Beyond the Robotic Mask: How "Generator" Leaders Fuel High Performance with Dr. Katina Sawyer

Welcome to The Flourishing Edge, the podcast where we share weekly tips on making flourishing your competitive edge. I'm Ashish Kothari, your host, and each week we'll dive deep with flourishing experts, changemakers, and executives to share best practices that can help you unlock higher performance through science-based interventions. Let's step together into the edge of what's possible and live, work, and lead with more joy, health, love, and meaning. Most leaders will be remembered for one of two reasons: they drained people or they elevated them. Which one will you be? Today, I'm joined by Dr. Catina Sawyer, author of Leading for Wellness, and this conversation is about what it truly means to lead in a way that energizes rather than exhausts. Katina introduces the idea of generator leaders, leaders who create team cultures where everyone thrives. We discuss several practical ways that anyone can implement in order to become a generator, even if your company culture doesn't support it. We discuss things like firing your work self, letting go of the robotic mask of leadership, and showing up as a whole human. Intentionally setting a tone where you create a culture of gratitude and distributed strengths instead of constant firefighting. Becoming a boundary bouncer, protecting the non-negotiables that allow people to thrive at work and at home. Friends, if you care about performance, legacy, and building workplaces which help people become the best version of themselves, this episode is for you. Let's dive in. Katina, I am so excited to record this podcast with you, uh, featuring your book, Leading for Wellness. I've just so loved reading the book. It's so filled with insights. Thank you for taking the time to come join us.

Of course. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited for our conversation.

So Katina, As we get into this podcast, if there is one big idea that you want listeners to take away, right, what we are gonna talk about, what is it?

I think that it's that leadership is hard, whether you do it wonderfully and in a way that supports thriving or not. So why not do it in a way that leaves the legacy that you'd love to leave?

Yeah. Leadership is hard. You can lead in ways that drain energy and burn people out, or you can lead in ways that help people flourish, become the best version of themselves.

Yes, 100%.

Right? Why not lead, be the second kind of leader? And no surprise, you might be surprised by the fact that you actually do get better results from it.

Yeah. Yes, and we'll talk more about that too.

Exactly. So let's get into that, actually. So talk about— you make a very compelling case in your book, Katina, around why investing in well-being, in wellness, actually is not— you don't— of course, you should do it morally and ethically. But there is a very strong financial case for why this investment is maybe the most important investment as a company that you would make.

Yeah, so I think that oftentimes people think that investing in employee wellness and getting results are ideas that are at odds. And that dollars that you invest in wellness are just there to make your employees feel better about being there, or maybe it's a good perk or benefit that you can offer people. But the reality is that the happier and healthier and more energized your employees feel, the more they're able to put that health and happiness and energy into their work. Sure that many people listening have been in workplaces where they woke up in the morning and thought about going to work and just felt a sense of dread, dread to be around the people there, dread about the work that they had to do. And that weighs on you over time. Those little accumulated negativities start to drag on you and have adverse impacts on your ability to perform to your potential. Whereas if you think about the opposite workplaces where you wake up, and of course, no workplace is perfect. There are bad days and good days in every workplace, but in general, a workplace where you wake up and think, oh, well, I'm excited to work on this, or I'm looking forward to this meeting, or I can't wait to see my friend at work, right? That also accumulates over time. And you can take that extra energy and excitement that you have and actually put it into your work in ways that you can't when you're constantly dealing with this drain in the other scenario.

Yeah, that so resonates, uh, that so resonates with me, right? Are you excited to show up to work? Do you find meaning at work? Right? Are you— do you feel safe? Do you have friends who you enjoy being with? Right? And if you're working in those kind of ways versus feeling stressed all the time or dissatisfied, you will get higher performance as a result of it. What is the extent of the impact, Katina, from all of your research that you're seeing for the CFO listening going like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard this story before.

Yeah.

What is the, what is the quantified impact that you're seeing from your work?

Yeah. So, for CFOs who are, you know, grouchy about these ideas, companies can save trillions of dollars, uh, uh, co— you know, aggregate, um, in a year, just from decreasing turnover due to people leaving because of toxic workplaces. They can increase the bottom line by billions of dollars, uh, by increasing engagement. And so, the dollars and cents are really there. And I think the bigger thing that a CFO might need to take a step back and think about is why did you decide that you wanted to lead? And often the dollars and cents, we know that there are so many things in companies that make the company money, and yet people don't do them. Why don't they do them? Because they're not heart committed to those things. They're only brain committed. So, I love the numbers. I love quantifying, but I've also sat down with CFOs and said, hey, Are you being the leader that you wanna be? And are you seeing the culture that you wanna see here? And often the answer is, well, not really, or that kind of got away from me, or I'm so stressed, I haven't been able to. Well, what's the legacy that you wanna leave behind? And I think the really big story that came out of the interviews that we did for our book about these leaders who left this long-lasting impact by boosting employees' health and happiness and results is that people remember these leaders for decades. They also remember the leaders who stand out for being particularly poor at leading. But the great leaders stand out and stick with people. They stick with the people that directly report to you. They stick with those people's families. And so, there's a dollars and cents to it for sure around turnover and disengagement and performance. And then there's also this other thing that I think if you can really get people to take a step back from the leader that they've become or the things that they've been pushed to pay attention to at the exclusion of other things, you can find like a human heart in people that they actually can expand what they care about, not only just to be about that, but also to be about, well, when I started my career, what kind of a leader did I set out to be? And where's the gap and why? And that can also make some progress with a curmudgeonly person sometimes.

