The New Playbook for Leadership Presence

In this episode of Love and Leadership, Kristen and Mike dive into the evolving concept of leadership presence. They explore how traditional notions of executive presence are shifting, with a growing emphasis on emotional intelligence, authenticity, and inclusivity. Drawing from Kristen's improv-inspired leadership model, the hosts discuss practical ways to enhance awareness, authenticity, and connection in leadership roles. This episode gives leaders at all levels practical tips to build a leadership style that works well in today's work world. Listeners will come away with actionable strategies to boost their leadership effectiveness and create more meaningful connections with their teams.

Highlights:

• The changing landscape of executive presence over the past decade [04:33]
• The misconception that charisma is necessary for effective leadership [10:35]
• The growing emphasis on inclusivity and respect for others in leadership [15:25]
• The importance of authenticity in modern leadership [17:23]
• The role of bias in leadership perceptions and decision-making [18:38]
• Kristen's AdLib leadership presence model: awareness, authenticity, and connection [29:12]
• The importance of mindfulness and different levels of listening in leadership [30:26]
• Understanding and managing your inner judge to foster authenticity [33:26]
• The power of "Yes, And" in building trust and fostering creativity [41:59]
• How to recognize and appreciate team members effectively [43:30]
• Leadership as an ongoing journey of learning and growth [47:33]

Links & Resources Mentioned:

• HBR: "The New Rules of Executive Presence" by Sylvia Ann Hewlett
• Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace by Gary Chapman and Paul White

Podcast Website: www.loveandleadershippod.com
Instagram: @loveleaderpod

Follow us on LinkedIn!
Kristen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristenbsharkey/
Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-s-364970111/

Learn more about Kristen's leadership coaching and facilitation services: http://www.emboldify.com

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome

[00:00:06] to Love and Leadership, the podcast that helps you lead with both your head and your heart, plus a bit of humor. I'm Kristen Brun Sharkey, a leadership coach and facilitator. And I'm Mike Sharkey, a senior living and hospitality executive. We're a couple of leadership nerds who also happen to be a couple.

[00:00:23] Join us each week as we share our unfiltered opinions, break down influential books and interview inspiring guests. Whether you're a seasoned executive. For a rising star, we're here to help you level up your leadership game and amplify your impact.

[00:00:46] Kristen: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Love and Leadership. I'm Kristen,

[00:00:51] Mike: and I'm Mike.

[00:00:53] Kristen: and this is our second episode that we are airing on our launch date. And this is going to be what we're really calling a topic based format. We really have three kind of episodes that we're doing on this podcast. We have guest interviews, which we'll be dropping our first one of those soon. We have book club ones, which is the Boundaries for Leaders one, which is our third podcast we dropped on our launch day,

[00:01:18] Mike: we have not recorded yet,

[00:01:20] Kristen: which we absolutely have not recorded yet because we record everything in order. Not.

[00:01:27] Mike: In order.

[00:01:28] Kristen: Yes. Yes. We'll try not to confuse you. It's really confusing my husband.

[00:01:34] Mike: Yes, ma'am.

[00:01:38] Kristen: And we have our topic discussion based podcast episodes, which are really the core of this podcast. It's just the two of us talking about a particular topic. And today that topic is leadership presence and/or executive presence.

[00:01:55] But before we get into the topic, one thing we're going to do with this format is we're going to start each episode talking about a leadership moment for each of us. And so, this is reflecting back on the past week or two for us, like what is one particular moment that we've encountered either in our work for me, it might be working with clients or something that Mike has encountered in his like day to day leadership role, like whatever it is, or something in our lives or just something going on, but something that just gave us a thought around leadership. So

[00:02:34] Mike, do you, do you want to go first?

[00:02:37] Mike: Kristen, why don't you go first? Okay. Well, I think about 

[00:02:41] Kristen: I can go first. I actually am changing mine from what I originally kind of noted for this.

[00:02:50] Just because there's a lot going on in the world right now. We are recording this a couple weeks before launch. So it's two days after Joe Biden stepped down from the presidential race. And this is not a political podcast. 

[00:03:09] But it's, it's just giving me another moment to reflect on why leadership matters and also just kind of reaffirming my own mission for my business and why I do what I do because leadership matters so much, and it's not just political leadership, it's leadership of companies as well and having representation in leadership.

[00:03:39] The mission for my business is helping to empower and elevate the kind of leaders that our world needs more of. And with everything going on in the world and with so much uncertainty, it's just kind of helping me really come back to that and thinking about that as the core for everything that I do in my work and this podcast and aligning as much as I can to that mission, which feels really good.

[00:04:08] Mike: I think that's a great mission. And we won't get into politics, right? But it is important. And the more you learn about kind of what leadership is, you will reverse engineer what is not going on in and say, well, they're all talking, but nobody's actually leading. Nobody's taking responsibility. And there's, there's a big vacuum of leadership. 

