From Boss to Leader with Celso Sawaia

Ever been the boss who calls the shots? Then realized people only do the bare minimum? Today, we're talking about the leap from boss to leader. How to lead real humans through real change without losing your soul or your team. Welcome everyone to the NeuroLeadership Edge, brain science for bold leaders ready to master their mind and own their voice. I'm your host, Claire Hayek, NeuroLeadership expert, ex-engineer, lifelong musician. I know some of you don't know that. And founder of Mind Soul Purpose team building. Basically, by the end of this episode, you'll know a simple way to move from command and control to being the leader people actually want to follow. Then, you're also going to know how to lead change, yes, including AI, without freaking your whole team out. And a few practical habits that build trust fast so people will tell you the truth, not what you want to hear. Today, I'm joined by Celso Sawaya, Head of Enterprise Architecture and PMO at the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization. here in Montreal, actually. He's an engineer by training and teacher at heart, has sat in both CEO and CTO seats at tech startups, helped build early internet and digital communications. And now, he teaches strategy and project leadership at Concordia's John Molson School of Business. He's lived and led across 3 countries, married 39 years. Amazing! 2 grown sons, and he loves jazz. Hi, Celso! How are you?

Thank you very much. I was just about to say, and 39 with the same woman, by the way. This is really—

it's a small detail, but it's important, right? Yes.

Nice to join you. Thank you so much for the invitation.

Very happy to be here. I'm really happy you're here. And, um, I'm always very excited when I bring on guests from my hometown, Montreal. And so, uh, you know, a bit of bias there, but you know, why not? I'm really excited to have you, Celso. And I just wanted— I would like you to take us to that moment when you were running a 50-person company and your end decisions were pretty much staring you in the face. What hit you about leadership in that season? So I'm bringing you back, taking you back to that high-pressure moment. So what really happened?

Okay, well, if anybody had ever sat in a in a chair that is usually a tall chair, right, in the meeting room, and look around and see those people that actually depend on your decisions, is when actually things start to strike you and say, oh my God, if I say A, people will follow, do something to make that A happen, right? And When you look around and you have like 50 families, actually it's not 50 people, actually you have 50 families that depends on your decisions, depends on your— based on your mood in the morning, right? You start to realize that you need to be more people-oriented than just technical-oriented or financial-oriented. Of course, everybody's gonna say, oh yeah, but as a CEO, you cannot make decisions with your heart. You have to make decisions with your brain, etc., blah, blah, blah. Yeah, that's right. I mean, you have to have the logic, you have to have the knowledge to make the decisions.

Right.

However, people behind you is what actually moves your company ahead, is what makes you think. So, if you have to make decisions where you learn about that thing. And I learned this thing on the hard way because when those have those 50 families around me, Most of the time, I would say I made the decisions with the brain and what was good for the company, what was good for my budgets, what was good for my clients. Rarely, very rarely thinking about what was good for my team, what was good for my people that actually make this thing happen. And it reached a point that I lost a lot of people. People seem to be resigned. the company simply because my style was too harsh or my bossing around was too much.

Right.

That's when I start to learn that, you know, you have to not become friends of your people, but you have to have that empathy. You have to have some sort of knowledge and say, if I decided to cut my budget by half, what will happen to these people? Right? How do I— how can I support them on that transition? Because I'll be transitioning from level A of budget to level B of budget, but this gap over here is usually filled by resignations and firing. And you have to be together with these guys. And one Christmas that happened, I realized that No, that, that was the moment for change, right? So we gave everybody very cheap Dollarama-style wallets, right?

Okay.

But we put real money inside of it. We distributed those, those wallets and everybody was that yellow smile, say, oh, thank you very much, boss, for that such a lovely gift, right? And I said, no, I'm sure you're gonna appreciate when you look inside your And when they opened, they had that bonus for—

Oh.