Yeah. Well, and I think for those who are looking, right, I think we've covered it on our podcast. Um, at length. Go look up the McKinsey Health Institute work. It's $12 trillion in economic value, right? A trillion and a half in attrition, another trillion in absenteeism, and $9 trillion in presentism, right? You can look up work by Yan Emanuel and Alex that show 2% to 3.5% alphas. But I think, Katina, what you're inviting people to do is something that reminds me of a statement that Bob makes, Bob Chapman. We're going to have him on our podcast shortly. And as the CEO of a capital equipment company, right, $3.5 billion that has grown through 80 acquisitions, and they've kept 95% of the people who were in these units still part of the company and turned around performance. You know, he, he said something very similar. And he said, look, I was at somebody's wedding. And as I watched the bride and the groom walk, you know, to get married, I was reminded he was, they were my friend's kids. And he says, you know, I realized that every person who works at my organization is somebody's kid.

Yeah.

And as a leader, would I want to create a workplace where I don't want my child to work?

Right.

And if you're a leader who's saying, will you want your child to come work at your company? And if your answer is no, then recognize that there are several people, every one of your people who's working there is somebody's kid. Then why would you do it for them? Why is that not an obligation? Right for you to create a workplace where everybody matters because it's the right thing to do.

Yeah, exactly. I think that's such a great point. I love that story. And I think, you know, similarly, I've asked people to think about the impact that their leadership has, not just on the people that are in front of them, but on those other people. And, you know, when people have a bad day at work, when they've been struggling because they're stressed because their boss is constantly putting them down, making them feel like they're not good enough. You know, the opposite of things that we know actually help boost performance, make people feel terrible. They're politically on thin ice or always having to tiptoe around things. In those environments, the number one thing that people do is they go home and they talk to the person who lives in their house, or they make a phone call to the closest person to them, to a parent or a friend or significant other or whatever, and they vent. And that venting can have an impact on the other person. If you have kids in your household, There's some studies that show that stress levels rise in households to meet the most stressed person in the house, right? So you bring that stress home, you're bringing everybody else's stress level up with you. So this all like reverberates out in ways that are really meaningful and important, not just for organizations, but also for society. Like if our communities are drained of energy and people are just trying to get by without, you know, having a horrible day, they can't reinvest that energy into things that we know help make us live in better places and make our neighborhoods better. And so, all of these things stem from this idea that our work lives really matter, and leaders are a huge determinant of how they matter. And I think that's really an important, important thing for leaders to remember.

Yeah, for sure, right? Emotional contagion is real.

Yes.

Yes. Right? You can, you can catch like cold, both the positive energy that you give out or the stress and the anxiety and the fear that you give out, whether you like it or not, right? And given that we spend so much of our time at work, if we wanna thrive in life, how can we do that unless you are also thriving at work?

[Speaker:JULES] Yeah, 100%. They're not separate domains. They bleed into one another and impact each other. Quite a bit.

Yeah, no, I think that is so powerful. And I also like what you just said, right? Which is, look, I mean, I've talked about this on our podcast a lot and I say, look, we are living at a time where there seem to be a crisis in almost every domain, right? Economic, ecological, political, humanitarian. We have got all of these, right? We're in a polycrisis world. And I always said, Katina, that actually we don't have polycrisis. We have a single crisis, and the crisis is the crisis of mental health and, you know, what people are experiencing here. I think I'm gonna change that after our conversation. And what I'm gonna say is what we actually have is fundamentally a crisis of bad work. Like we, because the mental health crisis that people are experiencing is because of broken workplaces, which are creating suffering, not amplifying flourishing.

Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And you know what, you, we all know somebody who worked in a workplace where during that period of time they felt so devoid of energy and such low self-esteem. I just had a call with somebody, uh, the other day who was telling me that, you know, for however many years or decades of her career, she's felt really confident and really capable. And in the last several years, she's been in a workplace that have just, they've just made her feel so inferior and left her out of decisions and made her feel devalued. And she feels like she's starting to lose her confidence. She used to be a fully confident person who felt good about her, and she's starting to be more quiet, uh, doubting herself more, making more mistakes because she's so worried about, you know, um, what's gonna, what's gonna happen or what's gonna rain down. Um, and so there's all of this going on where it can totally shift, even for a person who generally has a good view of themselves and has gotten positive feedback in other domains. A negative workplace environment can make huge difference. And opposite-wise, we have people in our sample in the book, in the research that we did, talking to people who had amazing leaders. And we have a story in the book, sort of spans multiple chapters, about a person who was battling very serious and late-stage cancer. And he talked about the fact that his workplace was so understanding, accommodating, and also made him realize that he still had so much value to add in the time that he was able to dedicate to the company. And, you know, he had to switch his work schedule around a little bit, but he was still working, you know, that he, he said that if it wasn't for his company treating him the way that they did, he thinks that he, he felt at that time that he wouldn't have been alive because the stress of battling cancer and the stress of having to deal with a workplace that was less understanding would've been too much. And so, that to me speaks volumes of the difference between a workplace that uplifts people and helps them to unlock their potential versus pushes people down and makes their potential and squanders their potential.

Yeah. So look, I think we are, I think we've made quite a compelling case for why this is an investment worth making. Right? Morally, ethically, financially, frankly, for the world. If we need to have a thriving world, we need to have thriving work. The world of work needs to be thriving for the world of, you know, our external world to live. I loved the concept in your book. By the way, before we even go there, I love the concept of generators. But before we go there, you know, for our listeners, I want you, Katina, to describe wellness because the way you describe wellness, the word wellness in the book, is not how typically people talk about, you know, wellness as— wellness for many people is gym memberships and meditation programs and Headspace, but that's not how you're using the word wellness. So I don't want them to go the wrong way about what wellness means. So for a moment, Start by just describing when you talk about leading for wellness, what does wellness mean for you?

[Speaker:JULIE_CORACCIO] Yeah. And it's, it's a really interesting question because we didn't wanna come into our research with a predetermined definition. We actually wanted the people who we interviewed and surveyed to tell us what they meant when they felt their leaders supported their wellness. And we weren't sure what we were gonna find, honestly. And we thought that a predominant response would be things like, Oh, my company has these benefits. Oh, they give us a gym membership, et cetera. And the thing that really surprised us was that we very rarely heard that. What we heard was really about the workplace culture and relationships and things stemming from the leadership. But then the dimensions that people brought up were emotional. They wanted to have emotional health in their work environment, not meaning that everyone's positive all the time, but that they can actually bring up tough emotions when they have to and deal with them productively. And also that generally the environment had a more positive than negative tone. So they wanted an emotionally healthy workplace. They wanted a mentally healthy workplace where people's stress levels were manageable and people's burnout were not through— was not through the roof. And they also wanted an environment that was supportive if they were struggling with mental health, like diagnosable mental health issues that they felt comfortable and confident talking about those and finding strategies to work with those. Um, and then they also talked about, uh, physical health. And that was interesting because that is where some of those like more, I think, commonplace ideas came in. We're talking about getting exercise in or having time to cook nutritious meals. But there was also this other side of it, which was, you know, if I become ill, how is it treated? If someone in my family becomes very ill, Do people value that caring for someone who has physical health issues is taxing, and how do people deal with that? And the last piece was, uh, sort of this work-life balance idea and something that I think our participants defined that departs from sort of more colloquial definitions of balance. It wasn't that they were saying, oh, I can have 50% of work and 50% of life. They were saying that they achieved a felt sense of balance that was actually tailored and personalized to them. So they were able to work with their leader on what was most integral to them feeling a sense of balance and to preserve those things that led to that state of balance most directly. And so that was the four-pronged definition that we induced from our participants' insights. And we are really happy with that definition because it came from them and also then helped us to better understand What is it that these leaders are doing, and what are their actions provoking?

I love that definition. I love it that it's actually backed from— it's inferred from what people are saying.

Yeah.

Right? And it is truly about holistically emotional, how people are feeling, mental. It's about how they feel supported, this notion of balance. We'll get to the balance point because I think you changed my thinking on that one too as I read the book. Something else that I give you credit for a lot. But that's wellness. It is not, folks, gym memberships and Headspace and giving people mental health days. It is none of that, right? In fact, if you look at the latest research from Oxford, it published last year, they looked at 1,560 approximately interventions in UK, and they found almost none of them to be positive ROI. At max, neutral or negative. And most companies have these. So my invitation is, look at your budgets. Look at that research. Take those dollars and invest in an actually wellness that will make a difference for your people.

