(225) The Five Core Pillars to High Stakes Leadership with Sally Henderson

(225) The Five Core Pillars to High Stakes Leadership with Sally Henderson

Sally Henderson is serial entrepreneur, leadership mentor – passionate about enabling high levels of leadership. 

Some of the gold we covered:

• Definition of high stakes leadership
• The core pillars of The Real Method
• How to define your leadership style
• How to create your own roadmap 
• Key foundations to Excel

And so much more! 

ABOUT Sally Henderson:

Sally is a straight-talking Yorkshire woman who creates high-performance senior teams & leaders that excel within the world’s biggest brands and world-class creative agencies.
 
 As a serial entrepreneur, she’s faced challenging leadership decisions, felt the fear, and done it anyway.
 
 Sally founded her global leadership mentoring practice in 2011 on the fundamental belief that teams and leaders shouldn’t have to choose between being effective or being happy, at work.
 
 In addition to her proprietary leadership development programme The Real Method, Sally offers brave bespoke leadership mentoring so her clients achieve their leadership and career ambition; especially when the stakes are high.

CONNECT Sally Henderson:

Sally Henderson LinkedIn

YouTube Link

VIDEO of this episode:

YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/j69OKW2mz88 

ABOUT Katie Stoddart:

Katie Stoddart is an award-winning, international, leadership & performance coach. Katie started her career as a hydrographic engineer working at sea and she now supports business owners to thrive in their life & business.

As a keynote speaker, Katie frequently speaks at summits, conferences & podcasts. For her weekly podcast ‘The Focus Bee Show’, Katie interviews thought leaders, speakers and authors. 

Katie works primarily with entrepreneurs & executives through 1-1 coaching & corporate workshops on Focus, Leadership & Performance.  

 CONNECT with Katie Stoddart, aka 'the focus bee': 

PODCAST: https://thefocusbeeshow.buzzsprout.com/

LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiestoddart

BLOG: https://thefocusbee.com/blog/

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/TheFocusBee

INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thefocusbee/

FACEBOOK:  https://www.facebook.com/thefocusbee

Transcript

[00:00] Katie: Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Sudddhart here aka the focus b. And on this show I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness, and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.

[00:35] Sally: You.

[00:37] Katie: Very happy to have Sally Henderson on the show today. Sally is a serial entrepreneur and leadership mentor who founded her global leadership mentoring practice in 2011 based on the fundamental belief that teams and leaders shouldn't have to choose between being effective or being happy. She now is the fundamental developer of the program The Real Method, where she offers Bespoke Leadership Mentoring. Wonderful to have you here, Sally. Thank you so much for joining the show.

[01:10] Sally: Oh, utter pleasure Katie. Thrilled to be here.

[01:13] Katie: Amazing. I'd love to begin with your vision and your perspective on high stakes leadership. This really struck me when I was reading your bio and reading a bit more about what you do, the term high stakes leadership. I'd love to know what do you mean by high stakes leadership?

[01:29] Sally: I'll give you the polite version with no swearing. So I think when I'm talking about high stakes, I mean something's going on. There's a change happening at senior level in a prominent business and ultimately, at the end of the day, people cannot afford to get things wrong. There's little time, there's little elasticity in what people have to deliver. And so they need and value and most importantly want an expert to partner them so that whatever change to their status quo that they're hopefully very happy about embracing Be, that a promotion. It might be a change in the exec team, it might be the company is having to do that classic word since COVID pivot. Or there's just something that's not meaning business as usual is the norm anymore. That's a big ask on people on top of what will already be a very challenging role because my clients are all high profile, senior, already topped up professionals, their jobs are already quite overwhelming. So you add a high stakes situation, which means it matters. It's in this public spotlight, it matters to their career, it matters to the success of their business, it matters to the well being of their people, it matters to their own self identity and feeling of excellence. That's high stakes.

