Why Managing Yourself is Your Greatest Career Unlock with Margaret Andrews
Margaret Andrews
Margaret C. Andrews is a seasoned executive, academic leader, speaker, and instructor. She has created and teaches a variety of leadership courses and professional and executive programs at Harvard University and is the founder of the MYLO Center, a private leadership development firm. Margaret is author of the brilliant new book, MANAGE YOURSELF TO LEAD OTHERS: Why Great Leadership Begins with Self-Understanding.
Why does a fulfilling and impactful career hinge on understanding and managing ourselves? And what's the first step on this journey towards upleveling your career and your leadership?
In this enlightening and wide-ranging conversation, Sally and Alexis sit down with Margaret Andrews, a leadership expert and author of the brilliant MANAGE YOURSELF TO LEAD OTHERS: Why Great Leadership Begins with Self-Understanding, to explore the critical importance of self-understanding in effective leadership. They discuss how managing oneself is essential for leading others, the significance of bridging the intention-impact gap, and the role of interpersonal skills in fostering a positive workplace culture.
The conversation also delves into the costs of poor leadership and the necessity of investing in emotional intelligence and self-management for organizational success. Margaret shares practical questions for leaders to reflect on their journey towards better self-management and leadership effectiveness.
Key takeaways:
Why understanding and managing ourselves is crucial for effective leadership.
How self-awareness leads to better understanding of others.
The reasons the intention-impact gap is a key concept in leadership.
That self-management is an ongoing journey for leaders.
Why interpersonal skills are more important than technical skills in leadership.
The key reasons poor leadership can lead to high turnover and low morale.
How investing in leadership development is essential for organizational success.
Why human skills are increasingly vital in the age of AI.
That leaders should treat employees as individuals, not resources.
How the journey of self-reflection is the first step towards becoming a better leader.
Learn more about Margaret and her work – and secure a copy of her brilliant book – at her website.
Prefer to watch the episode? Catch it on YouTube here:
Chapters & Transcript
00:00 The Importance of Self-Management in Leadership
02:52 Understanding and Managing Yourself
05:49 The Role of Self-Reflection in Leadership
08:56 The Journey of Leadership Development
11:55 Characteristics of Great Bosses
17:41 The Impact of Emotional Intelligence
23:50 The Necessity of Human Skills in the Age of AI
29:53 Investing in Leadership Development
32:42 Starting Your Journey to Better Leadership
34:53 Introduction to Human-Centric Leadership
36:53 Insights from Margaret Andrews on Leadership Development
Sally Clarke (she/her) (00:03.372)
Welcome, Margaret. It is such a delight to have you with us today. We're so excited for our conversation. We'd love to start by exploring this notion that, you know, so many of us smart, talented and ambitious people, enter the workforce, if we eventually find ourselves in a position of leading others, but few of us are actually born with the skills we need to do this really well. What makes managing yourself so essential to being a great leader to others?
Margaret Andrews (00:32.458)
Yeah. Well, thank you. It's great to be here. And so really it's understanding and managing ourselves, right? So you have to first understand yourself and then manage yourself because you can't manage something that you don't understand. And so it is important because when we understand ourselves, we're more likely to put ourselves in positions where we're going to thrive. And also just to get to know ourselves, more
grounded, we're less buffeted by every wind that blows. so understanding ourselves, then managing ourselves toward what I say is the next level of us or the leader that we want to become. so understanding ourselves helps us to understand other people, because if we don't understand ourselves, we can't really understand other people.
And then managing ourselves helps us get better and shows that we're role modeling for everybody else around us about how you get better.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (01:32.831)
Now Margaret, can we get a little bit more sort granular and explicit here? What exactly does managing yourself entail and what is it not?
Margaret Andrews (01:41.901)
Yeah. managing ourselves is, so I use a lot of questions and reflections when I teach and in the book and things like that. So, I start off with people and I ask three questions. The first question is, what type of leader are you right now? And that is the words, the phrases that you would use to describe yourself as a leader or what you think other people say about you when you're not in the room or what you know they say about you because it's, they told you, or it's in a performance review.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (01:49.547)
Mm-hmm.