Yeah, 100%. Leader development training around how to create wellness-focused environments is much more likely to have an impact based on what we've found in the research that you're talking about than investing those dollars in benefits. We talk about it like a cake. So those benefits are nice. They're like icing on a cake. But if the cake itself is no good, then you're just putting icing on a cake that everybody already agrees is terrible. And sometimes you have to rebake the cake before you buy some more icing, you know, like It's important to have the core of what you're doing be something that people will find appealing.

Yeah. Well, to be more extreme, I would call it, you know, it's icing on a cake that's rotting within.

Yeah, right, right, right.

Really. Yeah, no, I think it's really, really powerful. And you can redirect those dollars, friends, right? Go fix this first. These are the basics.

Yeah.

And it can start with you. So I wanna go there next. You introduce a powerful concept of a leader as a generator. You call them generators. So describe a generator concept to our listeners.

Yeah.

And then let's go into the 4 kind of key pillars of how one can become a generator.

Yeah. So generator leaders are basically leaders who are positively deviant in being able to create workplaces that support health, happiness, and results. And, uh, we want to be very clear that generator leaders are not just the absence of negative behaviors, right? So, uh, a lot of people, I think, feel that they're doing a great job at leadership if they're just not being the bad leader that they saw, or they're not engaging in more toxic leadership behaviors. But neutral is not the same as a generator. A generator is a leader that actively infuses their team with energy, vibrancy, and health so that they can thrive and unlock their full potential.

Yeah, so it's not about just negative or neutral, like actively creating. And it reminds me, Katina, a little bit as I read it, I mean, it was a lot more, it had a lot more concepts, but it reminded me a little bit around the positive energizer concept.

Yes, yes.

By Kim Cameron.

Yes.

Right? That individual, these leaders, by the way, matter. And these leaders, even in kind of workplaces that might not be like that, to your point, attract people who wanna work with them.

Yeah.

And they stick with them.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. 100%. Yeah. And, uh, that's the thing. A lot of the people that we talked to about these generator leaders, as I was mentioning before about this legacy, some of these leaders were people that folks had worked with 20 years before, and the stories were so vivid in their memories of what this leader did and how this leader supported them and how it helped them to unlock their potential and perform better than they had before. And. and better than they did after when they were working for other people, that it's so sticky that you know that this is something that goes above just being, oh, that person wasn't doing anything wrong. Um, there are the, these are people who are doing a lot of things proactively, right?

Yeah. You know, the other idea that the other concept I loved about generators, which is quite different than other work, right? Um, work by Jan Emanuel, MHI, our own research. What's different about this, because it often either talks about policy level, which is way above a company, or it talks about company and culture. You also, in this work, I often hear people saying, well, I would do so much if it only was for the company. I don't control. And what I loved about the concept of generators is I actually, in your book, Katina found hope. Because it basically says, if you are a leader, if you're a leader of 5 people, if you're a leader of 50 people, you're a leader of 500, 5,000, it doesn't matter. You can start where you are because these are things that you don't need permission from others to do. This is about how you show up.

[Speaker:KATINA] Yes, exactly. And, and that microculture, we see so many people that are like, well, the organizational culture is such and such way. There's nothing I can do about that. And these leaders did not think that way. They saw that they had a sphere of influence and they exercised that influence to create the change that they did have power and impact over. And sometimes that rippled out and started to change the culture in meaningful ways too. So, they didn't let that hold them back. And I think also, you know, for leaders, when you step into a leadership role, you are taking on a responsibility for the fact that you now have some form of influence, right? And so, to always be pointing upward and saying, well, you know, I can't do this because of this, this, and that. Okay, all of that is true that your context may not support the type of leader that you wanna be, but now what are you gonna do about that? Because you're a leader. And so being a leader, you have to find a way to work within the context that you're in. Is it gonna be the same or as easy, or are you gonna get the same results or make the same progress as you would if those cultures were synergizing with your efforts? No, but can you make some positive progress? Incremental changes that matter? Yes, you can. And so, it's really about taking ownership over what you can have influence over.

This conversation is brought to you by Happiness Squad, where we help leaders build new mindsets, new habits, and transform their ways of working to truly flourish. If you're ready to unleash the untapped human potential in your organization and operate at your best, come visit us at happinesssquad.com and start your journey today. I love that. So let's talk about those 4 pillars.

Sure.

4 big moves that you can do to become a generator.