So it was the very first time that I really connected with my teams. And when people started to look at the company, just not the way just for them to give, but for the company also to give to them. And the company to give to them is part of the bossing part or the leadership part that you need to Create you have to develop over there.

Yeah, and this is great actually to make your team feel like they're a partner, right? Exactly. When when you make your team feel like a partner, and you I know you told me this before that it's important about making your team a partner in both success and failure, right?

Indeed, indeed. I mean, and that's the thing. It's it's easier to easier said than done. Okay.

Absolutely.

Oh yes, we are partners. Yes, let's do this. Yeah, let's go do it. But just commanding, just telling people what to do, no matter how enthusiastically you communicate that, right? You don't make them partners of your dream, right? And when you have a company, a 50-people company, you need to really put them all together in all the sense. So, I noticed that, of course, everybody's driven by money. But it was not the money itself, the money gesture that actually changed the things in that moment, but it was actually the recognition that they gave, right? And the company was an incentive marketing thing that was actually exactly pointing to make a difference in somebody else's life through incentive marketing, right?

Yeah.

So recognition is number one. to make a high-performance team. Recognition is number one. Rewarding is number two. So, you do these things. And that was the very first time that actually they noticed the company recognizing them and at the same time rewarding them for something. From then on, things changed dramatically.

Yeah, they felt seen. I bet they felt seen. They felt recognized. Exactly what you said. And basically what happens in the brain when that happens When you're giving recognition is you're taking away the threat. You're taking away keeping people in the dark. You're really getting rid of the survival part of the brain.

Exactly.

When people feel in the dark, they feel that they're in survival mode. So when you bring them in as partners, when you bring them in as you're part of this project, you're part of this whole thing, you're part of the success. I see you. You bring clarity, you bring calm. And you said something about, I was leading, I was working, you know, it was more like brain decisions, brain-based decisions. Just to be clear on that, you can have— I think what you meant to say, probably because I'm into neuroscience and I'm a stickler for detail, bear with me, Celso, is you were more in your analytical, less—

Engaged, indeed.

Okay. The right brain. You can still make a decision from the right brain, which is more creative, innovative, etc. You can also make a decision out of your heart brain. I call it the heart brain. And there's the gut brain. There's a lot of brains out there. So we're just not aware of it. And they're all synchronized together and they need to be in coherence when we're fully mentally fit. But it's very interesting because we do associate those analytical decisions, like very kind of like left or right. To the brain. And I'm glad you brought it up because I wanted to, I wanted to like jump in on that. Okay, so here we go. You went from CEO, CTO to being a civil servant at the arms, right? That's a big identity shift. So what did that teach you about leadership?

First of all, humility. I bet.

Yeah.

As I said, the jump was pretty fast and I wouldn't say radical, but it was fast. It was less than 6 months. So I decided to, for reasons A, B, C, and D, I decided to sell the company, which was done lovely, to Accor Hotels. They bought my, my thing, beautiful. And at the same time, I got invitation to join the United Nations, to join ICAO here in Montreal. And I was not really prepared to what what we got. As I said, it's a public servant point, is a government, pseudo-government or entity. What the heck is the United Nations? So when I got over here, first thing I learned was like, okay, there is a hierarchy, is very, very horribly strong.

Mm-hmm.

It's almost a military type of thing where the high-level people— and when I joined it, that if you were more than 2 steps below on the hierarchy, you not even could apply for a post. In the, in, in that. Thank God that changed.

Okay.

But there was the shock of being, being bossed instead of being led that, uh, that I was experienced for the past, at that time, past 10 years as a CTO and CEO. And then I had to kind of shift completely the way I'm doing, right? Because you get this this inertia of bossing people around, not leading, but basically telling people what to do. And now I'm in the position that people tell me what to do, right?

Right.