[02:46] Katie: Interesting, I'd never heard that term before and that makes perfect sense. So it's really leadership in specific situations where we can't, quote, unquote, afford to be wrong or go wrong.

[02:58] Sally: Yeah, or the cost of such. And also, I guess it to me it's unnecessary to go wrong. Often in those high stakes situations, leadership and people make mistakes because they're not being supported. So it's saying, look, if your company is truly committed, your business, your team, yourself to doing something that you deem to be high stakes, I e important and matters, then why wouldn't you get the right expert support to make it go as well as it possibly could?

[03:27] Katie: Yes, that makes sense. And I firmly believe in the power of coaching and mentoring and I think it's tremendously useful in many different cases. So why wouldn't it be useful in that specific case? For sure. And you've also developed these five foundations to Excel. Could you cover and maybe explain that to the listeners and viewers? For those watching on YouTube, what are some of the five foundations to Excel?

[03:53] Sally: So the foundations to Excel are really an extension of my core leadership development program called the Real Method. And they are a bit, if you like, the icing on the cake. Because if I may, let me start with the Real Method because I think that anchors the foundations better. So I developed the Real Method because I kept seeing commonality amongst my clients and they're all high performers, they all have in common high performers, senior in established businesses and are known to be great at what they do. So you might always think, or often think, well, why do they want help anyway? But everyone needs help, everyone benefits from growth and I say I take your best and make them better. And in doing that, I could see commonalities of themes, not all problems. I always say I'm not here to fix the broken birds, that's not my job. But taking the best and making them better, there were common themes and also blocks and challenges. So I distilled this down to what I call the real method. It's called the Real Method because these things happen all the time and it's what really affects high performance leadership in high stakes situations. And often they're overlooked at someone's peril because they're obvious and they're the assumptions people make about senior people, that the things that make up the Real Method will all be in place because how could they not be? But my clients are so talented and successful and motivated and committed that they cope anyway. And to me that's a crying waste of energy, emotion, focus, bandwidth, the whole why make it hard, why not make it better? So in essence, the Real Method covers these things. It first covers an insight piece around how do you see yourself. So I think the failure of a lot of coaching trained developments, it starts from the wrong place. You've got to get your brief right. You've got to understand what is the real thing here that is affecting this person either negatively or the growth they want to achieve positively. What is it really? So we got to make sure we and I've got lots of techniques and ways of doing that both for an individual and for a team, because I should stress I do teams and individuals equally. So we start by saying what is the brief? And getting it right. This next thing we go to is motivation. What's your fuel? What's in your tank? What's not in your tank? Because people misalign talent and ability with motivation all the time. Just because you're good at it doesn't mean to say you should be good at it. At this level of your career now, growth is just as much about what you put down as well as what do you pick up. So looking at motivation helps people go, where am I now in my career and my leadership? That actually drives me, be that individually or as a team, which fascinates me. Katie most people can't get right because it's assumed, and they assume it of themselves that they would know this. And I use a great tool called motivational Map Profiling, which is all ISO accredited. It's the only tool in my arsenal that's not my own IP, because it gives science and data behind this, which thinks a nice contrast in how I work and complement. So once we understand motivation, we then go into what I call stamp, which so that's reveal stamp in the real method is all about what's your job? And would you believe when I ask a CEO, or any C suite leader for that matter, or business owner, can you just do something for me? Can you do me a favor? And they're like, of course. What's Sally? And I will say to them, can you just describe your job for me? What do you do? And they go, what do you mean? I'm CEO of Big Cheese this or Massive Agency that. And I'm like, yeah, I get that. I get what a CEO does in theory, but what do you do? What's your job? And nine out of ten people cannot answer that question. Well, they either and forgive me, I can't remember which way the eyes go, so I probably got this wrong, but they either go and their eye contact goes to recall trying to remember what someone told them at some point was their job. And