[00:04:30] Kristen: And I'll clarify too, while we're not going to do political analysis, we're not going to talk about our necessarily our political beliefs and such. But we, very much may talk about the context of everything that's happening and what that means for workplaces and leaders and mental health and, and all of that.

[00:04:49] So we're not afraid to talk about that, but there, there are many other podcasts that are far more equipped and willing to do the political analysis. So you, you won't find that here. 

[00:05:02] Mike: You're talking about companies. Companies are really driving change and policy, you know, and of course they're, they're driving change in policy that is beneficial to them for sure.

[00:05:13] But with enough social pressure, you know, we're in Silicon Valley and we, you know, on the whole tech is an extremely like liberal side of the political spectrum in general, but for the most part they are. And they're, because of the amount of money that they drive in the economy. I think you're seeing a corporatocracy more and more, you know, we already knew that, right?

[00:05:35] We're definitely seeing corporations drive social change and that's good. Or it could be good because they're less bound by, you know, the voluminous legal codes. They're, they're driven by like efficacy and profit, which, sure. Not great, but it does drive change. So leadership in companies, it really does, make a difference in society. Yeah, or it really can.

[00:06:04] So my leadership moment, I'm going to kind of echo yours in that I am very focused on sharing my vision of our purpose with my current team and having them act more independently.

[00:06:20] I find a lot of cultures are very top down. And people are used to that they're used to always having to get permission from the boss. You know in hotels it was like, oh, I don't know if I can give you a free night, Let me go find the manager, and it was like it's just a thing clogged up toilet, you know, give them a free night, give them, you know, the points, buy them a drink, whatever you need to do to make them happy.

[00:06:41] You didn't need to call me at home on a Sunday at nine o'clock to find out if that was okay with me. But you know, people are afraid to make a decision. They're afraid to make a mistake. They're afraid they're going to be called out. And I hope my amazing wife will talk about at some point. What I saw in her presentation, which is the celebration of failure. 

[00:07:03] Failure is something, you know, you have to be comfortable with in order to lead, because you will, you will undoubtedly not succeed at everything you try and that can feel very personal, right? So how to get my team confident to make decisions, to take risks, to make choices, to act independently. That's kind of where I am both with what I'm doing right now and just just in general.

[00:07:28] We're not, we're not taught that at all. We're not taught, and we can break all that down. We're not taught independent thought in elementary school. We're not taught how to learn. We're not taught how to think. We're not taught to be curious. We're taught to retain information and follow directions and that, and, and to behave, you know, that's not exactly what you want in a leader.

[00:07:51] Kristen: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And we'll, we'll get into the failure stuff a little bit in this episode, actually, but I think that's, that's definitely one I want to talk more about because it is, it is very underrated in most work cultures. 

[00:08:07] Well that's a good lead in into our topic, which is leadership and or executive presence, which I think, before we even start talking about it, like what, what it is and what it isn't. And I, I have my own model for this, so that I'll get into in a little bit, but we wanted to just kind of have a discussion on some of the things we've, we've seen about this and some of the things that resonate and don't necessarily resonate.

[00:08:40] Mike: Yeah. I like this article that you sent me from the Harvard Business Review, The New Rules of Executive Presence. And that article is written by Sylvia Ann Hewlett. It's pretty fascinating.

[00:08:52] Kristen: And we will put this in the show notes by the way, so you can, you can find the link to it there.

[00:08:58] Mike: there. And over the period of only 10 years, we're seeing a big change in what people are considering as the components of executive leadership or executive presence.

[00:09:10] You know, they break it down into three kind of traits, gravitas, communication and appearance. And all of those combined make up a leadership presence. And we can break that down a little bit more.

[00:09:27] Kristen: I always, I find this such an interesting topic, and it's been one that I've personally in the speaking and workshops I do, it's been my number one requested topic this year by far, which I, is part of why we chose it for one of our, our early episodes since it just comes up so much. But I think it's, it's really important to talk about too, because executive presence or leadership presence, whichever one you want to call it is this really vague, undefined concept.

[00:10:00] Like there is not one. definition for it that is widely accepted. And I think it can mean different things to different people. And I also think it can be used as an excuse for why you don't want to hire somebody or promote somebody, for example, when there's really bias at play because it's it's something that is historically not very easy to define.

[00:10:28] People just kind of see it as like you have it or you don't kind of thing, right?

[00:10:33] Mike: Charisma.

[00:10:35] Kristen: Yeah, and charisma's a part of it, but

[00:10:38] Mike: It's not necessary.

[00:10:39] Kristen: Yeah.

[00:10:40] Mike: Depends on the job, but charisma is not necessary, necessarily, for a leadership position.

[00:10:47] Kristen: Yeah, I agree.

[00:10:49] I agree. 

[00:10:50] Mike: One book that I was really transformative for me was uh, Good to Great and they rank leaders in terms of level one level two level three up to level five and he did a study over many years where he tracked different companies that outperformed, the market by significant amounts and he found, you know, most of them were being headed by level five leaders. And he breaks that down in different ways, but there's a effervescent or intangible quality of almost a spiritual awakening that takes going from level four, which is someone that's very effective at organizing a group to accomplish a mission, which is the technical definition of a leader to level five, which is something different and inspiring and maybe paradigm changing.

