89 | Leading with SOUL: Unleashing the Power of Conscious Leadership | Zana Goic Petricevic

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Hello there and welcome to this episode of the Building Better Cultures podcast with me, Scott McInnes. Before we chat to today's guest, just my usual little thank you and fist bump for my friends and supporters out at Workvivo. If you are looking for a platform to try and bring your people together, to try and communicate with them in a way that's consistent and constant and easy for them to access, then you should have a look at Workvivo's platform. It's well worth a look. You'll find out more about them workvivo.com, and you'll hear a little bit more about them later. On to my guest today. I love having authors on who've just written books because they tend to bring some really, really good thinking and new ideas and really practical insights that listeners— I know from your feedback that many of you have given me that you're really keen on that whole practical aspect of the podcast and you love that, and you love that guests come on with some really practical advice. So I'm delighted today to introduce Žana Gojčević. I hope I haven't murdered that too badly, Žana. I got a thumbs up, so that's good. Who is— she's a leadership coach and consultant, and with her author hat today on, that's what we're going to be chatting to her about because she has just released a book called Bold Reinvented, and we're going to learn a little bit more about that as we go through the pod today. So, Žana, hello there.

Hello, Scott. It's lovely to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

And of course, your accent, as I said to you the first time round, does not suggest your Croatian heritage, but it does— it is slightly of a London bent. Is that a fair spot?

Oh, I'm going to take that as a compliment. So maybe that's at the beginning, but let's wait until I get really passionate in the middle of the discussion, whether I lose this accent or not. So your listeners will be able to tell.

We'll see. Does the Croatian come bouncing out of you? Yes. Well, listen, it's great to have you on. Thanks for joining me. Why don't we start where we always do start, which is for you maybe to tell me and tell the listeners a little bit about your story and where you've come from and what you're doing today. Yeah.

So, so thanks for that intro question. You already sort of introduced me as a leadership coach and consultant, and I have to say, I'm kind of getting used to introducing myself as an author. So it is an identity shift, I guess, especially when you write your first book. So it takes some time to actually embody that new role, if you like. But essentially, I am very much with my work in the leadership development space, working with corporate people, doing individual coaching, leadership development programs, and actually what I love to call just conversations, different type of conversations that we don't normally have in everyday life, meaningful conversations in which we kind of stop and pause and ask ourselves, why are we here? Where are we going? Why are we going there? And I kind of got to realize that I can do these conversations using coaching, as a tool, using a lot of leadership development assessment tools, and actually using my book and the messages that I've put in that book. That's also something that I use in my conversations to kind of spark that thinking in people, in leaders— what's their leadership, how they're showing up, and how they actually want to show up. So that's, that's a little bit about me. I'm based in Zagreb, Croatia, as you already said. So I am Croatian, I work globally, and that's also one of values. I like to meet different cultures, different people, and really, you know, learn about the same pains that we have, and maybe just somewhat different life stories that we bring.

Brilliant. And I love that idea of getting people just to stop and think, because I would say that probably there's quite a lot of heads nodding right now as they're listening to this going, yeah, yeah, I need to do more of that. But I'm just too busy. But it is really important, isn't it, to actually take the time It's almost the idea of stop to go faster.

Yeah. Isn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. Yeah.

Interesting. Listen, let me start with a really big question. We're going to get into some of the content of the book in a while. But you've written a book. You are an expert in this area. So I'm going to ask you the gazillion-dollar question. What is a great leader?