like, oh, yeah, what is my job? Or it goes to create thinking, god, yeah, what do I think my job? And you can see them having to either recall it or make it up. And what happens, which is fascinating, is often, and they're not aware of this, their body language and voice tone changes. So their voice intonation drops, and they actually look and sound bored. I know. Would you believe it? Bored when they're talking about this job they've spent their whole career for wanting to get. And you ask a senior leadership team as well, what is your role? What is your role as a senior leadership team? Can you define it for me? Not can you describe what it does, but can you put it together in a really succinct, human, interesting way that also lands the benefit? Okay. And they can't, because no one's teaching people to think about their jobs this way. If you have a job spec as a senior leader, which I bet anyone watching this, I ask you that question, have you got a job spec? Does it motivate you? Is it up to date? And the last thing, do you ever look at it? Do you use it? But people don't have this knowledge about themselves. And I call job specs don't sue me documents because that's normally what they are. It's like, don't sue us. This is what we're going to pay you for. So stamp in. The Real Method gets I've got the five R's is the tool I've created for that module, which helps people very clearly and easily work through the basic questions that never get asked which set you up for success or leave you to failure. If you don't know this about your job, we then look at Sculpt, which is leadership style. A lot of people are not clear on what their unique leadership style is and more importantly, what it needs to be in the future to deliver on this growth ambition, especially when the stakes are high and when leadership remains intangible, people then doubt it. That's impostor syndrome comes in. And also if you're spending all your time with the leader thinking, who do I not want to be like? That's not real. And it's very scary because you think, god, I might be like them if I don't do lots of effort to not be like them. It's like oh. So Sculpt is all about I've got techniques, I do creative techniques to make leadership real and unique and also relevant and motivating to that individual and to that team. So it's tangible and it's real because then when it's real, you can do something with it and you've got more control over it, which is really important. Strip is perhaps my most fun and fizzy part of the Real Method, which is all about emotion. It says stripping back that person, that team, what's really going on under the hood. So, no, I'm not a psychologist, no, I'm not a counselor. However, I've got a very strong laser like ability to go to the truth with people. What is it about your beliefs and your behaviors that are holding you back at this level of seniority? Because everyone's always got drag, everyone's got life experience by the time you get senior, good and bad. But equally, what are the beliefs and behaviors that will set you up to be greater, more happy, more happy, happier even, and more effective? And how do you get that emotional toolkit? So the Real Method gives the practical toolkit, but equally an emotional toolkit for excellence. And that can only come by understanding and welcoming, acknowledging, but not lingering in emotion. And I think for senior people, they forget at their peril, how are you feeling? And it's very rare when you become senior, Katie, that someone asks you, how are you? And they really want to know. And secondly, not do they want to know? But you are safe to give a true answer. Yeah. So they're kind of the core elements of the real method and how that goes into the foundations is then extending that to say, well, how do you acknowledge what success looks like amongst you all? Do you even know what that is? Because if you're not aligned with success, you can't thrive. And I think the last thing I will say, because I'm aware I'm talking a lot here and I'm not doing the whole five foundations, go, please go to the website, you can download it all, it's for free, you can have it. But have you celebrated success? Because the foundations to excel comes from celebrating success that's already in the tank, otherwise you run out of fuel. And in this modern society, especially, Gosh, after the last three to four years, there's been very little opportunity to celebrate success in kind of mainstream yeah. Because it's been firefighting, firefighting, global pandemic, politics going mental, horrible war. It's been heavy, really heavy economic crisis, lots of stuff that's not nice in the world. Environmental. I could go on. Whole podcast could be on that, Katie, so it can feel a bit incongruent to actually go, God, I'm going to celebrate as a senior leader or senior team, but if we don't celebrate, we can't acknowledge and if you want to excel, that comes from acknowledging how far you've already come so that you can go to the next level. I could chat all the time because.

[12:34] Katie: This is my absolute passion, but I.

[12:36] Sally: Hope that gives a bit of food for thought.

