timeand therefore it almost goes.
It's almost a little bit likean autopilot and anything that's
different to that.
Whether that, then, is reallylooking at an unpredictable
world with curiosity and joy maynot be the most obvious thing
(41:34):
to do, so it takes specificfocus and action to get to there
.
Amanda, you want to add to that?
Speaker 4 (41:41):
Yeah, I was just going to say I think it takes
one of my favorite chapters inthe book, if I'm allowed to.
It's a bit like children you'renot allowed to have a favorite
chapter.
But I've got one Learning andit's about the learning.
You know your ability to learnand to continue to learn and you
know having creating a cultureof learning, but I mean letting
(42:01):
people not the whole, let peoplefail.
I mean really creating aculture where you're learning.
You have a mindset, people arecurious, you have your curiosity
, there's a drive to learn, butit also means it starts with us
and I think sometimes peopleit's like that how coachable are
you?
So sometimes, when people getto a certain level, people think
they're not coachable, althoughthey are coachable, but because
(42:23):
they kind of normally do havethe answer and they know the
answer.
So people think, oh, they'renot, really are they?
Can you coach them or are theycoachable?
That whole coachability thing,not because that's their
intention, but because they justdo know.
By that point they know.
So it's taking that and reallyyou know how coachable are you
and do you need to learn tolearn again or show people that
(42:45):
you can learn again and shareyour wisdom with people and have
those kind of constantconversations.
So, elizabeth and I in the bookwe're on a campaign whether
it's just the two of us or not,I don't know to stop the word
feedback.
We want to change the wordfeedback and just call it
constant conversations.
Now why do we need to havefeedback?
(43:05):
It's like we should just behaving these conversations all
the time.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
It's not just about you know, when you get to an
appraisal time or something,it's actually having the
conversation as we go along andthat's part of learning there's
also almost a trap in being anexpert, and I think you the more
senior you become, the more youoften become known for being an
expert in a field you're veryexperienced.
(43:29):
So people sort of turn to youand, even if it's not
intentional, a lot of leadersthen think, therefore, I should
be able to just do this now.
So it's.
It's actually also part ofbeing a supercharged leader is
to be so strong that you dare tobe humble and say okay, I I'm
(43:50):
very happy to listen to whatyou've got to say.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
I don't have all the answers and that's okay, but
that might go against what youactually really are used to if
that makes sense, there was asort of question formulating in
my head and you kept feeding it,so I'm going to ask it um, how
do you deal with the situations?
Because you talk a lot hereabout the learning and the
(44:15):
failure and various otheraspects of that.
We talk about trust and that,but in some leadership teams
there's a lot of posturing goingon and a lot of I don't want to
look weak in with my peers,because you mentioned peers
earlier in that.
Um, and one of the things I'malways curious about with
(44:36):
whether it's a senior team orany type of team is I spend the
first 90 minutes doing some verylight stuff because they think
I'm just doing these kind oficebreakers.
I'm actually trying to measurethe psychological safety aspect
in the room, see who actually iscomfortable being themselves,
volunteering information withoutchecking and looking, who's
(45:00):
posturing, who's trying to getone up on somebody else, et
cetera.
And the reason I ask thequestion is because you know I
was chatting to somebody fromgreat places to work recently
and that'll be another podcastepisode and you mentioned it
yourselves earlier.
Trust is fundamental andwalking the talk, you know this
(45:20):
is what people are looking forfrom their leaders, but if they
can't sort that out at their ownlevel.
And the Japanese phrase thefish rots from the head.
How do you get that messageacross to people that you know
they've got to lighten up andloosen up themselves amongst
themselves, right?
Speaker 3 (45:46):
To be able to be vulnerable, to be humble,
whatever it is you want them tobe.
That's a whole podcast initself.
It's almost like where do westart with our one.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
It's obviously.
You know those little, thedutch call them happiest.
You know the aperitif, you knowthe little little, uh, finger
food.
You get the amuse girl, thefrench call.
You know, give us the thatversion of it.
What would be a couple ofthings that that you've?
You've noticed that kind ofhelp.
The leaders feel morecomfortable with each other and
they don't have to be the bestin the room would be a couple of
things that that you've?
You've noticed that kind ofhelp.
The leaders feel morecomfortable with each other and
they don't have to be the bestin the room again it happens.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
It's a question of them actually getting together
and knowing each other andbecoming very clear about how do
we, how do we lead together?
Um, as in how do we?
We're not just responsible forour division or our area, our
space, but ultimately, as aleadership team, we're all
(46:36):
ultimately responsible for whathappens to the business.