[00:11:38] Right. But the traditional model is the, and I'm going to say very deliberately white knight uh, who rides in and saves the day and is the hero. And that's the traditional version of a leader, but they found over, you know, decades watching companies that outperformed the market significantly that this was not the case.

[00:12:01] That in fact, the companies that employed a CEO who was a white knight and came in and saved everybody, the minute that guy left, or when he made a wrong decision, the company went back to mediocrity. Chrysler in the eighties is a really good example of that. I think he's passed on, you know, Mr. Iacocca, Lee Iacocca absolutely changed Chrysler and then made some really bad decisions and the company is well back where they are, not a market leader like the minute he was done, so. 

[00:12:30] Kristen: Yeah, I think that's, I think that's really interesting and admittedly, it's been a very long time since I read Good to Great. But that's an important thing to note. It's more than just somebody who can come in and save the day.

[00:12:41] Mike: day. Well, you definitely want somebody that can come in and save the day, right? But I read somewhere, you leaders shouldn't be really judged on their success until like six months or a year after they've left their position. You can see the wake of their actions.

[00:12:58] Leaders especially in business nowadays, they're being asked to manage a lot more than just the success of the operation or profit. We're expected to not just manage the success of an organization nowadays, we're expected to keep everybody happy and engaged.

[00:13:17] And we're competing as a leader. You are competing for the very limited pool of talent resources that are available out there. And those resources, those human resources are ever more scarce.

[00:13:32] So if you don't adapt your leadership style to what is in the zeitgeist, if you will, then you're not going to win. 

[00:13:42] Kristen: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I think there's, there's this old idea of executive

[00:13:50] presence and leadership presence that is much more around assertiveness and forcefulness and how polished you look and all of these different other factors, charisma, presentation skills, just like this, this whole idea that I think really misses the human component of it, which I, if you listen to this podcast for a while, you'll see me probably take every topic we do and relate it back to emotional intelligence, but I do think that is the root of what is required of leaders to be successful today. 

[00:14:33] And what's really interesting to kind of go back to the Harvard Business Review article that you mentioned at the beginning. They, they did this survey in 2012 among executives and then they did another survey in 2022. And they basically were asked out of a list of like 25 traits to list, to select what the six most important leadership traits were.

[00:15:01] And it's changed a lot in the last 10 years, which is so interesting. She really breaks it into gravitas, communication and appearance traits. And some of it has stayed consistent, like confidence, decisiveness, speaking skills still remained important from the decade, which is not surprising, right?

[00:15:25] Like, those are, are pretty critical things, but there were certain traits that increased a lot, and in particular, inclusivity or inclusiveness as a trait. So like hiring people with diverse backgrounds, giving everybody a fair shot, increased a lot, respect for others, increased a whole lot. Having like a listen to learn orientation.

[00:15:52] Mike: Respect for others wasn't even on the 2012 list.

[00:15:55] Kristen: Yeah, no, yeah, it was not anywhere in

[00:15:57] Mike: Though emotional intelligence was, but so was blue chip pedigree.

[00:16:02] That was 2012. I wanted to say too. I, I love what you said about that. 

[00:16:05] The, appearance side of things. I think, I don't have the science, but I think we are biologically wired to follow a certain look of a person. If you are six foot four, you have a deep voice and a square jaw. You read to our limbic brain as leaderly because your brain is wired for an epoch that involved mostly physical survival in the, in the as yet untamed wilderness, which is not what's going on now. So our brains take a long time to evolve, to change, and that hasn't happened. So yet.

[00:16:46] But I can tell you being not six foot four and not square jawed and and a little goofy I've had to work to develop, you know, what my leadership presence looks like, because it's not just like wearing a three piece suit sounding good on the mic. There's a lot more to it. 

[00:17:08] Kristen: it. Yeah, and I think that, yeah, a lot of that goes back to our own understanding of the biases within our brains and how that applies to so many things, especially when we talk about inclusiveness and diversity and belonging.

[00:17:23] But, I do think it's interesting I think especially like forcefulness was a top trait in 2012, which is not something you really hear anybody saying they want in a leader now, and it's only been 12 years since then, but listen to learn. So like really having a, an orientation where you listen to others and go in with an open mind and seek to learn from others before you make decisions has been named as really important. And also authenticity did not register at all in 2012, but it was noted in two of the categories in 2022. And it goes down to leaders today are supposed to reveal who they fundamentally are. So before we were just kind of, trying to, as leaders, mimic this old, idealized, traditional model, which kind of goes back to what you were talking about, Mike, with this, like, this vision of, like, what a leader was supposed to look like, which is always white and male and tall 

[00:18:30] Mike: Often, yeah. 

[00:18:31] Kristen: yeah, many, many other things that don't hold true and are not required to be a good leader.

[00:18:38] And now, your authenticity, your background, your point of view, like who you truly are is an asset. 