[12:38] Katie: Yes, a lot of food for thought. And very interesting points in general and what you just shared about celebration, I think of a lot. I have another friend where we constantly challenge each other to celebrate more. I actually have a couple of friends where we do this. One of them asked me about my book after it was launched, sort of ten days later, and I was already thank you. And I was already onto something else. I said, Well, I gave myself the day of the launch to celebrate and I said, that's more than usual. The whole day, I was really in celebration mode. I was like, that's a long time. And I thought, it's crazy, but it is. Generally, I don't pause, and if I do, it's ten minutes or half an hour. But I'm not proud of this and I'm trying to shift this and I have it in my weekly review, what am I celebrating? What went well and my gratitude points. But I think with a lot of high achievers, high performers, leaders, whatever you choose to call them, they're very future focused. So as soon as something is done, absolutely, it's over, we're next thing. Yeah, pausing and being like, this is great. This took you a while. This was a lot of time and energy. Pause, appreciate. Savor is a mental effort that we need to learn to make because for a lot of us, it doesn't come naturally, but we can practice it and learn it. So I loved what you shared about celebration.

[13:56] Sally: Thank you.

[13:57] Katie: Good point. And alignment, of course, alignment is key to everything. I want to come back to some of the points that you shared in your real method. Again, some very interesting core points there. I loved what you shared about motivation and also our emotions because I know that with some of the leaders and CEOs I worked with, it's sort of like they take it for granted. That's the basis. But I remember talking with one CEO and his team was a little uninspired and I asked him, but are you inspired?

[14:25] Sally: Yeah.

[14:30] Katie: Can be hard to have an inspired team when you're not inspired. And that's the same with the motivation. It's sort of because a lot and it depends, but a lot of senior leaders are very focused on the tangible and the numbers and the objectives and the KPIs. They forget about the less tangible emotional world and therefore they forget maybe about their own motivation, inspiration.

[14:52] Sally: And also, I don't believe in Simon SENEC saying that leaders eat last. To me, if I'm going to be very Yorkshire and direct, I think that's rubbish. Because if you're not nourishing yourself first. Now, I don't mean from an egotistical. Put your own needs ahead of the team. Well, actually, no, you should put your own needs ahead of the team because if you're not looking after your needs, you'll have nothing to look after theirs. So I think that the notion of servant leadership, I think is really interesting and really effective. Only though, if the leader has the energy, the focus, the emotion, the reserves, the tools and has upskilled themselves to then have the bandwidth and the focus to be focusing on the team. Whereas if the leader always puts themselves last and the classic error senior leaders C suite especially often make is like, no, I need to give this to my team first. And it's like, okay, well, I get you care about your team. That's amazing. So we're going to upskill all these people, but not you, no budget for you. Does that make sense? But they feel often guilty, senior people, about investing in themselves because they think, oh, I should be looking after my team first. Which, yes, you want to be looking after your team. But equally, if you're not role modeling that and making sure your emotions, your mindset, your energy and your skills, your basic leadership skills, which are constantly needing to evolve, aren't ahead, then how can you role model? How can you authentically be saying to them, yes, guess what guys. Invest your time in this. Show up authentically to the coach we've got for you. Bear your soul if they're not doing it themselves.

[16:32] Katie: Yes, it's a super important part in leadership that role modeling and I think they sometimes neglect it or aren't aware of it, or don't actually realize how them not showing up to certain things looks in the eyes of others. And I think probably they underestimate how much people look up to them, which I think is good. They're humble in some ways. Again, it depends on the leader, but I think they might underestimate the consequences of the actions or lack of actions. And I want to come back to one of the points that you mentioned around leadership styles. I'd love for you to cover maybe, again, not all the leadership styles, but maybe the four or five or three or four that come up the most for you, that you see the most of.

[17:13] Sally: Oh, that's a fascinating question, which I'm going to give a different answer to, actually, because the way that I like.

[17:20] Katie: To work with my clients is there.

