How to Lead with Emotional Intelligence with Susan Power

Foreign. If you're trying to scale your company just by working harder, you'll hit a ceiling at some point. And you know, there's only so many hours in the day and you can't use them all for work or you will just burn out. We're going to talk about all of that and more just coming up. What, what are you struggling with today? Are you trying to limit it? Are you trying to work more? Are you trying to sleep less? Are you coming up against your limit as a leader? We're going to get into the whole conversation today, your leadership style and share some stories with you about that. Hey, everybody, Bill Gallagher, Scaling coach and host of this super groovy Scaling Up Business podcast. Our show comes here weekly and whether it's a guest or a story about one of our clients, that kind of thing, we try to help you scale up your business. 650+ episodes now@scalingcoach.com or wherever. You're getting this right now. YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, LinkedIn, wherever you get it, turn on your notifications like it subscribe, you know what to do. If you want to do us a solid, share with somebody else. Tell somebody else that you love the show and you got something out of it. Spread the love around that helps us all day long. If you want to find out about our own coaching and that kind of thing, you're going to go to scalingcoach.com where you find all the show notes plus our coaching programs and our workshops. We do workshops like every month and speaking, things like that so you can find us somewhere and do all that scan coach.com. all right, listen, enough of that and me and all that. Let's talk to Susan Power. Susan, welcome to show.

Hi, Bill. Thank you, everybody.

Susan is a business coach. She's a founder of a company called PowerUp Leadership in Canada. And she's a podcast host of her own show called Inspired Leadership, which she hosts. And she's got some great stories to tell about leadership and we thought it'd be great to have her on the show. Thanks for joining us from Canada today.

Yeah. Excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

These days, going back and forth between our countries. Easier on zoom sometimes than it is at the border.

Yeah, I was just in Florida the other week. I had no trouble crossing the border, but people like to talk about it's being more difficult these days. I haven't had an issue yet, you know.

Yeah, sometimes it goes like that. I, I've gone in there like, are you here to Work. And I'm like, no, I'm just here for a meeting. Okay, well as long as you're not getting paid. And, and, and I had a guy from Canada was trying to come down here to do some stuff and he's like, oh, well, you're not going on the right visa. You've got the thing because you're coming into a meeting and anyway, here's my opening question for you. If we looked at your calendar for a week, what's the first thing we'd catch you still doing that your team should actually be doing?

Oh, that's a really good question. I think I am still too involved in providing the weekly client updates that we send. At the end of each week. My team puts them together, but I review them and before, before they hit send, I, I really don't need to do that. Like they can figure it out themselves, but it's maybe a little bit of a control function that I like to know what's going to the client before it goes out, but I, I shouldn't, I shouldn't just let them do it.

That's an interesting, I love that you said control function. I, I think a lot of times we're, we're like reluctant to let go, right? We say in, in relay, running past the baton and then, but, and we pass it. The other person sort of got it and we're like, I'm not gonna let go of that. Right?

Yeah, it's true. It's, it's, there's a comfort of being in the know on, on things, right. And especially if you're an entrepreneur, sometimes that attracts a type A personality. But I, oh geez. When I think about how much I've let go compared to when I first started, like I remember hiring an EA for the first time or it was a virtual assistant initially. Now I have a city that was like letting go of email and letting her manage my email. That was a good exercise in letting go.

You know, I, I, I see it start even with companies of say only 50 people, where, you know, 50 people, you've got a couple of people on your team that are leaders, but if you're micromanaging them non stop and involved in everything, you're not being strategic, right? And, and probably it's annoying to them whether they're conscious of it or not, right? It's suppressive, it's controlling that.

It's like, it's like communicating. Even if this isn't the intention of it, it's communicating. I don't trust you to do your job and be smart and figure things out. Because I need to be involved and touch everything. So it's, it's not helpful for building strong relationships to be trying to be involved in too much.

So let's talk about your own story a little bit first before we get into some of your clients. You've gone from a founder to an executive to a founder and that you've been involved in a couple of different things and your leadership has gone through different phases. Share with us a little bit of your story and what you notice about that that relates.