So it's a question of startingto talk about it, helping them
to think about their reflectionas a team and yeah and and there
I think, helping them with thatreally knowing each and
diversity being beyond what weknow today.
Speaker 4 (47:10):
But it's about difference in style, difference
in not just about what weunderstand diversity to be today
, but in the future it's goingto be about style differences.
So, you know, really usingstrengths and differences in a
way in a team that works, and ifI know that you're really good
at that and I can rely on that,then how can I you know I might
(47:30):
not have that how can we do thattogether?
So, getting that feeling ofthat and having some fun in a
team, I think that's reallyimportant.
We spend so much time in teams,yet the simple thing is we
don't have, are we allowed tohave fun?
Can we have fun?
How do we have fun?
It's not like we have to havefun at four o'clock this
afternoon, it's it's.
How do we build that into ourway of being as a team and
(47:53):
sharing with each other andbeing open, um and and do
something so we don't think allthink alike, we haven't got
group think going on, because ifyou've got people who are
saying in a team where it's alittle bit, why can I say that
can't?
I say that it's normallybecause people are.
You know, there could be somedifferences, or it could be that
everyone's just doing a wholegroup think and we're all
thinking the same and actuallywho's doing the different
(48:14):
thinking.
So you know how do you bringthat into it and making sure
that you're you're celebratingthings it occurred to me that in
Sweden, at four o'clock in theafternoon they have fika, don't
they?
Speaker 1 (48:25):
and then you all have fun yeah, it's actually a
requirement we need more fika inour um in our leadership
program so it's hey guys, weneed to stop now.
We need to go have the cake andcoffee and the tea and stuff.
It's beneficial for everyone sothe last big topic which we had
at the beginning and everybody'sbeen waiting and waiting to get
(48:46):
to this topic which we touchedon and we're coming back to.
There's a lot of hype out thereabout AI, and I mean to the
point where it's actually quiteoverwhelming the type of hype
and now it used to be like didyou see the match on Saturday?
Now it's like have you usedChatGPT?
Yet you know you had a cocktailparty or whatever.
(49:06):
Are you using it?
How do you find it?
You know you're the cocktailparty or whatever.
Are you using it?
How, how do you find it, youknow?
So what's your take on ai andits impact on how organizations
will be led in the future?
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Well, we're all on a learning journey when it comes
to AI and when it comes toleadership.
It's also a question ofthinking about being strategic
about AI and thinking about whatis really AI, what does it mean
for us, what does it mean forour people and therefore, how do
we create an ethical, healthyAI that actually is useful for
(49:46):
everyone and where we can reallyalso use the collective
intelligence with the machineintelligence and the human
intelligence?
So it's really for leaders tobecome really clued up and not
just we're using chat GBT it'smuch bigger than that.
So it becomes, because I knowthat sometimes some of the
practical things are easier toget into, but as leaders, it's
(50:09):
really important to have leadersat all levels understand the
whole opportunity and some ofthe challenges with ai.
So it needs to be anintentional learning journey for
everyone within theorganization, but it really
starts with the leaders you usethe term clued up.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Um, how clued up are the leaders that you're meeting?
I mean it's it's.
The challenge with all theseterms is that people throw them
around and they form a referencepoint even without even trying
them out.
And you know chat, gpt I use itbecause it's the kind of
topical one.
We know that there's a lot morein a ai enabled tools out there
(50:50):
.
Even they've been there forquite some years behind the
scenes doing lots of littleautomations and things like that
.
But how, how clued up are ourpeople at the moment?
Speaker 4 (51:01):
well, I think people are clued up as they can be at
the point.
They're aware, and that's why Ithink the learning thing comes
in, because you know.
Again, talking to so manyleaders saying I'm actually
really afraid of this, I don'tknow how it's going to go, I
don't know what's going tohappen next to the business, I
don't know and I'm quite fearful, but I don't I said it earlier,
I don't know how to lead myteam through that.
(51:21):
And it's like you need to getback to some of the points we
talked about.
You've got to use thecollective intelligence because
you can't do it on your own.
You can still lead withoutknowing the answer, and I think
that's the fearful thing forleaders is I don't know the
answer to this and none of usknow the answer.
Who knows where it's going togo?
But being okay with that, beingokay that you don't know where
(51:42):
it's going to go and you don'tknow how it might come out and
you don't know what that mightplay, but you do know that there
will always be a humaninteraction part at some point
around it and therefore you'llbe needed to make that
connection at some point.
So you can do that and I thinkwhat it does is.
It does affect, like personaland team self-esteem.
(52:03):
So you have to go to you knowour self-esteem's eroding
because we don't know.
We're feeling uncomfortable andnot confident about this.