[17:21] Sally: Isn'T a classic leadership style. It's all about you. And I think the danger for me comes if people want to aspire to be leadership A or B or a bear leader or a cat leader or whatever, the latest kind of leadership. Here's a lovely four point model. Are you top right or bottom left or which color represents you? They all have a place, don't get me wrong, but I think if you're truly going to excel as a high performance leader, it has got to come from within in terms of your definition, your personal authentic beliefs around what's going to make you a great leader in that role that you're in and where you're heading. So for me, leadership excellence comes from also future forecasting leadership. I think we spend too much time and note to Marcus Buckingham about strength, binders and playing to your strengths. We spend far too much time working on know, oh, I must get well, who I really is. That going to radically change your world if you get stronger on that. But if we actually build that strength better and make it in your unique vision that you own it, that you feel ****** good about, isn't that a bit more interesting and energizing and also unique? Because as a leader, you've got to be unique. Yeah. If you're trying to copy somebody else, you're a weaker version of someone else because you can't be them, so why would you bother? So for me, it's not about trying to have too much structured like fixed leadership, like alpha male or alpha female or servant leader, as I mentioned before, or empathetic leader or nightmare leader. We want to be like one of those. But they are out there. It's often I find so fascinating at high performance, very senior level, is people are just out of touch with the leader they want to be and who they are. And I think you've got to own the ying and yang of everything about your leadership at that point in your career and your leadership growth and then get super clear on the leadership styles and techniques and traits that are going to mean you've successfully delivered at a certain time point in the future. So I get my clients to say, right, vision a startup or a high growth business, you want six months because a year is too far. But other businesses, six months is too short, you won't get enough achieved. It's a big matrix business. So you might say, right, a year is an average, a year hence, and you've delivered XYZ. You've just come into this high stakes situation, you've stashed it out of the park, it's gone brilliantly. What's your leadership like in a year? How will you have grown and developed having achieved that? They go, oh, my God, I don't know. I said, well, think about it. You do know future forecast, because the brain is a crazy thing, Katie. It doesn't know the difference between past, present and future. Classic NLP kind of underpinning here. And it doesn't know the difference between fact and fantasy. So often, a lot what we worry about is complete fantasy. It's maybe going to happen in the future or it happened in the past and we can't change it, but we fixate on it. And our brain gets a bit skewed. So you can use that to your advantage by going, hey, guess what, brain? Imagine in a year I've delivered this job. Brilliantly. My leadership has grown in ways that I didn't even know it would, because I don't know what I don't know. Let me visualize and make tangible through a leadership vision board, how my leadership shown up in a year's time? What has it taken for me to get from here to there? And how does that compare and contrast with the leader that I am now? And then once you've made that tangible again, the real method, making it real, you can just do it. You've got a lovely personalized growth map that is unique to you, that you believe in, that is your North Star that will get you through the **** times. If you don't have that certainty and that clarity and that real vision, then your gremlins can go crazy. It can be like, oh, I didn't do that properly, I'm never going to get there. You worry, you go into worry mode because you fixate on the wrong things. So I think a leadership style must be authentic to you and it must fit the unique culture and business that you're leading at that stage of its growth. Because equally, the CEO who is before you or who will come after you, because let's not forget succession planning in all of this. They're different and the business will have a different need from them at that time. So what's your unique need? And play to that.