Yeah, so I had a business in Newfoundland, Canada doing HR consulting when my kids were young. Young for it was a small business, but I did have two offers to purchase it when I was exiting. And it was kind of makes me smile when I think about it now because oil and gas was tanking. There was nine houses for sale on my street. I was an independent consultant. My partner at the time was an independent consultant. So we're like, our risk profile is too high. We, we need to get out of here. I applied for one job. I didn't want to sell my business. I'm like, okay, I'll apply for a job. I got the job, which never happens usually when you are job hunting. Whatever reason, I got this job working for the Irving family, which is one of Canada's billionaire families in New Brunswick. And I had something like 60 days to relocate and sell my business. And I got two offers on my business and had to do this handover within and get there within 60 days. Didn't even have my business valued by an accountant. Like I just did it for the first time all on my own. Didn't do it right, learned a lot, still sold it and got some more executive people management experience, leading a team at the Irving jd Irving limited is the name of the company. Then when I left seven years ago to start up Power Up Leadership, I really missed entrepreneurship. I came back to it. I had just learned so much working for this, you know, super wealthy family. Smart executives mostly that worked for them that it really helped me grow a lot quicker the second time.

What did you notice about yourself in the different environments? How did your own leadership style change through there?

I learned a lot by seeing how other very polished executives functioned. Like in, I think of things like labor union negotiations, watching their chief legal counsel negotiate with difficult unions that I'd never been involved in. That I think about some of the team members I had to lead and in helping them navigate their own careers and having different bosses that all were very different personalities and different strengths, like levels of people in terms of their career level that I had never been exposed to before. So I think I became a better manager, if you will. I learned daily management skills, things I hadn't learned in my more junior positions, which really helped me with entrepreneurship because I knew how to manage my business better when I started up. Power up.

Yeah. As we were getting ready, you. You referenced the Cliftonstrengths with one of your clients. I. I'm guessing you use cliftonstrengths in your work.

A little bit, yep.

Yeah. Do you know what your top five are?

I know a couple of them. It's been a while. Futuristic is one of mine. Do you know yours?

Oh yeah, for sure. So ideation, communication, strategic activator and command for sure. And I, when I think about those and then I know that my weak ones are more relating and executing. So the, the ones around relationship management, I'm just terrible at it. And the, and the execution ones. So anytime there's consistency involved, I'm terrible at that. Right. As you go down. And I know like significance and achiever. So I'm a hard worker and I have an ego, but I, but I am a learner also and I, and I am competitive. Right.

So interesting. I just looked mine up as I was listening to yours. Achiever, focus on executing. Top two maximizer, which is, you know, making the most of your resources. Intellection and futuristic, which is in strategic thinking, are my top five. So number six is connectedness and relationship building. But. But yeah, more on the strategy side and execution for me.

When you think about your struggles as a leader, what do you think is the struggle for you? Which of those get you in trouble or are the limit?

Oh, easy question now achiever, because it's number one for me. I will try to take on so much all at once that I have to be careful because my team, I don't want to burn them out, but it's just how I operate with myself that I go really fast and sometimes I can just tell by the look on her face, like, does she really think we're going to get this all done in this time frame? And then I have to back off a little bit.

Yeah, I get that. Any others that used to stand out for you?

I think I've gotten a lot better at this because I know how important it is, but it was kind of embarrassing to share with you, but I didn't understand until I was. I'm 48 right now, but I didn't understand until I was 40 years old how important relationship building was. I thought it was a waste of time, and now I know. So clearly your network is your net worth. Like, I 100% believe that. But I didn't grow up in a family that really prioritized social connections. My dad was a serial entrepreneur. He sold six businesses. He was a hustler. He was a really hard worker. So that was my template going into life. And I, I, I guess I just learned through a little bit of friction along the way that relationships, they just make it so much easier. Like, people can help you and vice versa.

Is your dad still alive?

He is. And he still works 10 hours a day. He's like 82. He's, he's still at his desk just creating new products. God love him.

What's his name?

John.

Thanks for sharing a little John with us.

Yeah, he's a good guy.

I get it. Well, I think we all have, right. These things. Like, I know that my command gets. Command is bossy pants. Right. It's taken charge of things. It's really useful sometimes, but you need to use it sparingly. Right. And I know ideation gets in trouble. Like, I just have a new idea every five minutes and it gets in my way, but it really gets in the team's way because if I don't learn to control it or rein it in and I just spout them off like it's destabilizing, defocusing for the team. Right?