So how do we rebuild our ownself and team self-esteem to?
To build to say it's okay thatwe don't know this answer?
Let's just we've all got tolearn to work with this and I
think that's where that's whereit's a real, can be a real
(52:24):
challenge for leaders to notknow that you know you've
disappointed me now, mandy,because I thought I found the
answer last night.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Tell us it was 42, like it always has been.
You know, no, I mean it is true.
And look at I I suppose, theother challenges out there is.
You know, I listen to a lot ofstuff around AI, in the world of
HR and the world of HR tech andthat, and sometimes I go and
come away from it thinking, ohmy God, when it's almost like
(52:55):
trying to cross the autobahn inGermany or the motorway, like
it's kind of going, how am Igoing to get across this street?
And sometimes I I try and usethis zooming out thing which is
to go.
You know, when you think of it,um, whilst it's happening and
it's got, it's almost got itsown legs, because that's kind of
the worrying part about whathow many legs will it have?
(53:18):
And it it's, it's sort of anexponential impact in some
sectors.
There's also the other businessside to this, which is it's
it's sort of an exponentialimpact in some sectors.
There's also the other businessside to this, which is it's
potentially very risky on manylevels.
It's going to require hugeinvestments.
It requires massive changemanagement like you've never
known before.
Like think of what used tohappen when people got their
(53:38):
powerpoint software upgraded andthey complained for weeks about
it.
You know, and and said, oh myGod, these Microsoft guys have
changed the features again.
I have to go on a training, andthat you remember those days.
And so this stuff's going tocome at us.
And you know, I read a veryinteresting article recently
where the person writing itbecause of course the knowledge
(53:59):
worker world is where a lot ofthe AI seems seems to it's not
going to come in and paint yourhouse for you.
I mean that that's kind ofreassured for a while anyway.
But the commentator said well,you're actually less likely to
lose a job to ai than to lose ajob to somebody who's using ai.
And more and more I'm hearingthe real power of AI is going.
(54:22):
You know there's an awful lotof talk about agents in the
workplace.
You know AI-based agents whichare going to help us be more
efficient at what we do, and theactual dream of a lot of people
it goes back to some of yourstarting point here is it will
free up a bit more of that timeto maybe, if we take advantage
of of it, to do a bit morethinking, because we're going to
(54:44):
have to be very cerebral abouthow we use these tools.
That's where the new skill setsare starting to emerge.
Are you hearing leaders talkinglike that, or am I living in my
echo chamber?
Speaker 3 (54:56):
I think there are a lot of leaders that are
constantly going around thinking, thinking about some of this,
uh.
But to some degree, that's alsowhy we have written this book,
because this book is all about.
You will be overwhelmed attimes and you might think I
don't know where we are at thisand it's overwhelming and I
don't know what to do with it.
But it's the mindset andtherefore the skill sets that
(55:20):
goes into this book that reallyhelps you to take a step back
and say it's okay, I'm not gonnaknow everything, it's all right
, but if I look foropportunities, if I really
connect with other people, if Idare put my guard down and
really learn from other peopleand really having those kind of
(55:41):
creative conversations and thinkit's okay to take in new
information and all of that,then actually we're going to
find a solution.
So it's really intended to bethis kind of when you're in
those moments, there will besomething for you to read in in
this book.
Even that will help you to totake a step back a little bit,
(56:01):
like we talked about earlier.
You talked about zooming in andzooming out, and I think that's
the key to a lot of this.
At any given time you'resometimes too much in the
details and you need to zoom outand look more big picture and
if you're overwhelmed in the bigpicture, then you zoom in and
you focus in on something thathelps you get a little bit more
tangible again.
(56:22):
So it's the ability to do thatreally go from from one extreme
to another.
Speaker 4 (56:27):
That is another way of helping with this and I think
your your point earlier aboutyou said it was, you know,
managing your state.
You know you've got to manageyour state in this because it
can become a frenzy that peoplegive you information and it's
overwhelming and it's anotherone of those.
You know what?
There's always going to behuman to human in all of this.
(56:47):
So you know, I mean I'm sayingthat, I'm hoping it's.
You know, I'm not, I'm not, I'mnot seeing so far ahead what
could that look like.
But you know there's going tobe a form of human to human in
it.
So take that, take that aspectof it and think about how that
can fit together, becauseotherwise it just can be
overwhelming.
And I think it's justcomfortable being comfortable to
say do you know what, doesn'tmatter what happens, I can
(57:09):
handle that.
You know, I'll take it, I'llhandle it.
And putting yourself in a stateof that state, getting yourself
in that right state.
Back to your point earlier.