First thing, it took me a while, first of all, to learn the humility, which helps you to understand more and more how the I would— I'll use a term that commanded people feel like. So, and I had all different sorts of bosses that some of them are real leaders, or some of them could learn more about leadership, could learn more about how to motivate people. So, you are always in that turmoil of different relationships that—

Yeah.

teaches you, look, you have to learn how to, how to deal with this type of boss, how to deal with that type of boss. You need to learn how to get along with other people that you depend— you will depend on. And it is a— I think that's when things started to get clear to me that, you know, that's when I came out, that I learned about— I didn't come out, I learned that phrase that you mentioned. Bosses command and leaders lead.

Yeah, you've said it. Yeah, you said bosses are obeyed, leaders are followed. I want to ask you now, let's move, move to the next question. It's perfect segue.

Somebody mentioned that, I don't know, but then you start to learn this.

Yes, right. Yeah. What— so you've said this, right? So leaders are followed, but bosses are obeyed. What changed in your day-to-day that made people want to follow you?

That's the thing. You learn what is needed on that relationship.

Right.

You learn that a boss-employee relationship, that's how everything starts, right? A boss hires a person and then the person recognizes that boss as a leader, right? That's usually how the dynamic goes. But the way that you apply that or learn that. It is through this learning of humility in terms of how people react. How do you actually make people feel recognized and things like that?

Yeah.

So once you are in that humility position to be able to recognize that I need recognition, so why can I— when I come back to the position of I need to use that knowledge to bring people to my side in terms of they recognize me as a partner in their work, in a way. But yeah, it is, I think the change from boss to leader, it happens basically within yourself first, right? You learn this. The way you present yourself, the way you put yourself into the relationship, that's what defines how bosses are. You move from boss to leader. I think that's the way. I mean, people start to recognize that you know how to recognize the work, you know how to divide the work properly, you know how to work with people, basically.

Okay. So you also teach at Concordia. What have your students actually taught you about leading people? Which are new, students are new, they're anxious and, and they're unsure, you know, they're kind of like navigating things. Not all of them, but, you know, what did that teach you?

That's an interesting thing because being in a professor position automatically puts you on a pedestal, right? And then people start to call you sir, sir, yes, sir. So the first thing I do when I get to class First day, right?

Yeah.

I show the agenda of the course, tell them what is expected, etc. And then I tell them, okay guys, we are in this project together. They have to learn that I'm not there to make them fail. Number one, they have to understand that our part as a profession, as a professor or an instructor, it is to help them to succeed. is to make sure that they can succeed.

Right, right.

So during the first 2 weeks, they start to perceive that that person over there is not— the pedestal is not that high.

Right.

It's an instructor, it's too high, but it's accessible. I can ask him to help me in this journey, right?

Yeah, it's a partnership, basically.

Yeah, it's a partnership. And students are very sensitive to this, to the authority.

Yeah, exactly.

You have to be careful and showing them that, look, yes, there is respect, mutual respect. Of course, there are hierarchies. However, we are in this thing together. If you fail, I fail.

Yeah.

If you don't pass, it's bad on me. If one doesn't pass, it's okay. If the whole class doesn't pass, it's my problem. Yeah, they teach me again humility. Humility is something that you'll always be—

It's amazing. It's really the best way to learn, I think. That's where it starts. And I just— you've led basically transformation for years. You've seen basically everything around, you know, all the transformation around TV, computers, e-commerce, and now AI. And you've seen how people actually react towards change. What do you wish leaders understood when they're faced with change, with disruption, with uncertainty? What do you think they should do?

I'm gonna bang the same key that I've been banging forever.

Okay.

It's about people. It's about how do you make them comfortable in their position to make sure— you mentioned that, I mean, that they need to feel a partner, not a boss, right? They need to feel a person The person over there is your partner in crime, let's say.

Yeah.

Right? So, what happens is that when you do transformation, and usually transformation starts by culture, starts by people, starts by organizational structure, all those things, which deeply affect how people perceive their job security, how they perceive their professional recognition, things like that. So, the first thing you need to address is to let them know and to let Bang on this key of we're together on this thing. Okay, we are here to— I'm gonna, I'm gonna help you go through this. Maybe at the end you're not gonna like the result.