Yeah, because they get confused. Right. They don't always follow the all the ideas like an ideation person does.

You've had is. So how many episodes have you done.

Now with your show, Inspired Leadership? We've done around 40. So not, not as many as you at 650. But we do it off the side of our desk.

Yeah, we've been doing it for a little while and. But you had Dan Martell on. Tell me about that and what you heard from him and what was great about that conversation.

Yeah, I really admire Dan Martell. I actually have signed up as a lead entrepreneur. He has a group coaching program, and I've had some private coaching with them since he came on that ep. And so I've learned a ton from him through those forums as well. But I remember one of the things he said when he was on the podcast was he was talking about driving through the US and going through some of your paid tolls. And the lady, I think it was in North Carolina, asked him, how's your day going? And he, super high energy guy, works out every day. Like, it's just who he is at his core. Does adventure sports. He's like, amazing. How's your day going? And she kind of stopped in her tracks. She's like, oh, well, that's good. You keep on having an amazing day. And I remember saying to him, I bet you she doesn't get that very often. He's like, I, I know she doesn't exactly, because it literally stopped her in her tracks. But I, I think, like, bringing that level of energy where it's authentic to everything you do is really why he has had such success, because he's just your. Was it. He says your vibe attracts your tribe.

That's interesting. I, I, I noticed sometimes I come off like that and I'll be like. And it could be arresting. It can get somebody's attention. It can help them wake up. People appreciate it. But other times, like, it's out of sync and they're like, whoa, like, I'm not ready for that energy right now. Off.

Well, then that's not your tribe.

Yeah, maybe. Or like, it's just situation. Look, if you, if you come at me before I've had my coffee or things like that. Right. I might not be ready in the day, or maybe it's winding down time. Like, you know, like a, There's a different beat for every moment of the day in my world, in my view. Right. Like, sometimes I'm ready for the high energy, whatever, and sometimes I really need to, like, make it mellow or, you know, like, there's a, there's waves through the day. It's not just one rhythm that, that makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense. And I, I just picturing how I would hear him responding to that. Not to speak for him, but, you know, he always talks about shining your light and not dialing it back to make other people comfortable, too. And I, I think that's just the way he is. Like, that's just, that's just him.

Well, let's talk about some of the people that you've coached. As we got ready for the show, you mentioned a sales leader who was challenged by a change in territory and was confronted by some stuff. Why don't you tell us about. About that person?

Yeah. So the thing with sales, as you would know, Bill, it gets so much attention in an organization because it's sexy. People like to bring dollars in the door. Right. But what I think a lot of people forget is that the better leadership skills you have, the better sales performer you will be. So a lot of it comes down to mindset, communications, Influence, all that good stuff. So this particular leader, she would have been closer to the tail end of her career, had been in the same role for 20 so years in a technology company. And I remember the day I met her in the sales meeting when I was trying to get them as a new client. She walked in the door, she like, sized me up from head to toe. And I knew I was trying to sell to a sales two salespeople, her and her boss, which can be a little bit daunting going into it. And I thought, oh, she's going to be a challenge to work with. But she turned out to be one of my most favorite customers I've ever worked with. And I've worked with a number of other leaders from their organization. But her big challenge was adjusting her mindset to think she could build up a sales territory from scratch, which can be hard to do without support, right? To go from. Like, she had multi, multi million dollar sales territory in her current role, which was no longer her role, to have to build up a new region. And she did it like within nine months. She met her target and then exceeded it. But the first step was getting her to believe she could do it and then coming up with a plan of how she was going to do it and then executing the plan.

So what was the challenge for her in believing she could do it?

She thought it was too big a number that she felt like she didn't have the, the support to do it. Like, it felt like an impossible task. If you think about having reoccurring revenue from existing clients year over year, and that's your territory and all of a sudden you've got to find new customers and you're, you know, tail end your career. It was like, how am I going to do this?

Like, you know, it was over one. And so what was the work that you did? Like, how did you get her to where she could see that she could. What was the shift?