[00:18:48] Mike: Can you talk more about bias? I'm reading Thinking Fast and Slow, and I'm just fascinated. I'll tell you, like, whenever someone has sent me a training to do that's like work on your cognitive bias.

[00:19:01] I'm like, I'm not biased. I respect everybody. And I kind of do, but you know, as I've read, in reading Thinking Fast and Slow, there's different operating systems in the brain. There's one that operates very quickly and there's one that's more logical and methodical. And the one that operates quickly is absolutely involuntary and it is ingrained in you.

[00:19:23] And there are biological aspects of it. There are social aspects and cultural aspects. But I'm now, I'm pretty fascinated with that. And, and there's a real negative connotation when people say it nowadays too. Bias. It sounds like a very negative word. You have bias.

[00:19:39] Well, bias is just a slant. Like, I like to go to the roots of words, right? Bias literally just means slant, right? So your view is a little bit slanted, but all of our views are slanted, right? You have your version of reality. I have mine and maybe mine's know, 1 percent less than yours, but we're, none of us are at 100%.

[00:19:58] So I would like to hear more about bias. 

[00:20:00] Kristen: Yeah.

[00:20:01] Well, and you kind of set it up with the Thinking Fast and Slow model, but there's basically, there's, there's two systems of thinking. There's System One thinking, which is the automatic thinking that our brains are doing all the time, like you're driving to work and you're thinking about something else and then you realize that you are at work and you don't remember everything you did along the way.

[00:20:26] That is your, your System One doing it for you, right? Whereas your System Two thinking is very intentional. It requires, that's when it's analytical thinking, critical thinking. You need to calculate something, analyze something, and it's takes a lot of effort and it takes a lot of consciousness, intentionality, right?

[00:20:48] So our brains cannot operate at System Two all the time. They're just taking in so much information all the time that basically our biases are just a shortcut. It's a mental shortcut for our brains to be able to take in this insane amount of information and know what to pay attention to, what to remember and be able to make the insane number of decisions that we need to make on a daily basis without having to leverage System 2 for every one of them because it's just impossible.

[00:21:24] We make hundreds of thousands of decisions in a day. So once you realize that, it's like bias in itself um, is not. It's not necessarily bad, right? It's just very inaccurate because we have all of these, these shortcuts that we, we have in our brains. It was like, I think there's 180 of them. I do have a talk on this that we, we can, we'll do an episode on decision making specifically, but .

[00:21:51] If you know what they are and you're aware of them and you can understand how they're influencing your decisions and correct it when they are negatively influencing your decisions, which they often will be, they're not inherently bad. They're just a way that our brains operate. And it is the way that our brains have evolved and they have not caught up with the needs of today in many ways.

[00:22:19] So once you know that, you can take a lot of power back, but it's really critical to understand how your brain is operating and how those biases are going to influence what you think might be the right choice or how you feel about somebody, whether it's fair or not.

[00:22:38] Mike: Thank you. 

[00:22:40] Kristen: You're welcome.

[00:22:41] Mike: Thank you very much.

[00:22:45] Well, I just, I want to go back to forcefulness, you know nobody wants that anymore. You have, it's really you have to become more sublime and achieve very difficult goals without using force, right? And people, you see CEOs in the, in the news, I won't mention Elon's name but I'm sorry.

[00:23:07] Kristen: But you know, he's kind of a more stereotypical leader. He's very. You know, he seems very in charge. He's very opinionated. He has, you know, a lot of vision and a lot of ideas and he forces things to happen according to the way he wants. And I can't take anything away from him in terms of being an effective leader.

[00:23:26] Mike: He certainly has accomplished a lot. I mean, there's Teslas all over San Francisco, whatever we think of him, he made that happen. But I don't know that anybody loves working for him. And if they can find a different route, they'll probably go that route. They, people want to be treated respectfully. Now it's not just about a salary.

[00:23:49] It's about being treated with respect, being valued. You know, you want your voice to be heard. Nobody wants a forceful leader, but in this kind of goes to the episode that we haven't recorded yet Boundaries for Leaders, I think, you know, as we We really see that leadership is more about consistency and setting these boundaries than it is about charisma or this like traditional, leadership model.

[00:24:17] Kristen: By the way, that is episode number three. It is on your feed right now to listen to after this one. 

[00:24:22] Mike: Oh we recorded that after this. I love it.

[00:24:25] Kristen: It's dropping on our launch day.

[00:24:27] Mike: you. I love you so much.

[00:24:32] Kristen: Anyway,

[00:24:33] Mike: marriage.

[00:24:33] Kristen: yay marriage.

[00:24:35] Mike: and marriage. Love and 

[00:24:39] Kristen: No, no, nobody needs to get that song in their head.

[00:24:45] Mike: Do you know that's Frank Sinatra?

[00:24:47] Kristen: Yes, I'm aware. I didn't know that, but I also associate it with, oh,

[00:24:50] Mike: it's terrible.

[00:24:51] Kristen: the terrible TV

[00:24:52] Mike: I'm sure you'll cut all this out. Yes. Please. Yep.