Right.

Maybe at the end it's gonna be something that you expected more, right? But it's at least you're gonna have somebody or a team together with you that will help you do that transition, will help you to go to get there. And that's what actually brings confidence that the transformation process will succeed. Because the person might see that he's going to lose the job at the end, but he will feel confident in helping the transformation process at the same time, because there are people that will support him in the transition and even find a new job in the future, getting a recommendation letter, whatever.

Right.

I think the big challenge is always, is always, always, is always people and how you perceive people, right? You, if you, if you look at them as just the peons that are going to do whatever the project plan tells you to do, it's not going to happen, right? That's what change management is all about, basically.

And I mean, again, when people understand the why, why you're going through that change and see their place in the plan, this is going to change, it's going to change. You're part of it. your input or what you do day to day is going to matter in this change going smoothly and in managing this change, then automatically, neuroscientifically speaking, the brain shifts from threat to problem.

Exactly.

They're now going into problem solving as opposed to panic, panic. And this is when change sticks. It sounds simple. But we, when we're going through change, sometimes we forget these simple things that could be done in order just to reassure people. They're just humans. You know, we're just trying to connect and trying to feel okay. Like they have, the company has their back and that they matter. Like you said, recognition. I see you. Your opinion matters.

Exactly.

Accountability again.

And that, that point, as I said, and there is always, as I said, when you introduce a major change, whatever. There is always the raising in panicking, right? Everybody, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.

Yes.

And then it takes a long time for you to move from that oh my God moment in panicking to oh my God, it's gonna work.

It's true.

That transition, right? This transition from panicking to supporting the change has to do exactly with that. I mean, making sure that people feel comfortable with the change, understand why we're doing this thing. Where's the role? I mean, the importance of their work in that change.

Yeah. And the thing is, like, again, you know, in the brain, what happens, what's happening is that the brain doesn't like things that it doesn't understand. The first thing, it doesn't know, okay, this is a project that's going to be good for me. Like, the brain knows survival. Its only job is to keep you alive. So, when you introduce an uncertain element into its environment, into its regular neural pathways and goes, okay, we go this way. Now we're going to go this way. Then of course, it's the survival instincts that come in. So the panic's like, oh my God, what do I have to do to keep myself alive? That's what the brain is doing and firing hormones and chemicals across your body. And now we react a certain way. We're flushed. We're upset. We're anxious. We're freaking out. Whatever happens. And we're completely in our amygdala. Bringing people back into their prefrontal cortex, the CEO of the brain, is crucial. And it is leadership's job because when you inform, when you speak to people, I know this is new but here's what's happening. And then, you lay it down. This is where you fit in. This is how this concerns you. So now, you're telling the brain. You're speaking to their brain and saying, you're safe. Don't worry. I got you. And then, people can just relax and refocus. It's honestly, I think if people understood What's happening in people, other people's brain, in our own brains. I think it makes the whole managing people much easier because then you don't take it personally. You don't get upset because people are panicking or people leave or no. I know and I can relate and I understand why you're you know freaking out right now. So let me let me make it. Let me let me take away that fear.

Exactly. And I learned I learned with you actually the amygdala part, right?

Yeah. Do we?

How, and then my mind, I start to associate how to move from that fear that amygdala brings to the frontal cortex. We mean rationalizing the change, right? Understanding the change. Now I can see the, oh my God, moment panic. Oh my God, it's gonna work. How to move this?

How to go from one to the other.

Yeah. And this is honestly just, yeah.