[21:37] Katie: Yes, play to the authenticity and uniqueness of us, which I think is difficult for many people because they don't have enough self awareness to really know their own strengths and weaknesses. That's where a coach comes into play, because it helps them to mirror back and notice, well, actually, this is one of my strengths, or I actually really enjoy doing this, or I've gotten some really good feedback about that. This, however, isn't one of my strengths, and I want to delegate it. And then it's what you were saying, which was very funny. But we all are influenced by other people, and of course, if we want to copy someone entirely, we will just be a weaker version of them. But it's also natural that others inspire us. So it's more thinking, what is it about this person or this leader that does inspire us, that we see in ourselves and grow that, and not fixate on just being a copy model of someone else, because that's just not going to happen. And also what you said about visualization with the future planning and the future leadership styles, and the brain not differentiating between fact and fantasy. I also once heard something that I found very interesting, because when it comes to visualization and vision, we often think of the future outcome, which is great, but I heard that it was even more important to visualize the obstacles we will go through and to visualize how will we manage the obstacles. So now when I do vision, planning and visualization, I look at, okay, where do I want to get, let's say, write my second book, for instance. I see it. I see my mind publishing it another book launch, Allah, all fun. And then I think, okay, what are some of the core obstacles where I'll struggle, okay, on the days I really don't want to write, or on the days where I totally lose faith on my book, or on the days where I meet a roadblock right in the middle. You've already written half. You've got that sun cost bias. But then maybe you need to rewrite the whole thing. And so visualizing these obstacles and how you'll manage them anyway. A bit of a tangent, but every time I think about visualization and it comes up, I always think about this visualizing the obstacles.

[23:42] Sally: I really like that build. I do. And I think what we're both sharing here is all we're doing is giving our brain a trial run. Yes, because you're removing the uncertainty, the unknown and the fear. And therefore, if the brain goes, oh, it's not new, I don't need to be scared of it, then, oh, why don't you just say so? Because actually, if we go really primeval, our brain's primary function is to keep us alive and avoid threat and danger. It's just in this weird modern world, what we interpret as danger isn't. But it kind of sends that chimp brain mental and the brain, even though it's not in your interest. This is when I first got into coaching. Although I call myself a mentor, not a coach, I'm more directive but when I first learned that my own brain wouldn't always necessarily work in my own favor, I was mind blown. Because let's just think about it for a second. Whatever you're thinking is going to happen, part of you in a way is expecting that to happen. So you want that to be true because the ego is, excuse my swearing, a ***** or a *******. Yeah, the ego wants to be proved true even if that is not what you truly want. So if you work for a leader who for whatever reason, you believe to not be honest because your last boss wasn't honest and they screwed you over and you really got damaged by them because let's not also forget work can be very damaging. Leadership can be very damaging if it's not done well. So you've got this belief, this lens that you're going to put over people, that if they show any little micro moment that's similar to the person who was horrible to you, well, that's it then. Protective mode comes in. They're not a good leader, I can't trust them. And you're going to program your mind to only look for the facts and evidence that make you right. Even if that leader is brilliant. They just happen to have maybe a few similarities, but they're completely different. You will delete all that data because it doesn't serve your belief. And when I learned that, I'm like, oh, that's just a bit freaky and scary, like really? Because logically you don't want that to be true. But emotions obviously are not logic. So your ego and your emotions want that to be true even if that's not going to serve you well. And so your brain will go great, you've made a decision. Least path of resistance, conservative energy because I need to keep you alive. We'll just do that then, which is mental, really crazy, but it happens on a subconscious level all the time.

[26:02] Katie: Our brains don't always serve us and it is shocking when we realize it and it is also shocking when we realize that we can shift it. Shocking in a good sense, I suppose, when we realize that we have a thought and we can actually pause and we can say, you know what, I don't actually believe this. This thought came past pattern or reflex or automatism or defensiveness or upsetness. And then you pause and you think about that thought, the metacognition, thinking about your own thoughts and you think, well actually that thought makes no sense and I don't believe such and such person. Maybe in your example. I don't actually believe that this new leader is at all as bad as the other one was. And I actually do see they have qualities. Why am I automatically pigeonholing them as them? But it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, it takes a lot of meditation and being coached and self awareness before you can actually pause in. The middle of thoughts and think, this is not true.