We had to tap into her really wanting to do it and uncovering like, like, first of all, did she want the job? She was in the job. But like, she could have said, no, I don't want to do this. I'll go find another opportunity. So that was, are you on board? Getting her on board, and then her realizing that this was not an impossible task, that there would be a way to succeed once she wanted to do it. So it was really just kind of sitting through the process with her and asking her questions to understand how she was thinking about it and how she could think about it. So she could be successful in taking the action she needed to take.

Yeah, I think that's a regular that I think about for myself. And somebody told me once that I've repeated for a lot of folks around different problems, right. They said billions and billions of people before you have encountered and overcome challenges greater than this one. Right. So first they had me. What are the sort of challenges people have overcome? And then get the magnitude of humanity, right. Encountering whatever savage living conditions and war and being subjugated and fought and victimized and enslaved and like, you know, whatever else. And, and then consider all that, and then consider the resources and abilities and like, and when I think about it in context like that, and I just paused to reflect on it, I'm left with that I have more resource, more like intelligence, ability, experience than many billions of people who probably had much darker challenges than I presently face at any given moment in life.

Yeah, no, I mean, you paint a very, very strong picture there, right? But it's so easy to get sucked into this negative thinking pattern for all of us when we have a problem that we forget about all those resources.

I've said more than once to my son, who is now a dad, which makes me a grandfather, unfortunately or fortunately, I said to him more than once, listen, remember the billions of people who came before you who managed to succeed at being a dad with less intelligence, less resource, less stuff than you have. You're going to be okay. Like in any given moment, when you're exhausted, when it's really confronting, when you're at odds with your child or your spouse or whatever, just remember, you can do this.

Yeah, yeah. Payback time.

Yeah. And I, I think the same is true, right, for us as entrepreneurs, as leaders. You know, whether you're staring an economic challenge, a customer issue, an employee is useful to remember that. Like, so you look at this sales challenge and you're like, oh my God, it's really daunting. And you're like, have other people sold at this level before, either on their own or single or with a team? Yeah, right.

Yeah. You're reminding me of something else Dan Mortel would always say on the group coaching call, like, like, why not me? Like, he was from kind of my region in Atlantic Canada, from Moncton, New Brunswick. You know, he, he completely self made. He was in jail when he was a teenager, did not grow up wealthy by any stretch. Now he's, you know, I think his net worth is 25, $30 million. Sold three companies, completely self made, beautiful family. Like, why not me? Like, you Know, so you need to really believe that to go for it. Otherwise you're not going to take the risks or take the action to your goals.

Yeah. I think this is a thing I notice again and again, one is you. You said with this sales leader, do you want to do it? Right. Whatever you're trying to grow with your business, do you actually want it or did you just take it on because somebody else did? And whatever reason you took it on, it's useful to stop and go, do I want to do this? And you could choose it or not choose it. Right. But sort of being half assed at it because you haven't committed to it is not so fun.

Yeah, exactly. Like I don't want to reach the end of my life and get to the top rung of the ladder and realize the ladder is against the wrong wall. Like, do I want this? It's such an important question. And that shifts sometimes, right. Over the decades. What you want when you're 30 is different than what you want when you're 50, etc.

So true. And I don't think there's any reason to write or wrong that want anything, want whatever you want, like go for whatever it is. Right. You got this life to live. But I think it's good to do it freely and fully and not sort of half baked. Right. Going through it because you thought somebody else expected it of you. Right?

That's very true. Yeah.

So then, then there's like, is it even possible? And it's very easy to think it's not possible, whatever it is. Right. And for sure there are some things that are not yet possible. Right. So we haven't yet figured out how to put a man on Mars, but we got or a woman on Mars, a person on Mars. But we certainly have a whole bunch of people working on that right now trying to do it for the first time. I think most of us are trying to do things that are far more modest. Build a billion dollar company, take Your is to 100 million, go nationwide. Like whatever it is that you're trying to do is far more modest and achievable than then. Something like that.

Yeah. You do you remember Anthony Robbins? He's still around. You must know he was a coach, right? He's like the grandfather of poaching. So I'm rereading his book from the 80s, Awaken the Giant within, which is fantastic. He has this exercise in there, Bill, where he says out of 10, rate your life, like financial, health, career, relationships. Five years ago, where that was out of 10 in each category, five years ago. Rate it today, then rate where you want it to be five years in the future. And I think it's so cool because you realize often how far you've come, at least in some of the categories, if not all five, if you compare five years ago to today. So it helps you realize, well, geez, look how far I can get to maybe in the future. Because you're right. I think we underestimate sometimes what we're capable of doing. But one year is such a small window. But compared to five years, it is.