[00:24:55] Kristen: Yep, for sure. Yeah, so I think this leads into my leadership model, which is based on different principles from improv theater like the majority of my working content, but it also really has emotional intelligence at its root, which I'm going to sound like a broken record on this podcast for, for talking about it, but I think it is just, it is so important and it is such a critical skill for every leader today.

[00:25:26] But the, the way I define leadership presence is within three areas and it's basically a Venn diagram. So you have three areas that are all interconnected. If you would like to see what. If you would like to see what this model actually looks like, if you're a visual person like I am. We will have this posted on our Instagram, so you can go there and see what I'm talking about. 

[00:25:50] Mike: Can I make a quick comment about your leadership model? Okay, so I don't do improv. I think I'm hilarious, but apparently that's a different skill and they won't let me play with them. No, that's fine. 

[00:26:02] Kristen: That's not true.

[00:26:03] Mike: Okay. we'll start over. I, I don't do improv and I recently had the opportunity for the first time to see my wife's leadership presentation. You know, we've talked about these things informally for, for years now. We've had discussions, but I've never seen her actually put the model together. And when I saw it, I was honestly just kind of blown away, you know, when she said improv, like lessons from improv, I'm like, some of it I get, but she reverse engineered. First, she figured out like, what are the qualities of a leader?

[00:26:43] You know, that make leadership presence. And she's going to go over that awareness, authenticity, and connection. And then she reverse engineered the things that we do, the things that we think, the way we talk to ourselves, our perceptions, our practices that are stopping us from having these characteristics.

[00:27:02] I'm just, I'm kind of in awe of it. So like, if you do what she tells you, you'll be a better leader. I think it's the message.

[00:27:11] Kristen: Aww. Well that's very sweet.

[00:27:15] Mike: I'm being completely honest and transparent. 

[00:27:19] Kristen: It's also been nice that while he's talking about this our second cat to make an appearance on the table while we're podcasting is, was just staring at him adoringly.

[00:27:30] Mike: I wish we were on video. She's a real, she's Oh, 

[00:27:34] Kristen: Yeah. But then they'll just knock over the webcam.

[00:27:38] Mike: Oh, she'll knock it right off.

[00:27:39] Kristen: Yeah. And then they won't be on video.

[00:27:41] Mike: Weren't we going to talk about that? Or no, that's imposter syndrome. You know who doesn't have imposter syndrome?

[00:27:46] Cats.

[00:27:47] Kristen: Yep. I'm sure they'll make an appearance during that recording too.

[00:27:50] Mike: They walk in like they're the boss, like they own the place, like they have zero doubt on themselves. And they they run the show. Yep,

[00:27:59] Kristen: Yep. They literally, she is literally running the show right 

[00:28:02] now. 

[00:28:02] Mike: You can think of meows as boundaries, when you do something or when you're not doing something that they want. 

[00:28:08] They're, 

[00:28:10] They're letting you know where the boundary is and how you should behave to fulfill their needs. 

[00:28:16] Kristen: Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:28:17] Mike: But I did want to get in there, how how you reverse engineered the qualities of leadership, what they are, and then reverse engineered the things that are kind of blocking the river of our natural leadership, if you will. 

[00:28:32] Kristen: I, I appreciate your your support in setting up my model so, so wonderfully.

[00:28:41] Mike: I'm sorry, are you blushing?

[00:28:43] Kristen: A little bit, maybe a little bit.

[00:28:45] Mike: nice that after all this time I can still give you a compliment that makes you swoon just a little 

[00:28:51] Kristen: I mean, it's, it's nice. Yeah.

[00:28:54] Mike: Okay. So you're going to go into the Adlib leadership presence model, which I think is just absolutely genius.

[00:29:01] Kristin, can you tell us about your model, which is something that you can teach, something that you can practice, something that you have materials to guide and work through. Can, can you tell us about that?

[00:29:12] Kristen: Yeah, so the, the AdLib leadership presence model. So there's, there's three components of this. It's basically a Venn diagram and you can see it on our Instagram. 

[00:29:25] But the first one is awareness. And then the other two are authenticity and connection. So by awareness, I mean perceiving yourself, others, and situations around you accurately. So this is a foundation of emotional intelligence.

[00:29:43] Mike: Sounds easy. I can do that right now. 

[00:29:46] It's not easy.

[00:29:49] Kristen: It's not easy and I feel like you're actually naturally good at it, but it's still

[00:29:54] Mike: is, none of that is easy. Perceiving situations accurately, whoo, whoo. That's hard.

[00:30:02] Kristen: And perceiving our own emotions and thoughts and all of that is something that takes a lot of practice. I am a big fan of mindfulness practices. There's a lot of overlap between those and improv and I know Mike is also, Mike has a very dedicated meditation practice, which I admire and I'm trying to get more consistent with mine.

[00:30:26] But you also do not need to meditate to, to be mindful. You can. Mindfully eat, you can mindfully walk, and there's a lot of things that you can do. The key is just building that awareness of your thoughts, what's happening inside of your mind, and as well as what's happening around you. 