I always sort of stop at that question. And then, when there's a big question in front of me, I kind of like to listen to my intuition. What's the first word that sort of pops up for me as an answer to that question. And the first word is a learner. So I truly deeply believe, I've experienced that in my, in my, in my own case, and I've seen that in my clients when leaders, and I'm going to go back to that stop, pause to think, when leaders stop to think, stop to understand or raise their own awareness around what is there still for them to learn. That is what kind of, that's what makes them leaders. Being a personal learner, learning from yourself, learning from others, learning from every context in which you're kind of thrown, finding different perspectives, seeing how you can be better, but not be better in terms of do more, But be better in terms of be more self-aware around your impact, around your leadership. That is what makes you a leader. And here, allow me to say one thing. In my head, I'm going now to some leadership development tools that I'm using and the kind of conversations that I'm having with leaders. There is a competency called personal learner, and there is a, for instance, a competency called decisiveness. And every time you work with leaders, with corporate leaders, they will look into that decisiveness, for instance, far more than looking into the competency of personal learner. You know, being far more curious, oh, how have I scored here in decisiveness? Like, am I able to bring decisions timely, even uncomfortable decisions and things like that? But when you look at the kind of in the background of that tool and you realize how much or in what way these competencies correlate to leadership effectiveness, it's really interesting to find out that for instance, personal learner competency and decisiveness, so the ability to make timely, tough decisions, they correlate in the same way to the leadership effectiveness, which essentially means that as much as it's important what kind of a decision maker you are in terms of your ability to make that decision, it's also important what kind of learner you are in terms of really being open to learn from yourselves, learn from others, and learn from the circumstances.

And I think what's really interesting is that, and I was literally only having this conversation with a client this morning, we had done a culture audit for them. And one of the things that came up with this idea that they don't see learning as an important part of what they do as an organization day to day. And I said, you know, that's not that they don't see learning as an important thing, but maybe they just don't understand or they don't have a good definition of what learning is. Because if your definition of learning is, I went on a course, I did a diploma, I've got another qualification or some letters after my name, then for me, you're on a hiding to nothing. We know from that 70-20-10 model that that's only 10% classroom learning, but the other 70%, or 70%, the 70 is the on-the-job learning. It's just, I suppose, maybe changing your mindset and looking at learning through a slightly different lens, isn't it?

Absolutely. Absolutely. It kind of— it's almost like not just being at the receiving end in terms of being a bystander sitting somewhere there in the course and, you know, and being talked at. Right. But it's actually not just within a course. It's within your daily work, your daily life, within your teams. What is it that I can still learn? And especially when it comes to, you know, what we would call in the corporate environment, difficult people, because every time you work with clients, they will come up saying, oh, I've got a difficult person in my team. And that's the moment I love asking questions. Wow, I wonder, what is it that you can learn from that person? Right? Just kind of shifting your perspective that we can literally learn from everything and everyone.

Yeah, it's great. And I, you know, I think the whole learning thing sometimes is about, it comes back to your point about awareness, about just being aware in the moment that, oh, that was something new that I didn't know before. There's a learning, which sounds ridiculous. But actually, until you train, I think until you train your brain to recognize those little learning moments, if you like as exactly that, as learning moments, they just kind of wash by, don't they? Like on a little river.

Exactly, exactly. And you might be missing on something really important to kind of, you know, utilize your full potential, utilize your full leadership potential.

Yeah, for sure. This whole thing about leaders are born or made has always kind of wound me up. And I wonder, from your perspective, do you think that everybody has the potential to be a great leader?

Well, absolutely yes. So my answer there is a straightforward answer. Everyone has—

Very categorically.

Yes, very categorically. Everyone has a potential to be a straightforward leader. Now, the second part of that answer is, do everyone choose to engage that innate ability? That's a different question. So this is something we can link to the first question. If we decide to be lifelong personal learners, it gives us better chance to actually engage engage that innate ability to be leaders. The second thing that's important to say that I don't consider leaders— so when I think of leaders, I don't think of the old leadership paradigm. So it's only leaders in front who are leaders. It's only leaders who are so by their role, by the hierarchy in the organizations. No, because that would make the rest of us, pretty much victims at the mercy of, you know, one person or a few persons who are sort of leading the way. And we can all really lead the way if we decide to and if we choose to kind of shift sort of leadership dimensions, right? And to kind of bring our accountability, bring our engagement, bring our innate qualities, bring ourselves when we are at our best. That's our personal leadership. Giving ourselves full permission to be who we are and taking the responsibility for the impact that we're creating in our world. That's what makes us leaders, regardless of what our role says, what our formal role says.