And there are moments where you frog right, like things happen really fast. Like Covid accelerated some things. Anytime you've got a stressor, there are some things accelerated. I think in any given moment. Life's hard, right? At any moment in life, it's hard. And yet when you look back, right, look back 10 years ago, oh, how did I relate to my finances, my health, by all those kinds of things. Ten years ago. And then I looked at today. It was hard then, it's hard now, it'll be hard in the future. But I've taken ground and I'll take more ground as I go forward. Right. I will accomplish more felt, more capacity. It's really useful to think about that if you are, if you are a runner or you've ever run, right. You'll know every single run is hard. Right. And some are easier than others. But if you're, if you're expanding your stuff, they're all going to be hard. And yet if you look back at your development over time, you'll be like your time, your capacity, your endurance, all of those things will improve, right?

Yeah, definitely. I'm a runner. I can relate to that. I just started back not that long ago, did a 10K. It's called the Blue Nose 10K in Halifax. You go across, I think it's the McKay Bridge. And I remember my calf cramped up when I did this for the first time. And I, like, I'm not walking the 10k, but to run that 10k with a cramp the whole time, I'm just like, oh, my God, this, this is not how I pictured this going.

Yeah, that actually, after you've run for a little while, that, that's one of the dangers of a sport like that. Your, your chemicals and your stuff can, you can run like on broken, torn body parts. And because you're, you're not gonna stop.

Nope.

You can actually get. I, I, I, Yeah. And that's another great analogy for this. Let's talk about Managing our emotions and things like that. We all have times where we lose our cool or where we can express something. You worked with a guy who was pretty explosive. It was frustrated talk about your work with him. What was he like? What kind of work did you do? How did that evolve?

Yeah, I think emotions and is something women and men, sometimes it's stereotype that it's always women have trouble with. But it's the biggest thing I think in leadership. Managing your own emotions, regulating them and helping others regulate their emotions as a team. So this fella, he was explosive. The team wasn't performing, you know, he was cursing at them like unabashedly and giving them a hard time. They probably deserved it, but it wasn't helping them perform and he was looking for help. How do I regulate this so I don't explode? So he started to write down the curse words rather than say that was his first step. Along the way he said get it out. But he wouldn't say it. And then he got like progressively better where he could communicate to motivate them and try to understand the problem so he could help fix it with them versus just pointing fingers. But by the end of the coaching engagement, he came on surprised to meet all teary eyed about Susan. What really has gotten me is my relationship with my teenage son has improved because now I can regulate my emotions and not go off and now he's talking to me and. And that was the real win. I mean the business performance improved too. That was good. But he really valued the relationship improvement with his son.

You know, I guys, we get that training in that early on to oh, don't be emotional. Right. And in the beginning that's like don't cry, right? Is the probably the guy thing early on. And then later it evolves in different ways like don't be too whatever. And so we think we're not emotional. Oh, I don't want to get emotional here. I'm not very emotional. And yet. And then we do things like that, right? We're explosive or we are like a practiced phony kind of thing. Like I noticed that I in early my career I got embarrassed and scolded for being overly exuberant and optimistic and like that. And. And then I, I sort of suppressed it got flat, right. And. And then I noticed like as a speaker, if I spoke at a conference, I got the conference ratings as a young executive, they'd be like average boring, you know, and then. And then with a side of arrogance. And it sucked, right? And then, and then I did Some work on speaking in coaching and leadership work and things like that. And then I sort of took the lid it and I got back the range, right, to be. Well, the first thing that came out is I cried all the time. And then I got, like, louder and sillier and like, I got the whole range of things. One of my coaches said, okay, we've seen you cry a bunch of times. It's. It's powerful, Bill, but what else have you got, right? Like about the other sides. And then kind of the humor came in and that kind of thing. And then I had to sort of be responsible for the range of the emotion because I could move through things, like, faster than people, like, get super emotional and then silly and then whatever. And that could be, like, weird or uncomfortable for people.