[27:05] Sally: Yeah, because it's counterintuitive. Again, that's all happening on an intuitive, albeit not correct level, so you're not aware of it and the brain doesn't want you to come aware of it because that takes more energy and more effort. So when I first started to learn all this, I was like, oh, this just sounds a bit difficult. But what's fascinating is once you raise consciousness, you have this incredible power that's free and available to everybody, and it's this you have choice. Yeah. And if you have choice, then you are in control. In theory, obviously, that's very simplistic. But the reason why I think a lot of frustration and burnout and difficulties happen in work and in leadership is because people don't give themselves choice. Say, oh, they made me feel like this. And I said, well, no one can make you feel anything, only you can interpret that experience and have that outcome. If your brain perceives it that way, someone else have a completely different outcome. But if you keep choice am I choosing to work through this difficult situation? Yes, it's going to be difficult, but the benefit is better. I'm choosing this, therefore I'm okay. Am I choosing to stay in working for a leader who doesn't empower me? Yeah, I am, because actually I'm quite tired and I don't have the energy to go get a new job. So if I'm choosing it, stop moaning about it. Do you see what I mean? I mean, it's not a right nor a wrong, but it's just if you're making a choice, make peace with your choice as long as it's not damaging you because there's the difference. And that goes to the leaders as much if you're in a company, you're leading this company, you're thinking, I am waking up at 03:00 a.m. Every morning unhappy, I don't see my family or my kids, and my relationships outside of work are all fragmenting. Well, what's your choice then? But I always say to people, that's giving you something, what's it giving you? Because we wouldn't do it if it wasn't giving us something. And people go, what do you mean? And you're like, well, if you're stuck in a job you're not enjoying or a leadership gig that's not fulfilling you, what's it giving you? No, nothing. Sally yes, it is, or you wouldn't do it. Oh, actually it gives me an excuse not to try or it keeps me safe. I can't fail if I'm with what I know, even if I don't like it. And it's fascinating when you say someone, what's it giving you? And you just keep asking them nicely, obviously most of the time they will come to a realization, but then they have the choice do I want to be okay with that and accept that as the norm, or do I want to change it? And that's where you and I get very fascinated because we're like, Right, okay, how do we change it? What do we do?

[29:32] Katie: Yes. This whole idea of choice, and it comes back to the Stoicism principle and taking ownership and responsibility. It has so many layers. I remember when I first heard about it in coaching, it's all about first we have to take responsibility. I'm like, right? I'm on it. And then the second coaching course, and it's like, why we need to take ownership. I was like, yeah, I've got that and I'm doing it. And what we think is what's ironic is that we feel that we're doing it the more we learn it, we are. And we're like, okay, I don't complain anymore and I don't blame. But then there's some really subtle ways, like getting defensive or slightly rebellious or hiding and avoiding things. There's loads of other ways in which we go into sort of this victim mindset. And I remember when I was sort of unpeeling the onion. That was just a couple of years ago. I was like, right, we learn about this responsibility and ownership thing, but it has so many layers. And at one point I realized that I was seeing myself as victim of the lack of work I should have done before. Right. So it's like a very twisted multilayered. And it took me forever to actually see this. And I saw that one of the coaches that have really, really helped me boost my business, she'd helped me to get out of this pattern, a pattern I hadn't even seen. And I became empowered and was looking back, I was like, oh, I was in this pattern where I was blaming my lack of proactive work beforehand that should have taken me. I mean, you see what I mean? It goes really twisted. But once you see all this, you step out of it and that's when you get empowered. And that's when you can actually make choices and shift things in your life. Because you're no longer running this autopilot of somewhere. It's someone else's or something else's fault. And it keeps you stuck there.

[31:13] Sally: Yeah. Or equally, you keep yourself stuck there.