Yeah. So the first is really around what we call firing your work self. And this is the idea that we often embody and act out leadership norms that have become part of us, but may not be who we want to be. We've seen leaders act particular ways. We understand what a leader prototype looks like. And often these ideal leader norms come from places where historically people thought that this was what made a good leader, a very stoic leader, a decisive leader that makes decisions on their own and takes action, who always knows the answers. And, um, We've found over the years that that's not actually what makes an effective leader, but those stereotypes still are sticky. And so we see people acting in certain ways that's almost like putting on a mask when they become a leader because they think that's what a leader needs to be. And they sort of stop being human and start feeling like they have to be almost like robotic or made of steel, right? And so we invite people in our book to do what the generator leaders did that we heard from. Which is to really do some inner reflection about who you are and who you want to be as a leader and manifest your actual self at work. Think about the parts of your work self, as we call it, that you'd like to fire. When are you showing up in ways that are not actually you and why, and how can you get to be more yourself? The big thing that we heard from the folks that we interviewed was that when people fired their work selves, they got so much closer to their leaders because they felt that they understood them as people and they felt like they could be more open and honest in return. But something else also happened, which was that they grew more motivated to become leaders themselves. Because if you think that being a leader means that you have to be this robotic, fake person, or this person who like always has the answers, never stressed, always on, et cetera, a lot of people thought, well, I, I'm not interested in that. And so, I'm not willing to take on a leadership role if that's how it has to be done. And so, it's demotivating and dehumanizing in a way to build relationships that are around norms that may not be you.

Yeah. Well, we see this all the time, Katina. I mean, when I was at McKinsey, right, you always saw individuals, right, who like people like, like, do I want to be a partner at the firm? Then there were others who were like, I want to be like that partner. But it's a divided— it's a divided world. If you see somebody who's constantly flying around, never with family, stressed all the time, busy, you don't want to be that person. Why would I want that for my life? But if you see somebody else who's really integrated, right, like they're doing great work, they create space for family, they are comfortable saying, hey, I'm not available. I'm actually having dinner with my family. You're also giving that, oh my God, I can actually have a life.

Yes.

Right? I have a lot more agency. And I think those are the leaders that people want to be like. And those people made followers. People stuck around longer. So I think it's a very real element. You know, the other story from your Fire Your Work Self, which I loved, and I think you talk about it. Is bring your life, right? We don't live in a severance world. I love the story of, I'll give you an example. There's a partner I was just with at the firm. She does beautiful paintings, unbelievable paintings. I know her because I found her painting on Instagram and I followed her. So I follow all of her paintings.

Cool.

There are many people who have passions and hobbies that they do, but they, they don't share them.

Yeah.

And so you're leaving this beautiful part of you out that people don't see you. And so I think this invitation to bring that part of you into work, share that.

Yeah, 100%. And you don't know what you'll find about other people when you do that. You know, you might learn some really interesting things about your coworkers that you never knew because you share something and then they feel more comfortable sharing things with you. And that can start to reinforce itself as part of your team culture that, people get to know each other better. And that helps you not only to connect on a more human level, but it also helps with miscommunications because, you know, you're more likely to give some grace to and benefit of the doubt to a person who you know better, who you understand their intentionality, you understand their values, what makes them tick. Like, all of that stuff is helpful information to you as a leader. It's data, right? And so, you can make better decisions, but you can also just connect with people better and understand where they're coming from and the actual dynamics at play when you have more information.

Yeah. The other attribute of that that you shared, and I want you to talk a little bit about it, is you talk about sharing your struggles.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And this is tough for leaders, I think, because a lot of leaders are used to getting praised. They're, they're where they are because they've done a good job. And understanding that people don't want to see just where you've been successful, because again, that doesn't feel realistic. And so, um, there's a, a, a professor in our field, her name's Mickey Hebel. Absolutely loved this. She created an anti-resume, uh, which is everything that she's ever done that she didn't get. Every job she ever applied for that she got turned down for, every, uh, paper that she submitted that got rejected, every grant application that she submitted that didn't make it through the process. Um, and she gives it to her students, um, when they come to work with her. Because she realized that she's been so successful that they just think that her success is just everything she touches turns to gold. And she wants them to know that, no, I also get rejections. I also have the same experiences that you're having. And it's really more about persistence and strategy and picking yourself up and trying again than it is that like every single thing that you do ends up being a success. And so I loved that idea and it's a great I think, exemplar of this struggle statement.

I think it also invites people, Katina, to share when they're struggling so you can help, right? So one of my big things when I was leading teams was figuring out how I can be most helpful. The only way I knew I could be helpful and timely is if you create an environment where people are comfortable, hey, I'm struggling with this. I'm not good at this. And we can actually help each other. So people talk a lot about share your strengths.

Yes.

But I think you add a really beautiful second dimension to that. Yes, share your strengths, but share your wins, but also share your struggles and failures. So again, this idea of we can see you as a whole person so that you give permission to others to be whole.

Yeah.

And so collectively you can actually get much further.

Yeah, totally. I think that's 100% accurate. And, and also, you know, makes people more likely to come to you when they've made mistakes. So those things are not festering over time, become bigger problems than they would've been because they know that you're willing to say, well, I'm not perfect. And so when they're not perfect, they're not hiding it from you because it's gonna impact you whether they're hiding it or telling you, right? So you might as well know.