[00:30:46] Mindfulness awareness practices is one part of that. I talk a lot about listening. That's another one we could just do a whole episode on.

[00:30:54] I have these three levels of listening that I talk about. And it starts from listening to speak, which is somebody's talking to you, you know they're talking to you, but you're, you're basically formulating your own 

[00:31:08] Mike: I don't do that. No. What are you talking about?

[00:31:10] Kristen: Nobody does that. Yeah. Yeah. I never do it either, of course, I'm totally,

[00:31:14] Mike: I have so little to say, usually.

[00:31:19] Kristen: Yes. And then listening to hear, which is kind of what most people think of as active listening, but you're still kind of filtering everything through your own thoughts and perspectives. And then immersive listening is when you're actually listening to understand that person and where they're coming from and what their point of view is.

[00:31:38] And that is the most powerful level of understanding, and that will help you really gain an awareness of opportunities and insights, and help build trust in a way that just listening to respond will not.

[00:31:52] Mike: You, you touched my maintenance director's heart deeply with this part. Okay. He, he really got it.

[00:31:59] Kristen: Love it. Yeah, and then the other piece of this is around a mindset of curiosity, which is so powerful and it's something that we don't do a lot of naturally, but going into conversations with another person with a mindset of curiosity is really, really impactful because then you're, you're asking them open ended questions, but it's not an interrogation, right? You're really just seeking to understand. So those are the three parts of awareness that I talk about a lot.

[00:32:29] Mike: That can take time too, the questioning. You mentioned that earlier, it kind of, it kind of resonated with me. Cause that's what I, I won't say that I just attend to everything with curiosity, but I ask a lot of questions and until people get to know me, it can feel maybe like I'm interrogating them until they realize that I'm not after them, I'm just, I'm amassing information to fix a problem or something, but.

[00:32:55] You've got a leadership presence, right? I think ultimately you have to remember that people see you first as the boss and then as who you actually are. And you see yourself as who you actually are, hopefully, and then the boss, but that's not how they're interacting with you. 

[00:33:16] Kristen: And then authenticity is really comes to being genuine and true to yourself in your interactions with others and encouraging other people to do the same.

[00:33:26] But that starts with you and your own authenticity. And there are some things that get in the way of this and the inner judge is a big piece of what gets in the way of this. And the inner judge is basically that voice inside your head. You might know it as the inner critic, or you might just have a not so nice name for it, but it's that voice in your head that's telling you, you can't do this, or you're not good enough, or don't, don't take that risk.

[00:33:57] Or why, why aren't you working harder? And the inner judge is not inherently bad. It's actually a survival mechanism because our, our brains are still functioning from this point in time where if you were alienated from your community, or if you ate the wrong berry and it turned out to be poisonous, it's very easy to die, right?

[00:34:20] So this part of your brain is just ultimately trying to get you to avoid risk most of the time, but it's doing so in ways that are very counterproductive, and it also does not understand that deciding to do a presentation is not going to put you at risk the way that going out when wild animals are present would.

[00:34:44] Mike: You mean an email from my boss is not supposed to send me into a spiraling fight or flight response?

[00:34:50] Kristen: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Our brains don't know

[00:34:54] Mike: know that. No, they don't. And I think a lot of people experience this, right? They, they really experienced the fight or flight response a lot at work. And as we go next episode into Boundaries with Leaders, it's talking a lot about techniques that will allow people to exist and their work environment without putting them into the fight or flight response and still achieve results.

[00:35:22] I, I, I love your inner judge. graphic. It really explains it. It really was like an aha moment for me. There's different ones. There's the perfectionist. Well, you need to do better than that. There's the controller. You have no willpower, the guilt tripper.

[00:35:37] How could you have done that? I think everybody is going to recognize certain phrases in here of the way we talk to ourselves, you know, the destroyer, you're worthless taskmaster. You're so lazy. We tell ourselves these things all the time. And in fact, as Kristen stated, they are blocking our authenticity.

[00:35:58] They are blocking our natural intuition. 

[00:36:01] Kristen: Yep. Absolutely. The other thing this really goes into, which Mike foreshadowed a little bit early in this episode, is our, our inner judge, it does not want you to take risks, right?

[00:36:12] It's terrified of failure and it's going to do a lot of things to try to get you to not take risks because it is so afraid of you failing and putting your life at risk.

[00:36:25] I am somebody who is, has a naturally very deep fear of failure. I'm a recovering perfectionist, as I like to say. And I can say personally how much improv has helped me with this because I naturally hate failure.

[00:36:44] But the thing with failure is, the more you actively try to avoid it, the scarier it becomes and the worse it is when you inevitably make mistakes and fail because we're all human. So a big tactic is finding safe spaces to practice failing where it's okay, there's low stakes, it's okay to fail, and the more you practice with that, with making mistakes and failing in a space where there's low stakes, the easier it becomes to not get paralyzed by fear of failure and to deal with it when it does come up in a high stakes way.