I love that idea. And it's that idea that you don't have to have stripes on your shoulders to be that leader.

Exactly.

And I completely agree that, you know, there is a leader There is a leader in everybody. Maybe it's not a leader with a capital L. Maybe it's a leader with a tiny little l that just does that little thing every now and again. It's very informal. But as you said, you're taking responsibility for your thoughts and your actions and the impact of those thoughts and actions of the people around you. It's really powerful.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Even if we give a very simplistic example, like, as parents, we are leaders. No one has specifically nominated us as leaders in that role. And yet we are, right? We're taking the lead, we're delegating things, if you like, we're taking care of the impact, we're motivating those little human beings, inspiring them. So we're actually leaders.

Yeah, I've got teenagers now, so I'm actually just about to introduce performance management into my family to make sure that what needs to get done gets done in a very high-quality way. And there'll be There'll be prizes and bonuses based on the results. So, that's a great parallel that you drew there. Well done. Tell me, I love a model. And you've, in the book, in Bold Reinvented, that we'll talk about in a while, you've identified this model called the Soul Model with 4 key elements. Tell me a little bit about the model because we're going to go into a bit more detail in a minute. But tell me a little bit about the model and why you believe that those 4 things hold the key to creating great leaders.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so there are actually kind of two parts to the model. The first thing is, why is it called Soul in the first place? And then the second thing is what this Soul actually consists of, these four elements or four cornerstones. And what is it that they mean? What is it that they bring to every leader's journey? So the reason why I've called it Soul is simply because of the kind of a very clear belief that I hold. Leaders are bold, and we cannot be bold enough from our heads only. There's a limit to our boldness that comes from our heads. For me, that's very normal because what's the main task of our heads is to kind of spot the risks and sort of stops us, or don't go there, it's too dangerous, right? So the head is there to, in a way, ensure safety. Right. And the soul, according to me, is there to ensure that we really feel alive, that we— first of all, that we know what our passions are, that we know what our purpose is, and that we willingly decide to follow that despite the risk. So from our soul, we will cut through discomfort. We will stay with the discomfort in service of our vision, in service of what matters to us.. And for me, that's kind of, that's the whole philosophy of leadership. If we are not ready to step into the discomfort for the sake of something bigger that we are bringing to our world, then I'm not sure we can call ourselves leaders. Maybe we can call ourselves bosses or managers, whatever, but we really cannot call ourselves leaders. That's my strong, I'm opinionated there. That's my strong opinion there. So once I've realized, okay, the soul is a very important part important part for me in this whole leadership philosophy. But what are kind of— what are the elements of this SOUL? How can we make this tangible? Because sometimes when you speak, when you use this language, especially in the corporate world, you know, people just say, yeah, okay, I get that. And now how do I do it? Right? What do I do? What do I do with it? So I thought, okay, so this is what you do with it. Actually, SOUL stands for Self, Other, Universe, and Legacy. And it's a kind of full circle. It's a leadership journey. It's about cornerstones that leaders need to step in. They need to experience, they need to learn, they need to master in a way, if you like. And they need to bring there to their leadership. Now, what does that mean? The first cornerstone is self, because leadership starts by confronting yourself first. I know that we're all kind of skilled or unskilled in confronting others first, but really in leadership, we need to confront ourselves first to raise our own self-awareness, to see, you know, what's my operating system? What are my beliefs that are driving my behaviors? What is it that I cannot be without? And what are the illusions that I'm blindly kind of attached to thinking that are keeping me safe? And how is it that they get in my way? In other words, how is it that I am getting in my own way and canceling my own leadership effectiveness. So all that happens in the self area. And sometimes when I kind of say, what's the most important thing here? I believe the most important thing is for a leader to ask him or herself a couple of questions. Why am I here? Where am I going? Why am I going there? And who am I being? How am I acting? On that path. So I know that we all very sort of operational and tactical and transactional in a corporate world because there is a structure that kind of drives us into that direction. And we do need to stop and not just think, but sense, feel, connect to ourselves. Whether you're connecting to your soul, to your heart, or whatever you want to call it, but connect to your essence and find answers to these questions.