Yeah. And if you want, in the classic buzzword of create psychological safety, start with the struggle statements.

Yeah, 100%.

That vulnerability will create an environment where you can, people can feel psychologically safe.

Yes, 100%.

So let's switch to the second pillar, which is this notion of focusing on the tone.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So a lot of leaders have embodied this norm, and, and we talk a lot about norms in the book. This also, this pillar also has to do with norms, that the person who works the most is the best leader. And what we heard was that these generator leaders were actually not the leaders who worked the most. They were the leaders who were the most intentional about setting a team tone that helped to distribute the work in a way that made sense for everybody. And that actually freed the leader up to be able to think more strategically and spend more time on relationship building. And the way that they did this was primarily through a gratitude mechanism. Really thanking people for what they were good at and highlighting other people's strengths. And by doing that, team members learned about what the strengths of their team— teammates were. They also felt valued and seen. And when people feel like they've been valued, they're more likely to go out of their way to value someone else. And when people's strengths are being highlighted publicly, you create like a mental map that allows people to understand who on the team is good at what and who to go to for what. And so, when you do that, what often happens is the leader is at the top of a pyramid and everybody's going to the leader with all their problems. But these leaders distribute recognition, distribute value, and make the team aware that there are a lot of people on this team that have value and can help you to solve your problems. So instead of, "I'm the omnipotent problem solver," it's like, "Well, look at all these talented people that we have on the team." And what ends up happening is the team members go to a variety of people for help. Start helping each other and create that culture that starts to keep that going in a cycle. And that frees the leader up from putting out all these fires. We hear all the time, "I don't have time to build relationships. I don't have time to really think about the team tone. I'm always putting out fires." But if you're a leader who's always putting out fires, you probably need this more than anyone else because there's a way to get those fires off of your desk if you're more intentional about setting a tone where people go to each other instead of everybody just running to you.

Yeah, I love that. You know, it reminds me of a client that we are working with, and she is terrific. So she's done an amazing job. She's the equivalent of a CEO for a bank. And she's created an unbelievable team where the whole team knows their strengths, right? So they know this person is really good at being able to, like, cut through complexity. This person is really good at really the relationships, right, and being able to kind of really see the— really good in the gray, amazing at the gray. Third person is really good at something else. And so, what they have done is when somebody has a problem or they're tackling with something, they know who to go to in the team. They don't need to go to her. They need to go to, to say— in fact, they will actually bring them into the meeting, even though it's not their functional meeting. To say, "I would love— can you join this meeting with me because I really need help? This is going to matter more here." And I think you're talking to that attribute of a tone and strengths that we really feel recognized. It's a distributed thing rather than top-down. And we see each other's strengths, so we become stronger as a system.

Yeah, 100%. And that's exactly what we saw that these leaders were doing. They were thinking of their team as a system, as opposed to, a bunch of direct reports that all point to them, right? And so thinking about creating those nodes in a system as opposed to every node is a direct link to the leader.

So the third pillar is the one that actually made me think about something I always say slightly differently. And your third pillar is around work should support life. And you introduced this concept of a boundary bouncer. So Let's dig into that a little bit.

Yeah, we kept hearing over and over again that these leaders set intentionally their own boundaries between work and life, and they also helped employees to set and maintain those boundaries as well. So they role modeled and they set and maintained it. And one of the things that I think stood out the most and what caused us to come up with this metaphor of boundary bouncer was, um, we were trying to think of What, what is this a metaphor for? And we started to think about like a bouncer in a club, like with a velvet rope, right? And every now and again, something VIP might need to get through that rope, right? So we often hear with people with boundary bouncing, well, you know, I know that this person needs to pick up their kids for school every day at 3:30, but you know, what if there's an important client meeting at 3:30? What if whatever? Every now and again, there will be things that test those boundaries where the employee may need to say, yes, you know, 359 days of the year, I have this boundary, but a few days of the year, I have to break it. The idea is that they very consistently have that boundary and that it's only being broken for truly exceptional VIP moments. So if your leader's just opening that velvet rope for any old thing that comes through, you're no longer being a bouncer, right? You need someone that's there to help you maintain those boundaries. And also, what does a bouncer do? A bouncer turns other people away that want to get through that rope. And we saw that the leaders were doing this. If someone put a meeting on their employee's calendar that they saw, and they knew that that was a time period that that employee needed to do something, they would shoot them an email and say, "Hey, I know so-and-so is not available at that time for this reason. Maybe we can find some time the following day." So they helped as much as possible to advocate for the employee to keep those boundaries and not feel compelled to break them.