And it's mindfulness. And, you know, we can teach this to our people, we can teach this to ourselves. And, and it's, Simple. Sometimes just naming it. I call it the say it out loud rule, which is just saying it and reframing and say, I am freaking out right now. Literally out loud. I am anxious. I'm freaking out right now because I don't know what's happening. And I feel like I'm going to lose my job. And then pause, take a deep breath and say, okay, what is the first action I can do right now in order to Take away that fear. So maybe just go speak to your boss or maybe speak to a colleague or, you know, I don't know. Just find a solution. So the minute you're, okay, I recognize, I label this, I'm going to reframe it. Okay, then what you're doing, you're going back, taking it out of the amygdala, back to the prefrontal cortex. Now you're acting and you're not just freaking out and chaotic.

And just to link those 2 things, Claire, is that, I think, what a good leadership does, right?

Absolutely.

Is when those move, they move from here to there, right? From the fear to the I'm with you moment, right? That's when the leadership comes. They're able to listen to the person that if many, many, many of them cannot vocalize that feeling, right? Or they're afraid of saying, I'm gonna lose my job. Oh my God. They can— they may comment in the corridors, but they don't comment with their supervisors or their— and that thing needs to be more flexible. And that's what I try always to do in terms of making people feel comfortable to vocalize, look, I'm really scared over here. What the heck's gonna happen to me? And I'll be honest with you.

Some people will not— will have trouble saying these things. But indeed, who said it? You know, a leader— you as a leader can Say these for them, knowing what's happening most probably in their head. You know they're going at a gazillion miles an hour in the wrong direction. You can say, "Okay, we're all going to take a breath. We're all going to just breathe for a second." I know this is. I dropped a bomb on you here. I just want you to know that this is why we're doing it. You are safe. We are here to find a good solution, make this work. So I really want you on my side. You're important to me. I'm listening. Ah la la la la! You know, and you know, use your right that right away you just calm the whole room. You know, we say leader brings the weather for a reason. It's like you need to take charge of that because not everybody's going to be mindful and mentally fit and bring themselves into decision-making, calm down. But you are able to do that as a leader. You have that influence. So, why not use it in the right direction?

Exactly.

Anyway, let's move on to the— this was amazing. This was very, very interesting. I have one rapid-fire question for you.

Okay.

Very interested to know a book or podcast or a conference that changed how you lead or that rewired your mindset, your leadership way.

What changed my leader— my way was to meet this person, I think from Southeast Asia, in a course in ICAO regarding leadership. I never thought about leadership before. And she taught me basically that To give yourself to your people, to the people you lead, is the way to success. It's the way if you have empathy and you have knowledge of their pains and the success acknowledged, that's the way you lead.

Okay. So empathy is key when it comes to leading and really serving, serving, being a servant leadership. This is amazing. Thanks so much.

That's the term. Yeah.

So today, you heard how partnership beats command, right? How humility turns a boss into a leader. And empathy, the importance of empathy. And explaining also in situations there's change, there's a bit of uncertainty, to explain the why to your people. Show the outcomes. Be inclusive. Include them early on within the change. That's how you keep your team and your integrity. This is what we learned today. And as always, I'm really happy that we talked about this. I think there's a lot of people out there that probably don't know that they are being the boss and not the leader. And I hope that this shed some light on the issue by Celso, actually our guest, sharing his story, which is pretty interesting and very, very inspiring, quite honestly. Just a reminder, scan that QR code that you see on screen. If you're listening to the audio, do check the description so you can follow the show. So you're informed of upcoming guests, upcoming subjects. And you'll find in the QR code as well, there's masterclasses, webinars, and more free resources for the whole podcast community. And please do reach out. I'd love to hear from you. Celso, quickly, any last words you want to share with our listeners today?

No, just to thank you so, so, so, so much. As I said, there's so much to talk about. It's so much to describe. I hope we can can expand this conversation some other time. Thank you, everybody.

Absolutely. Be careful what you wish for. I might just show up to your class at Concordia.

Oh my God! Yes, I know.

So everyone, thank you so much for listening. Lead boldly, stay human, and turn every challenge into a gift. And see you all next week. Bye for now. Bye, Celso. Thanks so much.