Mm.

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So, let me ask you a little bit about self while we're here, because in that chapter you talk, or in that section, you talk about the art of self-disruption. And I love that idea, the whole— and actually, I'm going to quote you from the book, breaking through the frame of our assumptions, which to me could very much be considered bias, which of course is a very big thing at the moment, unconscious bias, and companies around the world spending billions of dollars a year on training to stop people being unconsciously biased. I wonder, how do you know that you're being biased, that you are looking at something through the frame of your assumptions, to use your language? How do we know we're doing that? And how can we fix it? How can we address it? What do we have to do to break that cycle?

Yeah. So, how do we know that we're doing that? We simply need to hear the feedback on our impact. 'Cause there is something that is called the leadership intention, right? We bring certain intentions with our leadership. In other words, we think this is what we're doing, right? We think this is what we're bringing. But we also need to check the perception side. We need to check our brand in a way. So we need to ask others, what is it that I'm actually bringing? How is it landing there on you, on the team, on the organization? We need to be able to hear that. Now, I really, I love that you're asking this question because literally a leader cannot come to the end. Well, there's a question whether we ever come to the end of this self corner. So like whether it ever stops, it probably never stops, right? Because we learn as long as we live, but we cannot kind of dive deep into that section without realizing that leadership doesn't really happen in isolation. And there's nothing, nothing that is bigger than us that we can do alone. So we cannot even grow ourselves alone. So to use the practical language, whether it's a training, whether it's a coach, whether it's simply your buddy out there in your team or your mentor or, you know, whoever that you trust, go and have that, establish that relationship, design that relationship to help you grow as a leader. Because we, we blind to our blindness. We can't know everything. We can have good intentions and we need to check what's the impact of those good intentions. And we cannot say what's our impact. We need to listen for our impact. We need to ask for our impact. That's a vulnerable thing and it's needed.

Massively vulnerable. Absolutely. To have somebody call you out. I mean, effectively what you want to have is that person sitting in the room as part of your team with a red card. Metaphorically, or maybe even physically. Just when you say something or do something, to hold up the red card and say, "Whoa, is there another way you could have done that? Could you have thought a different way?" Yeah.

And I love that you're saying this. I love that you're using this to call you out. What I would offer here is to call you forth, to kind of invite you to your— and I'm using that a lot, that kind of language a lot in my book— to invite you to your brilliance, to your magnificence. So what does that mean? You need to have people around you who have trust in you, just as you need to have trust in your people. So I need, so if I'm working with you, Scott, I need to be able to see you as, wow, you can be this great person. And perhaps your behavior right now is telling us the opposite, is not something that we kind of, can feel and sense as being a great behavior. So we're going to call you forth to that bigger vision of yourself that we hold for you, because we believe in you. And to be really, really practical here, I don't know what kind of experience you've got with your clients, but with my clients, feedback is a never-ending topic. It's like, how do I give this feedback? And the first question that I ask is, how much do you believe in that person? 'Cause if you don't believe in that person, well, you know what's a hard loving truth? It's gonna be really difficult to give that feedback and not feel uncomfortable. You know?

Yeah, yeah. Tell me a bit about other.