Yeah. And this is so important, right? Because, again, we today had a session, our session around ReWire that I was running with our McKinsey Denver office. We talked about prioritization. And we talked about really focusing on the urgent important and really moving some of the urgent important things into important not urgent. But people talk about, yeah, but there is so much that comes at us. And I really like this idea, right, of leaders being like, hey, tell me about what matters to you. Tell me what it is and let me help you. Because you might not feel comfortable saying no to somebody. But if you're working with me, let me help you say no.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And that piece that you just mentioned is really key. So they knew their people well enough that they understood their priorities. Now, You can't have 10 priorities, right? But they would ask people, you know, what are the non-negotiables for you? And so, if you said, I really need to eat dinner with my family between 5 and 7 PM, then, you know, we, uh, our participants talk to us about leaders who would say, oh, of course you can have dinner with your family. But then they're on a call and the call's going long and the leader's just not even thinking about, oh, I should end the call or give this person permission to drop off the call because I know they have this boundary. So they say it's OK, but then they actually continue to encroach. And these leaders did not do that. They recognized and understood, OK, these are non-negotiable things. My employee picked a few things that they really want me to help them protect, and I'm actually going to put it into practice what I told them I would respect.

Yeah, no, I love that. Look, here's where you changed my mind in this chapter. You know, I always, I don't believe in work-life balance. And I've always said, I don't believe in work-life balance. I believe in work-life integration. Because, you know, for me, my life and my work are one thing. But what you highlighted from your research was, yeah, that's great, Ashish. You are an integrator. But not everybody is an integrator. For some people, they are segmenters. And by the way, they're actually equally good at getting their work done versus integrators. So I want you to, you know, disaggregate that concept of segmenters versus integrators, because it really made me rethink how I kind of make sense of the world and what I invite people to go become, which I'm not gonna ask them. I'm gonna ask them that question, but I want you to describe that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Segmenter versus integrator.

Yeah, so here we're drawing on research by Nancy Rothbard and others. It sort of originated there at Wharton. And this idea that Leaders think that the way that they got successful is the way everyone should get successful. And so if you have a leader who's an integrator, which is the idea that you like to alternate between work and life tasks across the course of the day, versus a segmenter who likes to do a chunk of work tasks or chunk of life tasks and then switch when that is over. So somebody who likes to work 9 to 5 for work, and then at 5 PM, they close their laptop and now they're on lifetime. Um, that actually, when people don't understand that each of these groups of people can be equally successful working in their different ways, it can create conflict and miscommunication because often leaders think, well, this is the way I do it. And so, because I've been successful, then everybody should do it this way. And what they end up doing is shoehorning people into working in ways that don't actually lean into their natural tendencies of how they're most productive. And so, they're emulating the leader, but it's to their detriment because they're not actually working in the way that best aligns with what makes them the most functional employee.

Yeah, and you are, right, and you are, as a leader, not, you know, thinking somebody is not good because they're not trying to do what you're doing, when if you actually allowed them to work in the way that they want to, you might get so much more. You know, we saw that in hybrid work too. Some people like to work from home. Some people like to work from office. Some people like to do a mix of both. And by going with one policy and saying, everybody needs to do this, you actually create suboptimal results versus, to some extent, letting your managers and your teams kind of work and choose that with their team members.

100%. 100%. And, and these leaders tried to the extent that they could. You can't always please everybody, right? But they tried to the extent that they could to tailor their strategies to the individual folks. So if you know someone is an integrator, then, you know, you recognize that it might be important for them to get a load of laundry in, in between meetings, right? And you're not going to get upset about that because, you know, later that night they're going to be working on something. Or if it's somebody who's segmenting, you're going to try to leave them alone after a certain period of time because you realize they've already put in that focused time during the workday and they don't need to do anything else, like once the evening hits. So that's, that's, I think, also part of it is recognizing those differences, having conversations about them, and trying to be cognizant of those.

So look, you also talk about tailoring wellness strategy to individuals. But in the spirit of time, I actually want to get into— this stuff is— what you have in here is super practical. Everybody can get a copy of the book. We'll put it in the show notes. I think you can implement it. But it's not easy. So I want to actually, before we end, talk a little bit about what are the challenges. So if you say, wow, I'm inspired. By Katina, I wanna be a generator.

Mm-hmm.

What are the challenges you might face and what might be some suggestions you would have, Katina, for those brave souls, mm-hmm, uh, to persist in the journey to truly become a generator? Because we need a lot more of those versus what you call extinguishers.

Yeah, 100%. So we got these challenges actually by talking to people about what came out of our study, um, leaders who had been in positions, high-power positions for a long time and said like, what What do you find challenging about this? And they were like, I can tell you what's holding people back, and here are some things that I think might get in people's way. So we have 4 things sort of that we think are challenges and a couple things that you can do. The first is that sometimes you're in a culture of overwork. We mentioned this before, and senior leaders might need convincing. Fortunately, we know that this way of leading has positive results, but often leaders don't take the time to measure the impact of their actions. Being proactive about doing pre- or post-measures, or keeping track of your team's performance can help you to make the case for why your leadership style is standing out and boosting results. So give yourself—

use data.