Margaret Andrews (02:11.046)
So that's the first question, kind of baseline. The second question is about what type of leader would you like to become? What words and phrases would you like to be able to use or would you want other people to use about you? And then that third question is about, okay, what's the Delta? What's the difference between the first question and the third one? And paying in particular attention to
behaviors that might need to evolve or skills that you might need to develop. So that's where we start with the managing ourselves, right? So super common ones. I want to learn to listen better. I want to delegate more effectively, you know, these kinds of things. And so that's where we start with managing ourselves. But it's toward a purpose,
Sally Clarke (she/her) (02:59.372)
love that so much, Margaret. It's so interesting in a lot of the consultancy work that Alexis and I do, we use this concept of intention impact gap. And it sounds like there's a lot of sort of similarities there because we can have all of the best intentions as a colleague, as a leader. But if we're not actually being very cognizant about what the actual impact is and trying to bridge that gap, we're never going to be the leader that we really want to be. So I love that you elucidate this kind of
It sounds like a very self-reflective approach to ensuring that we're really showing up in the way that we intend to as a leader.
Margaret Andrews (03:33.492)
Absolutely, because there is that saying that we judge ourselves by our intentions, but other people judge us by our behaviors, which sounds very much like what you are talking about. And I find that a lot of times people are very, they feel misunderstood that, you know, I mean, I intend to be a great teammate or a great leader or something like this, but then somehow or other it's not translating and they're
They do, they feel very misunderstood and very often times it's because those behaviors are not matching those intentions.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (04:05.43)
It's an interesting thing that you point out there, Margaret, this word misunderstood because I think as an individual can be quite a painful experience when we think that, you know, we're showing up with kindness or we're listening or giving other people the benefit of the doubt and it's not being received that way. And in my experience, oftentimes that leads to more frustration, potentially even the seeds of resentment. And you tend to even double down on some of the unproductive behaviors that aren't giving you what you want, but
you're not really sure how to get from where you are to where you want to be. Have you seen that with some of the leaders that you've worked with in this journey as well? Yeah.
Margaret Andrews (04:41.398)
Absolutely. think that is exactly, you kind of just nailed it because it is one of those things that, you know, that people have been very successful in their career. They're high achieving people, right? So really smart, hardworking, you know, maybe subject matter experts, et cetera. And so they find that when they're in a situation like this, that they just double down. They, you know,
They put more gas on, you know, they put their foot on the gas. But the thing is, is that they're not getting traction. So they are really spinning their wheels in that way. And it's frustrating for them. It's frustrating for everybody around them. And I think a lot of times that's when I see people, when they come to my program, when they just say, I don't know what to do now.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (05:29.942)
It's such a great metaphor, I think, of that sort of like hitting the gas pedal and just like trying to push harder with what we've got rather than seeing that we perhaps need to slow down, maybe even shift gears or shift direction. And it's interesting because I can imagine at that point, you know, we tend to think of leadership in the context of leading others and some may even characterize this work as being selfish. We think, you know, I'm, want to be a servant in my leadership. It's really about how I can bring out the best in others. So
For anyone who's thinking that this process of seeking self-understanding and then managing oneself is sort of a selfish process, how would you respond to that?
Margaret Andrews (06:06.283)
I would say actually it's not selfish. It's kind. It's kind to yourself and it is actually kind to everybody around you. So, and you kind of mentioned part of this just a second ago. I think that sometimes you have to slow down to speed up.
And, know, just take a little break. I'm sure we've, I'm sure this has never happened to you, but you're working so hard that you just can't slow, you know, you think I can't slow down. I can't slow down. Right. But the best thing you can do is slow down, get a good night's sleep, go for a walk, you know, these kinds of things. And it's very similar in leadership that, people think, yes, it's all about them.
But actually, I think of it as an inside job. We have to go inside before we go outside. We've got to fix this first or understand this first is really what I'd say.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (06:57.086)
It's such a powerful reminder, Margaret, because I do feel Sally and I were speaking, you know, we're having this conversation at the end of the year, and it tends to be the time of the year where it feels like the hamster wheel starts spinning on double time. And it's a it's a beautiful reminder that oftentimes we need to courageously step off that so we can get the perspective to say, okay, what is working? What's not working? Am I just following a plan or as a leader, can I step back and look at the macro picture here in the biggest strategy and
Margaret Andrews (07:09.197)
Mm.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (07:26.88)
sort of zoom out, if you will, and see what's working, what's not, and recalibrate on that. And that can be a really scary thing to do as well, especially when perhaps what has worked for us in the past has got us to where we are, but it's not gonna get us to where we need to go.
Margaret Andrews (07:44.01)
Exactly, and I think that's the whole point is that we're not the same people that we were when we were 18 years old or 28 years old or whatever, even a few years ago, right? Things, we change, we evolve. And so this is just another part of that evolution, but it is more intentional. It's kind of saying, where am I now? Where do I want to be? And therefore, what do I need to take care of, I'm going to say. And not that it's easy, if you've ever tried to make any type of behavioral change.