So here I'm gonna use a quote that's not mine. I've picked up that quote from another book. And it says, wait a second, I won't be able to say word by word, but it's something like that. Journey that we will ever kind of have to go through is the sacred journey from our heads to our heart. It's the Native American teacher Phil Lane. And when I read that quote, I was thinking, wow, what would the world be like if we could all simply just start that journey and dive deep into that journey in the most vulnerable way. So once we start developing as leaders, um, once we meet our illusions, disarm our illusions, and then we, you know, we go back and forth to it because it's not something— it's not a process that kind of starts, finishes, and that's it. We, we keep disarming our illusions throughout our entire life, and then we realize, okay, this is needed because there's something bigger there's something bigger that I wanna do in life. There's something bigger that I wanna bring to my leadership. And at that moment, we actually understand, well, wait a second, I cannot do it alone. Nothing that is bigger than us cannot be done alone. It requires a community. It requires another person. Leadership does not happen in isolation. So, I mean, again, to be very practical, we go away for a training, for a course, we kind of, you know, it boosts our energy. We're like, you know, feeling super empowered. And then we come back even home, we don't even make it to the office. And we're like trapped by our reactive selves immediately. Because the real art is then to bring that changed you or you in the process of changing to another human being who's also in the process of changing maybe, who also has his or her own illusions, And, you know, and then suddenly we need to practice trust. We need to practice leaning into each other. We need to practice compassion and understanding, even when we feel that these people stand in our way of achieving our goals. It's just another muscle to practice, to understand that we can just simply achieve better things for this world together.

Yeah. And to pick up on that trust element that you talked about there, that's something that you talk about quite a lot in the book. Talk me through your views on that, why it's important and how you build it. What are some of the things that leaders can do to really, really build trust?

Yeah. So, thank you very much. Trust was definitely my blind spot. So, I was, well, what I was not blind about is that I knew I can never trust other people fully as much as I trust myself. Then I actually realized, wait a second, that's not completely true. Because as much as I don't trust other people, I don't even trust myself.

You heard it here, people.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

It was painful. It was painful. And it had to be said, right? It had to be swallowed in a way. Then I got to realize that trust kind of has, how should I call this? Like three fa— there are three faces. Is to trust. I trust myself, I trust others, and I trust something that's bigger than you and me. So first of all, I trust myself means I give myself permission to, to bring my entire self. First of all, to get to know who I am, and then to unapologetically bring myself and at the same time take I take responsibility for my impact. Because for me, bringing yourself unapologetically out there without taking responsibility for your impact, it's not leadership, right? Authenticity without responsibility for impact does not work for me in terms of leadership. But you need to trust yourself. You need to trust that whatever you bring has value because it matters to you. You need to trust that it matters to other people also. It matters to you, which means it matters. It matters to other people. You need to believe that operating from that space, relying on your values, it doesn't really matter if you get rejected. It doesn't really matter what the feedback is. If that's something that you believe in and you believe it's going to make your world better, In other words, when we trust ourselves, we are not afraid to confront. There are ways how we do that without getting into a personal conflict, but we are not afraid to stand up for what we believe in. And we're being very true to ourselves and honest with ourselves, facing our own illusions and, you know, calling ourselves forth or out for things that are not super comfortable and we would like to avoid them. No, we can look ourselves in the mirror. That's when we trust ourselves. So trusting ourselves makes us trustworthy for other people because trusting ourselves brings our integrity to the surface and people know what they can count on us for. Yeah. Now the second phase is trusting others. Simply, you know, trust is a decision. 'Cause how can I ever, like my mind goes like this, how can I ever super trust you if that means I need to know exactly what's gonna happen with that thing that I've put into your hands? I mean, how can I know? How can you know? How can anyone know? But the thing is, have I decided to trust you? And what's the impact of my trust in you? It's probably the empowerment of you. It's probably the safety in our relationship. And probably helping you believe in yourself more, giving you the space, saying that this relationship matters to me. And that's an amazing, trusting other people is an amazing way to empower them. We're so much looking for how can I empower my team? Or how can I motivate them? Trust them. Put your trust there in them. Allow them mistakes. Don't allow them incompetence. Not to them, not to yourself. But there's a difference between saying yes to mistakes and no to incompetence, because in between those two things, there's a learning process. We learn from our mistakes. And then finally, the third thing for me is trusting something bigger than you and me, which means just coming to terms with the fact that not everything is under our control. As much as we would like it to be, not everything is under our control. So I'm going to bring here a personal, personal thing. I've been obviously bringing this story quite a lot during this year because it affected me, affected my family. Our son has had a heart surgery in March this year. Well, anyone who's a parent, we've just said before that a parent means being a leader, So anyone who's a parent knows how much they would love to control that kind of situation. And it's utterly impossible, right? So what you need to do, you need to trust in yourself as a parent that you're making the right decision. You need to trust, put your trust in the team that's going to do that. And that's just the choice 'cause nobody can guarantee anything.. And eventually you need to trust in something that's bigger than all of us. Simply believing in the positive outcome of things means allowing the positive outcome of things to happen. So I don't know whether it makes sense. It's just the way I see trust in kind of 3 lanes, if you like. And I believe that if you're not able to, like, if you feel uncomfortable in one of these 3 things, there's likelihood that you feel uncomfortable in all of them.