Yeah. Use the data and understand what metrics your leaders care about so that you're communicating what you're doing in a way that actually resonates. So that's one. The other is, what if I have a bunch of people on my team who are extinguishers and not generators, and they're dampening my shine? Like, what do I do if I have a bunch of bad apples on my team? And here we say most of the time bad apples are either unaware or they'd like to get better, right? They kind of know that they're not doing what they should be doing and they'd like to improve. So find those glimmers of hope. When are those people doing the thing that you want to see them doing and encourage them to do more of it? Also, if you have somebody who's really resistant, you might think about investing in training or spending more time with them to explain transparently why this is important. Of course, if there's somebody who's consistently detracting from your culture, you've tried these things and it's not working, they may not be a great fit, right? And sometimes that's the case. So, but before you get to those really tough conversations, try to encourage the person to do more of the positive behaviors you see, instead of always trying to harp on getting rid of the negative ones. The next thing is that you can't please everybody. So what if half your team wants to work remotely and that's what makes them healthy and well, and the other half wants to be in the office? And you need to be, you know, communicating in ways that you're all on the same page, or, you know, your company can't do both, right? They're trying to make decisions about how to work. How do you please everybody in that situation? What we found that these leaders did very well was that if they had to make a tough call, they had to make a tough decision where somebody's preference was not going to get honored, they explained it. It was just that they were transparent. So it wasn't that they were keeping these decisions behind a, you know, a wall. They would say, look, you know, I understand that half the team wants this and half the team wants that. I really weighed that out. And here's the decision that I'm moving forward with and here's why. And next time around, I hope to be better able to accommodate folks that wanted it a different way for something else. But for right now, here's why I made this decision and I hope that you can understand. And so they did a good job of explaining the why, as opposed to just making decisions and making it seem like they were favoring one group over the other. The last thing is about just recovery. We like systemic solutions to things, but leaders also can do things as individuals to help themselves recover. Disconnecting from technology in the evening, finding ways to relax, picking up a hobby that you've dropped, but that you find very enjoyable, taking a walk in nature. These things are very helpful for leaders themselves to replenish, and it's important to remember that. You also need to have enough to give to the folks on your team to be able to reap these results and to be able to create this culture.

Yeah, fill your cup.

Yes, exactly.

Right? And normalize recovery, right? You know, I have a pleasure to work with like US Gymnastics and US Ski and Snowboard. And if you look at any of those sports, right, no athlete will say recovery is less important than time on the mat.

Yep.

And yet, somehow, In business, we make recovery as optional. Recovery is for the weekends.

Yeah, right, right. Yep.

Right? Recovery is for holidays, for vacations. But I think this notion of micro, meso, and macro recoveries that are integrated through the day, during the weekends and holidays, are an important element of filling your cup, right? If you are not there, if you're surviving, you're not creating a thriving workplace. You're not creating You're not leading for wellness.

100%.

And it won't be authentic.

It's a great analogy. I really like that.

Katina, this has been so amazing. I would love to ask you a couple of rapid-fire questions.

Yeah.

And then we close this, close this podcast.

Sure.

What's a belief you've changed your mind on?

I think I used to think that I knew why people were doing things or what was going on in their minds. And I've learned that asking questions gets me a lot farther than making assumptions.

Yeah. What's a habit or a ritual you rely on when life gets hard?

I make phone calls to people I care about from the car when I'm driving.

I love that. I love that. A book or research finding that everyone in the space should know about?

I really like this new book on the impact of trauma on leaders called Like a Wave We Break by Jane Chen. That's top of my reading list right now.

I will order that right after.

Yeah.

A question you wish more leaders asked.

What can I do to support you?

Hmm.

Behavioral, actual, like, actions.

What can I do to support you? A playlist or a song that turns your frown upside down.

Well, not so much a song, but artists. Right now, I'm really loving Cardi B and Chappell Roan. Uh, that's that's a lot of my playlist right now. But old school, I used to love as a child the band Hanson. That was my, like, boy band obsession. So I'll throw that out there too.

Amazing, my friend. This was a power-packed 45 minutes. Thank you for the amazing work you're doing. Thank you for the research. Thank you for the work you're doing supporting leaders become generators. We need so much more of this in our workplaces. I'm grateful for you and for your amazing work.

I'm grateful for you and your work too. And thank you so much for having me.

Take care. Thank you for joining me on The Flourishing Edge. If today's conversation inspired you, share it with someone who's ready to flourish too. Subscribe, leave a review, and stay connected for more tools to achieve breakthrough performance through flourishing. Until next time, keep learning, practicing, and growing into your fullest potential.