[00:37:24] Mike: Can I ask you about that? We talk about stakes, right? And you're talking about the inner judge. A lot of these are like, you know, biological processes that are designed to keep you safe.

[00:37:33] Most of us are not going to work in a field that is truly life or death, which like the medical field, like obviously a surgeon you know, maybe a fighter pilot, things like that, you know, where, where your decisions every day have a truly immediate life or death, death consequence.

[00:37:50] Most of us work for companies that are, they exist for profit, right? So how does failure look in situations like that? I mean, ultimately most of us are working for, you know, companies that are publicly traded, that are very value minded, that are very like shareholder.

[00:38:09] So what is failing? And how does that look for most people that are listening to this? What's a safe space to fail at work?

[00:38:17] Kristen: Yeah, and this is a good question because it's also something that you can help create as a leader for your team. But I, I do always talk about improv for this. There's a, there's always a study I talk about when I, when I give talks on this where there were fMRI studies done and they, in short, basically showed that when a person was improvising, the part of the brain that is associated with inhibition and control, like also known as your inner judge, actually decreases in activity.

[00:38:56] So that is, is one way is there's a lot of improv exercises you can do on your own. There's ones you can do as a team. It's a really easy way to help build in those safe spaces. But you can also create this just within like a brainstorming environment by just creating a super safe space.

[00:39:15] Like when you're trying to encourage creativity, it is so important that people feel like they can fail because if everybody's afraid to fail, it completely inhibits the creative part of the brain, right? So if you want a culture that is creative and innovative, building in this in, via exercises and types of meetings is, is really important.

[00:39:41] And you can really also use that to help build trust within your team as well.

[00:39:45] Mike: trust So improv is like play. 

[00:39:48] Kristen: Yeah. 

[00:39:49] Mike: Yeah. I saw an interesting John Cleese talk. Many people listening to this will be too young to know who John Cleese is, but he's maybe the funniest man that's ever walked the planet.

[00:40:00] Uh, Kristen disagrees. I can see by her face. He's so funny. Come on, Monty Python and the Holy

[00:40:05] Kristen: I I am not a Monty Python fan. I've tried. I just don't get it.

[00:40:12] Mike: Googles divorce lawyer. Anyway, he talks about, he's talking about creativity at work. Because now that is part of the buzzwords of leadership presence and all the, you know, executive work is creativity. And he breaks down some scientific studies that really talk about in order to play, you know, there's a different operating system in the brain, which is probably like type one thinking that, you know, you shut off your operational the operational part of your brain that lets you run your business, you know, and, and you become more childlike and, and free of thought.

[00:40:53] And one thing is you definitely don't worry about failing, right? As a child playing with Legos or whatever it was, you're not thinking about failing. You're, it's kind of a flow state. You can't be in a flow state when you're thinking about failure. It has to be kind of innocent and detached from the results.

[00:41:13] that's a, that's a question. How do you get there? How do you get to a, that, that childlike play state. Well you, Kristen goes to improv, Jujitsu is a little bit like that. We were rolling around on the floor doing somersaults and stuff like that. And done right, it feels like you're just playing.

[00:41:30] Kristen: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:32] No, that is another, that's another aspect of, of improv that I talk about a lot. Play is really, really powerful. yeah, feeding kind of back into this model, the, the last piece is connection. So within that, I talk a lot about Yes, And as an improv principle, which if you know anything about improv, it's likely you've heard of this.

[00:41:59] It's really the cornerstone of, of improv. But the idea of yes, and is somebody says something, right? Like, contributes an idea. You are responding with yes, which is the validation, the agreement. You're not negating what they just said. And the and part is equally important, which is you're adding your own contribution to it.

[00:42:22] And this is amazing in brainstorming sessions where if you actually apply rules where you can either you can yes and that is all you can do you can add a new idea or you can yes and somebody else's idea there's no negating and it's amazing what can come out of sessions like that and it also really helps create trust and connection because it feels so good to have somebody validate your idea and then add their own contribution to it.

[00:42:52] I also like to talk about three different questions when you're, when you're having somebody that you want to relate to better, where you're thinking about, like, what their goals and motivators are. Like, it's so simple, but it's so impactful when you come down to, Well, what does this person want, and how can I relate what I'm seeking to accomplish with them back to what their goals are, and what are they feeling about the situation back to awareness and emotional intelligence, like understanding their point of view, and also understanding how they like to be recognized and appreciated.

[00:43:30] If you know answers to these three questions with somebody, you are so much better positioned to build a relationship and truly connect with them and truly build trust. 

[00:43:42] Mike: I love the concept of figuring out how people like to be recognized. I read one time the five love languages at work or something like that. They wrote another book.

[00:43:53] Kristen: The Five Languages of Appreciation. The 

[00:43:56] Mike: Languages of Appreciation at Work. And it's specifically tailored for work. And yeah, we mostly take physical touches not allowed. But the other four were interesting and. We did this at one of the companies I was working at and I came out, my love language was acts of service because I work, I've worked in, you know, like a very busy, it's just like, if you love me, help me out.