Yeah, and it would be remiss of me not to ask how your son is these days. It is now, uh, it is now November, 6 months on.

Yeah, yeah, he's a lovely boy, energetic boy, a healthy child, and we're all really, really happy. And, and not just that he came out of this whole situation healthy and, and, you know, full of energy, but we've just created some wonderful relationships with that medical staff in terms of, you know, supporting some associations who help other kids with same issues. So there are so many lovely things that came out of something that could have made us feel quite paralyzed had we not stepped into our bold leadership and dared to trust.

Yeah, and often, you know, often these situations, these very, very difficult situations, when you come out the other side, when you reflect, when you look back and you go, actually, We learned a lot from that. And despite the fact that in the moment it was horrible, and I think that the same, you know, yours is a personal story, the same can apply in any story in business or in life. You come out the other side a stronger individual. At Inspiring Change, we help our clients to implement sustainable change and drive business performance by putting their people first. We do that through a focus on strategic internal communications, employee engagement, and leadership consultancy. If you're struggling with change or getting your people aligned behind your purpose, vision, or strategy, then get in touch. Simply visit our website at www.inspiringchange.ie for more. The next part of your model is a really big one, quite literally, universe.

Yes.

And in that, talk to me a little bit about universe. And talk to me about the voice, 'cause I thought that was really interesting.