[31:20] Katie: Exactly. You keep yourself stuck there by the perspective of it being someone else's fault versus realizing, oh, actually, I can just change it. And then it's really empowering when you come to that realization because then you realize, oh, wow, actually, nothing's holding me back now. Sure, if I'd done more things beforehand, I'd be further now, but now I'm here, what can I do now about it? And then your whole perspective shifts. And it can be the same with staying in a job you don't like. And if you see over company and like you said in the example, getting up at three every day and not seeing family and then thinking, well, what keeps me here? Certainty? Safety? Is it worth choosing certainty and safety over my relationship? Oh, well, maybe not. Oh, well, what can I do about it, can I cut down on this current job? Can I get someone else to help me here? Can I change jobs? And so it opens up so many possibilities when we stop being in that tunnel.

[32:13] Sally: Yeah, but I think the hardest thing, especially if you're in a high pressured, high profile job on which you're succeeding in, by the way, so it's not like it's often with clients, it's not like it's terrible. There's so much that's amazing, but you just get a bit stuck in the weeds. You just get tunnel vision. And often when you're the top of the tree, you don't have that safe person to really talk to or to challenge you effectively. And that's what I love to bring to the CEOs. The senior teams that I work with, is both the support and the challenge, because I'm wholly objective and all I care about is their growth. My career is not wrapped up in it, but I guess it is it if I keep messing up, my career wouldn't last very long. But that's not why I do it. But my literal career under their leadership isn't wrapped up in our relationship. My bonus isn't wrapped up in our relationship, my opportunities. So it's rare, I think, for leaders as well to have that opportunity to be supported and challenged on a peer level that's really objective, that will also not always be comfortable for them. People have said to me, thank you for your brutal honesty, Safi, and that's my job. I'm here to share the insights and advice that I can see working with you that's going to help you. And not often people have that opportunity or bravery. Sometimes what I say to my clients isn't comfortable for me either, but I know that I'm in service of them and I've got to say what I see and what I believe ultimately to be right. Which is why I love being a mentor, not a coach. Because if I'm a pure coach, I couldn't give an opinion or advice. But my clients love the fact that I am a high stake leadership mentor, meaning I will give advice. But again, I'm very clear on my differentiation. I said, if you want a purist coach, I am not for you, because that's not how I work. But neither am I traditional mentor because I will coach. So I like to think I've created a bit of a third lane, but I think it gives the best of both worlds because people don't get that challenge and support often coming into their lives. That's where people like you and I can come in and we can make that difference.

[34:11] Katie: Absolutely. And such a great note to finish on, because it's already the end of the episode. It just flew by so many topics in common and we covered both your real method, also the importance of celebration, also looking into taking ownership, really, and having that choice and shifting our perspective on things. I feel we were on a roll. We could have continued on these topics. What would be the last note that you would like to leave on for the listeners and viewers on this topic of high stake leadership?

[34:43] Sally: I think what I often help my clients achieve and what I've worked on a lot myself, is the real importance of trust. Well, two things trust and honesty. Be honest about where you are, who you are, what you want, and then trust in yourself to go and get it and make it happen. But more than that, bring in the right people. This is not a solo gig. High performance leadership in high stake situations is never a solo gig. But it can only start by trusting in who you are and being honest about what you do want and what you don't want and the best way to get there.

[35:16] Katie: So important what you just shared in that brief, nugget, honesty and also having that ability to trust yourself and trust the path that in itself can be several, several episodes, but not just episodes. That can be months and months and months of learning. I remember with one of my coach at the end of every session, she'd be like, what's your main insight? I'm like, trust myself. So that was the insight after an hour of coaching over and over again.

[35:48] Sally: So it's very powerful.

[35:50] Katie: Very powerful. Yes. Amazing. Thank you so much, Sally. I've really enjoyed having you on the show. Fascinating conversation on leadership, high stakes leadership, and also your real method and many other subtopics. So thank you so much for being here today.

[36:06] Sally: Katie, like I said, I could have chat to you for a long time because it's great to meet and talk and debate and discuss and learn from a kindred spirit. So thanks so much for having me. Thank you.

[36:19] Katie: Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Bee show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback. So let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you and feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you wonderful, magical and focused day ahead.

[36:48] Sally: You close.