They were like, all over the place.

It's actually useful as a speaker or as a facilitator, right. To move people through spaces because we got them, like, giving people an outlet for it is useful, but being able to be aware, like, this guy, that he's explosive at his. Like, he's got a. A set point to manage in that.

Yeah. I think a lot of people aren't always tuned in to, like, the full gamut. Like, I know at Power Up Leadership, my company, when I work with clients on emotional regulation, I'm always asking them, do you use an emotion wheel? Because, okay, you know you're angry, you know you're sad, you know you're happy, but do you know when you're disappointed versus frustrated versus shameful? Like, you know, there's a lot of emotions we have that we don't always tune into quickly enough exactly what they are, so then we can't frame our response because we're not recognizing it. And I know I worked with a coach myself on expressing authentic emotion because I found that difficult myself. And partly, like, I'm a doer, right? Like, I achiever. Like, we talked about. Clifton strength binder. I just get things done, and you got to slow down to feel and pay attention to your body. And I'm still working on this, but I. He helped me a lot. Just like you shared when I first started working on. On it, his exercise for me was when you lie down at night to go to sleep, scan your body and just feel any emotion you're feeling and just see what comes up and go with it. If you want to scream into your pillow, I'm like, if you're doing that. But he's like, if you want to yell into your pillow, do that. If you Want to cry, do that. And then it was like the floodgates opened and I remember crying all the time. Then I remember getting angry and I was thinking, what has he done to me? Like, I feel like I'm losing my mind. But then it stabilizes and then you can communicate with more emotion. And I thought, okay, there is something to this. Like, he's. There is value to this, but a lot of people are out of tune with it is what I observed from coaching. And I'm not a therapist. I know that, but it's still part of leadership to communicate with emotion and authenticity and all of that.

So a good book on the subject. I spent some time this summer with a woman named Susan David, who wrote the book Emotional Agility. Wanted to make a note. Let's get Susan on the show and talk about the book and that kind of thing. Wanda's my assistant and our producer in the background.

Yeah, that's a great book. I love Emotional Agility. She would be a great guest.

Well, we should do a show. I talked about it with her and I just, I forgot to schedule it. But, but I think that being able to move through things, not being stuck with it, right? Like, you know, you could talk about something that matters to you a lot and, and then, and then talk about something that amuses you. And then like, you, you don't have to hang on to a particular thing. You know, there's. I'm humbled all the time and, and sad and frustrated. Right. And. And I miss things, but. But I don't like. Okay, that's true. And then like, you know, if you don't suppress it. Right. And I think a lot of times if you have rage or you have whatever, that's just like, it's like repressed, right. And you need to find an appropriate outlet for it. So you can't always scream F words at your team.

You won't have a team for very long if you do. Yeah.

I had a boss once who I'm making my annual plan presentation to the executive team of a multi billion dollar company where I hold one of the more pivotal parts of the business and he starts laying into me and using the F word and that kind of thing in front of my peers. And I, I just wanted to cry, but I like, toughened up and I like. And I. But later I had to like, move through it and I carried the experience of that forever. Like, one is don't let the emotion take you down. Right. Like it's okay to have it in that moment. I chose to suppress it and to hold it back. I don't know if I might say today, do you really mean to be so offensive? Do you, do you mean to tear me down right now or are you trying to make me angry? Like what is your intention? Right. But I'm 61 now and that's a different stage of life to be able to ask that kind of question than I was at that point at like 25. So being able to like move through it, understand it, but then also being thoughtful about where and how you use it with other people. Right. Like he was frustrated and probably feeling ineffective or whatever when he was thoughtless with his where I'm sure he wasn't just thinking, he was just, you know.

Yeah. Like he had some emotional regulation challenges of his own. Right.

Something. Yeah. So I think there's a lot of that. Let's talk about. We're, we're, we're going to run out of time here and I want to be mindful of our time. But let me ask you about succession. You do a lot of work with succession and funded teams, that kind of thing. You maybe, maybe you mentioned one tech team in D.C. or whatever. Why don't we do that story before we run out of time in the show?