Yeah, yeah. And that's my favorite part, actually. So when I read my own book, I kind of stop there in the universe section because I simply love that section. So this is what sort of, this is how I'm seeing it. So when leaders kind of start that journey and they go through self and then they go through other, there is something that happens there, almost kind of an identity shift, when they suddenly realize Okay, cool. So I'm not alone. There are other people around me and there is something that we all together bring on a systemic level. Right? So this is, this is what universe is all about. What's happening out there around us. And, you know, in coaching, we can call it a systemic level. We can call it a field. Using the organizational language or the corporate language, we can call it culture. What's happening out there in the culture, right? Because you have so many examples of people going on kind of coaching retreats or programs, and then they come back into, into their organizations and they suddenly bump into the system, right? Something's not working here because the system is big, the universe is big, and we're all contributing to, to how this universe feels like. So, um, for me, um, when we are leaders, we need to be aware of how we co-creating, uh, the world around us. So universe can be a system, a team, community, family, the entire world around you. We need to be aware as leaders how we're co-creating that world, because we are. So what is it that we put— what's our contribution? What is it that we're putting there to make it the way it is? How is it that we're shaping that culture? And here I speak about kind of 3 questions. It's like just noticing from the very beginning, do we say to some of the things, well, that doesn't concern me, you know, even in the organizational culture, I know that something's not working out there, maybe in other departments, but that doesn't really concern me, right? So, you know, in practical language, we're really not looking outside of our current role, which means that we really don't bring that accountability towards the entire organization. Why wouldn't it not concern us? It's part of the whole to which we belong, right? So we can't say it doesn't concern me. Then the second thing to kind of justify this, this attitude, we say, well, you know, Well, anyhow, my voice does not matter. Like, who's going to listen to me? I'm a different department. I'm a different country. I'm a different part of the city, whatever. My voice does not matter. So leaders who are aware of how they're co-creating their world know that every voice matters. If things that are spoken and unspoken, they exist. They're present. They're shaping the world around us. They do matter, and we need to allow the space for their expression. If we go even deeper into kind of negating that, how to say, power to do something about things that we don't like, then we say, well, you know, why would I? I mean, why would I risk? What a lovely way to stay in your powerlessness, which is an illusion. Because we all have power to do something. The question is whether we prioritize the thing that we would like to see happening or whether we're prioritizing our safety. I'm just not gonna take that risk. I don't care, it doesn't affect me personally. So leaders who kind of play, who are all in in the universe land, they understand that everything concerns them. Because everything shapes the world around them. And they bring their voice to their leadership. Now, I'm very much about speaking up. I'm very much about conversations. I'm very much— I said one of the things that I say in my book, that if bold leaders have any sixth sense, it's the sense of speech. Now, here I was kind of impacted a lot by Radical Wholeness, the book called Radical Wholeness by Philip Shepherd. And he speaks about the cultures of West Africa that among them, senses, they have a sense of speech. And there was a particular sentence that made such a huge impact on me when he says, "It's not about delivery, it's about discovery." So we think when we speak about leaders having voice, it's not about speaking, it's about listening first. It's not about downloading to your team, to your people, everything that you believe needs to happen. It's about listening, what's going on that's maybe not being spoken. And then naming that, giving voice to that. Because let's face it, you might be in a privileged position as a hierarchical leader to give voice to some things and to open up some conversations. And we change in, in the conversations that we've never had before. That's where we change the most, when we are allowed a space to vent to experience that emotional shift, that's when the change happens. Change does not happen when we download stuff at our people, telling them what we would like them to do or what we would like them to become to make our life easier.

But actually, for me, you need to want to change. I was doing a debrief with the senior leadership team this weekend, and one of the big things that kept coming up in the organization was, we are not very good at empowering people as an organization. And I kind of said, stop using as an organization and stop saying we, because the we is you. You're the top 10 people in this organization. If this organization isn't empowering people enough, it means you are not empowering your teams to empower their teams to empower their teams. It's not about the organization. It's not about a we. It's not about somebody else not doing something. There is nobody else. You are the top of the tree in this hierarchy. So that whole idea of looking outside the boundaries of my area, that whole idea of being aware that I'm a part of a much bigger ship or organization is really, really critical. What is it that these leaders want to leave behind them? That's always the big question, which brings us on beautifully. You would think I had thought of that beforehand. Brings us on beautifully to the very last piece of your model, which is legacy. And you've touched on this before. Earlier in the conversation about doing meaningful work and the whole idea that leaders have purpose, leaders do meaningful work, but they're able to bring that to their teams. They're able to help their teams cross that bridge and see the link between what they're doing and perhaps the purpose or the meaning of the work of the organization. How do great leaders go about doing that?