[00:44:18] You're showing up, but

[00:44:19] Kristen: This is also his primary love language at home.

[00:44:21] Mike: my primary, like, just, just put the dishes away. No but not everybody came out like that. All most people came out with words of affirmation as their main language and then a few people giving gifts. But if you don't know. What you're doing is actually ringing hollow. Like I like to hear my name praised all, but I'd rather you pick up a broom and help me sweep the floor.

[00:44:43] That's meaningful to me. And if I help Kristen do something, maybe that doesn't register. But if I tell her she's pretty, which she is, then she blushes and you

[00:44:56] know, smiles and feels good about life. So, I think that's awesome. You do have to find out, you know, to go to like level three of your, of your listening, what is their point of view?

[00:45:07] What are they conveying? Where are they coming from? What do they want? Who are they? Those are the questions we should be asking.

[00:45:12] Kristen: And then I love this, this idea in improv where it's always make your scene partner look good.

[00:45:19] Mike: Powerful stuff.

[00:45:20] Kristen: It is, it's amazing. Like if you're in a scene and you're not sure what to do, when in doubt, make the other person look good. And that applies so well to making your teammates, your boss, your employee, whoever, when in doubt, make the other person look good.

[00:45:37] Mike: And give them credit. I, yeah, give them credit. You make, you actually make yourself look good. If like to a very senior leader, they say, Oh, good job. And you say, no, it wasn't actually me. You know, this team member did that. And that team member contributed in this way. That's why we were successful. The more you give credit to other people, I think in general, that's a better leadership quality than the person that wants attention, wants praise. 

[00:46:05] Kristen, to go back to your to your model here, I think the three levels of listening are really well elucidated. And looking at this, it makes me want to reach level three and think about that all the time. 

[00:46:21] Kristen: I love it. And um, yeah, like I said, we'll put this on Instagram. It'll be linked within our show notes. And I also talk about this stuff a lot on LinkedIn. So if you would like to connect or follow me on there, you'll probably see me talk about it a lot more there too.

[00:46:41] Mike: So we've completely solved the question of leadership presence that should, that should put the uh, the final um. I do want to say something as we are doing this podcast. I in no way feel like an expert. Yeah. I certainly have done a lot of study and I've been in a lot of leadership positions, but I am really, I still feel like I'm at the beginning of this kind of journey and trying to collate, internalize, integrate, and then put these things into a very natural practice. Unless you're particularly gifted with some of them, it takes a long time. So I'm here to learn as much as like share my experience. And I think that's a healthy, you know, you said earlier coming to all of this with the mindset of curiosity.

[00:47:33] Kristen: Yeah. Yeah and I agree. I mean, this is, leadership is the focus of my every day. It's a focus of my living and part of the joy of it is that I am continuously learning. Learning from the books I read, the resources I read, the people I know, my clients, and my husband. Did I forget to say that? I'm sorry.

[00:47:58] Mike: It's fine. We're giving credit to other leaders. We're not worried about self aggrandizement.

[00:48:03] Kristen: I, I love you for the record.

[00:48:06] Mike: It is recorded in the record.

[00:48:10] Kristen: So, anyway um,

[00:48:12] Mike: Would you like me to read that back to you in the transcript? I love you too. 

[00:48:20] Kristen: So, all that to say, we're, we're with you on this journey. Part of the joy of this, and even when you know something and you believe in it and this is the framework you want to follow, it is always a process because things are always changing. We're humans. Some days we're in a better mindset than others, and that's part of the joy of living and leading, right?

[00:48:42] Mike: So much joy. 

[00:48:45] Kristen: Way to really end it on a positive note, babe.

[00:48:49] Mike: Don't make me record after work.

[00:48:52] Kristen: So how do you, how do you want to end it? 

[00:48:55] Mike: Leadership has never been easy. In today's world, it's only become more challenging. Leaders have to balance a lot of competing priorities and take care of their people and take care of their clients, their customers, and still somehow do all of that and run a successful business.

[00:49:11] That's a lot to juggle. You know, the main thing I think we can take away from this is, leadership presence involves understanding and listening to other people in a way that not just hears them, but makes them feel heard. Yeah.

[00:49:28] Kristen: That is beautifully said.

[00:49:30] Amazing. Well, I think we are going to wrap it up here. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening. And yes, if it's launch week, you have one more episode to listen to still, and then we'll see you again next week. 

[00:49:45] Bye everyone.

[00:49:46] Mike: Bye everybody. Thanks for tuning in. 

[00:49:49] Kristen: The Love and Leadership Podcast is produced and co-hosted by me, Kristen Brun Sharkey and co-hosted by Mike Sharkey. Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcast. We can't stress enough just how much these reviews help. You can follow us on LinkedIn under Kristen Brun Sharkey and Michael Sharkey, and on Instagram is @loveleaderpod. You can also find more information on our website, loveandleadershippod.com. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you again next week.