Yeah, sure. So we work with a lot of hyper growth businesses that power up leadership that are scaling really quickly and we work with them from a people readiness, leadership readiness side. So often M and A, they have team integrations or succession planning. Do they have the right C suite in place to scale to the next level? So often they're PE backed companies. So the one in Washington D.C. is a technology firm, been working with them since January of this year. And I think we've coached so far. They keep sending us more every week, but we've coached five or six of their senior leaders and it's great. Yeah, it's great because they're seeing an impact in terms of behavior change in performance. So one of these leaders is also on the sales side and really, really effective. High, high potential, high performer. But where she struggled was in I guess the feedback side of things and really like she was wearing her emotions on her face and really I guess having trouble accepting feedback where people were not, not stopping like they were eventually stopping giving her the feedback which was not what at all she, she wanted but it was just they felt like they were aggravating, aggravating her by giving her the feedback. So it's just interesting that how you show up as a leader can really impact your future performance in ways that sometimes people aren't always aware of. So that's the value of coaching. You help increase the self awareness as, you know, as a coach to help leaders really recognize where they're getting in their own way.

Sometimes I think it's really useful to know how you come across even in how you come across getting feedback, right. Like are you.

Yes, I want the feedback. You're like, you know. No, I don't.

Yeah, yeah, well. And sometimes, right. That's just you're cold or your back is tired or you have a natural set point, right. The however the body line or you're more expressive emotionally than somebody else. Right. So like let them know, hey, this is kind of how I am. Like I notice the best times when I go to like work with a group somewhere or even remotely on the phone or whatever. I'm saying, hey, I'm kind of like this. I'm kind of irreverent. I'm a little more emotional, I'm a little more expressive. I'm a little freer in some ways. Like letting people know that how you are, then they're not inhibited by like your sort of natural set point, your way of being.

Yeah, that's so refreshing. A lot of people don't do that, right. They're not that forthright. And then people misread it or they don't know how to communicate with them. But you're making their job easy by.

By telling them it's, you know, it's hard I think when you're young in particular and young is relative speaking. Right. Like every person who is younger than you seems young to you, right? Like personal. Oh my God. But, but you think about early in your career, everybody is a team player, self starter. They work their, their only fault is they work too hard. Right. Like it's really hard. When I ask people their strengths and weaknesses in coaching them, especially new client, I, I ask people, you know, what do you think your strengths and weaknesses are? And they don't speak like, like from my CliftonStrengths kind of thing. They speak about them organically but they really don't say a lot of weaknesses. Or they're like, oh, I need to work on my skills with spreadsheets or something like that.

Yeah, they don't know what the answer is a lot of times when they're young. And if I can mention a free resource for your listeners on our website, powerupleadership ca we have a free download section and we have a million different leadership resources there, but we have in particular succession Planning framework as well as a values finder. So if you're earlier on in your career and you're trying to figure out what's still important to you, you can check that out. There's also a leadership diagnostic but we, we share all our content for free because we know our values in the implementation of it, in the coaching at.

Any point it's self reflection, self awareness is so powerful. Right. It's very hard to get there if you don't know where you are right now. So understanding your starting point or where you are, your strengths and weaknesses is, is fundamental to any kind of leveling.

Definitely. Definitely.

Powerfuladership CA is the website. We'll put it there. There it is on the screen. It'll be in the show notes. You could find it again. You can try and remember it. Powerupleadership CA is the website. Susan, I know you've gotta go in just a second. We're running out of time. Thank you for coming on the show today and for sharing some of your stories and your experience and your work with. If you want to know more about Susan's company, go there. Powerupleadership CA if you want to know. Yeah. If you want to know anything more about our stuff, you know, wherever you are right now, just like it, subscribe, that's all good. ScalingCoach.com is our website. Big shout out. Thanks to Wanda and Anna. We get our show produced every week to my friend and mentor Verne Harnish who created the whole scaling up framework. That's, that's the core of our work. And thank you again for watching, for listening. Until next time, keep scaling. Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our Scoreboard software. Powered by Align, it's the official software for Scaling up with Scoreboard. You'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go. With their mobile app you can rest easy knowing Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software. It's what I actually use to manage growth in our scaling up client teams. Unlock clarity and results with scoreboard by Align. To try it now, go to aligntoday.combillg One more time. Aligntoday.combillg that's aligntoday.combillg Check it out and try it now.