Speaker 1 (57:23):
Ok, so the six superchargers foundational stuff
for for whatever the futuregoing to throw at us.
So, coming to the end, uh,there always has to be an end.
So, coming to the end, uh, whatare a couple of key site, key
insights that you'd like ouraudience to take away from this
conversation?
Speaker 4 (57:37):
so I I'll just talk a couple um the reflection time
and space.
You need to hit the pausebutton to be able to look
backwards and look forwards,being strategic about your
leadership.
You have a strategy for yourbusiness, your team, your
department.
Have a strategy for yourleadership as well.
Be a great self-leader.
Self-leadership is, you knowyour impact has a ripple effect.
(57:59):
What are you creating?
What impact does that have onthe future and how you react,
behave and respond to new thingslike ai, no one can predict
everything, so how you react andrespond to that is important,
but still remain to be inclusiveand use your collective
intelligence to do that and justa quick extra dimension to this
(58:20):
.
Speaker 1 (58:21):
If you are listening to this podcast as a new leader,
somebody starting out on theleadership journey, what would
you say to that person who's, insome ways, they may have an
advantage because they haven'tgot all the baggage or, you know
, or maybe not?
What would you say to somebodyout there who's early stage
leader?
Speaker 3 (58:41):
I would say um, enjoy it.
You know, well done forchoosing to, to want to be a
leader.
Enjoy the journey.
It's going to be.
It's going to be challengingand it's going to be fun.
And that's how it's supposed tobe.
You know, it's not.
It's not just going to be thesunshine all the time, but also
be your own best leader, becausea lot of the time people try to
(59:02):
maybe copy what someone else isdoing, and that's where
self-leadership comes in.
The more you understandyourself, the more you
understand what your uniqueleadership qualities are that
you can really use in yourleadership, because you are
going to be your best leaderwhen you tap into who you are
and also remember and this isone of the quotes from the book
that being 100% perfect, 100% ofthe time is 100% impossible.
(59:27):
So don't go into it thinkingI'm going to have to get
everything right here because noone does.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
And that's a great thought to end our conversation.
How do people get in touch withyou and do you have anything
special to offer my listenerstoday?
Speaker 3 (59:47):
so you can.
You can find us on linkedin, somandy flint, my colleague over
there, and elizabeth winberg,hern but the easiest thing might
be to just google the booksupercharged leader.
There's only one with that nameout there, um, so, and so you
can contact us on linkedin.
It's a good way of doing it.
Uh, we also have a sharedwebsite for the books that's
(01:00:11):
called 2020visionleadercom, sothat's also a good, good place
to go for a lot of differentresources.
But we're also we wanted to saythat, uh, for the first four
people who contact both of us onlinkedin and ask to connect, uh
, the first four listeners thatcontact both of us we yeah,
(01:00:32):
we're going to be sending you asigned copy of the book wherever
you are in the world okay, andI'll put links in the show notes
.
Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
And, as as ever, elizabeth and Mandy, thanks for
sharing your insights, tips andwisdom with me and my listeners
here today.
Speaker 4 (01:00:51):
Great, thank you.
It's been real fun to join you.
Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
Indeed.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Coming up on Leading People.
Speaker 5 (01:01:00):
A lot of people get to the C-suite able to manage
much more those lower levels ofdetails that you just described.
So they're comfortable in thatspace and they'll spend a lot of
time there and they'lloccasionally go up to what
you're describing, that back andforth.
The invitation through my bookis to kind of although I don't
(01:01:21):
use this model, this frameworkyou just described, it makes
tremendous sense.
The invitation is to step intoareas that are less comfortable
than when they were younger,because there are new areas that
are developing.
But because they're new they'regoing to feel uncomfortable.
So it's kind of playing more atthat big picture area as
(01:01:42):
opposed to really beingcomfortable at the detail.
If they can bounce aroundbetween them and all that
laterally, that's just fantastic.
Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
Next time, on Leading People, we're joined by
executive coach and author AnisHaddad to explore what truly
changes in leadership as we moveinto midlife.
In his latest book, soaringBeyond Midlife, anis challenges
the idea that aging is aboutdecline, revealing how leaders
(01:02:09):
in their 40s and 50s develop newleadership superpowers.
He explains why embracingambiguity, letting go of
unnecessary details and trustingemerging strengths can make you
an even more impactful leader.
If you're curious about howleadership evolves over time,
(01:02:30):
you won't want to miss thisepisode.
And remember, before our nextfull episode, there's another
One Simple Thing episode waitingfor you, a quick and actionable
tip to help you lead and livebetter.
Keep an eye out for it whereveryou listen to this podcast.
Until next time.
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