Here's something that comes up for me now immediately as I'm listening to you. Passion is contagious. Leaders need to be passionate about their work, and they cannot be passionate about the work that has no meaning for them. So they need to start from discovering their own values, seeing how they can honor those values in the work that they're doing, and kind of just raising their own awareness of what is that meaningful work out there for them, because nobody ever kind of serves us that meaningful meaningful work. You know, we've got a position for you and here's your meaningful work. It doesn't happen that way. So it's something that you need to discover by doing your own self-work. Once you've discovered that, it's so easy to kind of demonstrate that because you're passionate about what you do. You bring that passion and passion is contagious. That does not mean that your people will share exactly the same passion, but it means that you will inspire them to find their own own passion. So just in there, because as we were speaking before this, how I was delivering to a group of people a program in these past 2 days. So one of the things was about that there was a topic around purpose. And you know, when people kind of discover their values and the purpose, they sort of think in future terms, oh, this is what I, you know, honoring my purpose, I would want to be doing this and that, and it would be this kind of job and that kind of job. But the real question is how are you honoring your purpose right now? It may not be within that role that you imagined it to be as a child or something like that. Bringing a simplistic example, somebody wanted to be a flight attendant. Why? Because they wanted to see the world, meet different cultures, be kind to people, you know, take care of them. But how is it that you're doing that outside of that role that once meant for you, okay, that's it, that's my meaningful work, that's what I want. How is it that you're doing it right now? Raise your awareness about that, and then really live into that passion and then really show that passion. There's another quote, I never kind of, I'm awful in remembering who is the owner of the quotes, but I always remember the quote. So forgive me for that. The quote is that the passion is gonna guarantee the highest expression of your talent. So please do go out there, find your, go within, find your passion, Because that's the guarantee that you're gonna express your talent to the highest level, that you're gonna bring your full potential. When people see that, and this is what they do see from their leaders, they will be inspired to find their own passion and to link it to the work that they're doing, or not. And then they're not a good fit. They're gonna go elsewhere. They're gonna be a better fit elsewhere. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

And back to the very top of the conversation, direct it back to self-awareness. Am I doing what it is that I really want to do, that I was put on this earth to do? What it is I have to achieve before I roll off the mortal coil? And I think it is less about having a purpose of what you want to do in terms of a role, but much more about the difference that you want to make as a leader or just a person, even if you're not a leader. Just what difference do I want to make in the world? And could I— I heard a quote It might have been Tony Robbins who said, "Hell on earth would be to meet the person that you could have been." Oh, yeah, exactly.

Wow. I get goosebumps hearing this. I think— I don't know whether you shared it with me or someone else, but I get goosebumps. But here's the thing, Scott, it all comes down to impact again. What's the real impact that I'm making? What's the difference that I'm making? If I'm not stepping into my passion, if I'm not living my meaningful work, I'm probably making a living, but I'm not not making a life, not creating a legacy.

Yeah. And that's a hard thing to sit back and realize when you meet yourself. Am I that person or am I somebody else? Last question, 30 seconds, because we've come to the end of our time, unfortunately.

If you had to pick one leadership game changer, either from the book or from just your experience in general, what would it Test yourself on this dilemma: am I playing to win, or am I playing not to lose in everything that I do as a leader? Because these two things may seem the same, but they're drastically different. They actually mean, am I doing my work, making my decisions, uh, treating people around me from the place of fear or from the place of love? Am I doing things making sure I stay silent, safe, not losing what I already have? Or am I speaking up, taking that risk to create what's missing in my life and in my world? And just test yourself. That's a line. Where do you stand on that line?

It's beautiful. I love that. What a great place to finish up. Zsanna, if people want to get more information on your book or, indeed, get in touch with you? Where can they, where can they, where can they go?

Well, the best thing is to go to my website, www.forleadership-culture.com. And there they can find all the information about my book, just through one click. They can go and purchase the book, sign up to my newsletter, and find more about me. And also they can follow me on LinkedIn. I am very, I'm on other social media, but LinkedIn is kind of my home. I'm very much there. I share a lot of things and I love to interact and communicate with everyone who kind of reaches out for me there.

Brilliant stuff. And we'll make sure that we put those links in the show notes. Zsanna, thank you very much for joining me today. It was a pleasure having a chat with you. I've enjoyed reading the book. I haven't finished it yet, but I will. And listen, just thank you and have a great day.

Thank you. You too. Thank you so much, Scott. I've really enjoyed it.

Thanks for listening. To hear from other leaders on our podcasts, to read our blog, or to find out more about the work that we do at Inspiring Change, please visit inspiringchange.ie.