We all know it's not easy, but you know, what's the alternative? We're staying stuck where we are. So, you know, sometimes you just have to put that in perspective, I think.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (08:24.172)
Such an important point, I Margaret, as well. it's, mean, thank goodness we change, right? Where I look back and you mentioned like 18 and 28, and thank goodness I'm not the same person or leader that I was then. think it's, but it is something that often takes courage because it's often a point of sort of discomfort that we reach when there is that sort of tipping point towards deeper growth, whether it's as like referred to this kind of like everything that I've been doing, which got me to where I am. Suddenly that textbook isn't valid anymore. What do I do now?
Margaret Andrews (08:31.339)
Yeah.
Margaret Andrews (08:38.721)
Mm-hmm.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (08:50.936)
And when we don't necessarily have that path forward yet, it can feel quite scary. I'm curious, the leaders who you work with, is there sort of a commonality in the experiences that they're having that brings them to you?
Margaret Andrews (09:04.285)
Yeah, kind of there. You know, it's a spectrum, I would say. And, but you know, I think this happened in a classroom, several years ago, and it was probably one of the most interesting things that I think has ever come up in a classroom. We were doing this case discussion and it was about, Dr. Ron Ventura, who is a fabulous, excellent surgeon, with terrible interpersonal skills.
And so we're taking the position of his boss, a hospital administrator, trying to figure out what do do with this guy? Do you know, we keep him and try to coach him and get the benefit of these surgical skills or do we cut him loose because he's really causing havoc everywhere. And so it's a super impassioned discussion. And as we're kind of winding it down, I noticed that a hand that's raised in the back of the room and it's James and he hasn't spoken the whole two days we've been together. So of course I call on him and
He says, from the back of the room, he says, I'm Dr. Ventura and everybody turned, you know, just like you see in a movie where everybody turns around at the same time. And then of course all eyes on him. He realizes what he just said. He says, I'm not the real Dr. Ventura. He said, I'm an engineer, not a surgeon. But he said, pretty much everything else in that case could have been written about me. He said, in fact, that's why I'm here. He said, you know, I was recently passed over for a
Sally Clarke (she/her) (10:16.078)
you
Margaret Andrews (10:27.699)
and if I don't get better at this leadership thing, I'm probably going to get fired. what was, I mean, first of all, it was probably the bravest thing I've ever heard said in a classroom, but what was super interesting was that the next break, everybody wanted to talk to him. And I thought, you know, there's a lot of people here that fear their Dr. Ventura, or maybe they know they are. And so those are actually, I do get people like that. I get people that are sent.
to my class as well. And you know, they want to fix it. They do want to fix it. And actually I love working with people like that because they've been super successful for out their career and they have hit a wall and they don't like it. feels, it doesn't feel good to hit that wall.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (11:14.442)
I think that's quite a compassionate view to take on it as well, Margaret, because from two sides of the coin here, I've worked alongside people like that who have this brilliant, very niche expertise skill set. And so they get away with a lot that potentially the rest of the team wouldn't because their expertise is so relied upon and really difficult to replace. And then the other side of it is
Margaret Andrews (11:28.311)
Mm-hmm.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (11:38.075)
I genuinely believe everyone wakes up in the morning and tries to do their best that day. And I think that's a really compassionate way of looking at those people, even though they really might be maybe frustrating you if you're having to manage them or annoying the heck out of you if you're trying to play on the same team as them. It's a great way of inviting them into the conversation to actually do something about it. So that's such a wonderful example.
Margaret Andrews (11:49.013)
Mm-hmm.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (12:03.048)
I want to sort of move towards this question now, Margaret, around what it's like to work for a boss who is great at managing themselves. And in your book, you have a best boss exercise. So perhaps maybe if we may ask, we could even run through an example of that. But could we start with the question? Yeah. What is it? What is it like to work for a great boss or the best boss? And if we could, let's dive into the exercise.
Margaret Andrews (12:13.964)
Mmm.
Margaret Andrews (12:18.42)
Absolutely. Yes, absolutely.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (12:21.645)
Okay.
Margaret Andrews (12:27.238)
Sure. Yeah. So, so if you're listening, pull out a piece of paper and something to write with. and I ask people to think of the best boss you've ever had. could be the, your current boss could be the boss right before that. It could be the first boss you ever had. Doesn't matter, but it needs to be somebody that you work directly for, not a skip level, somebody, you know, in the organization you wish you had worked for, can't be a celebrity CEO unless you worked for them. and it can't be Ted Lasso, right? Cause none of us have worked for him.
So, yes, yes, I get a lot of people say I'd like to work for him. But so it has to be somebody you've worked for. So usually it's not that hard for people to get one person in mind. Although I did have one person one time say, gosh, what if I've never had a good boss? And I said, well, that's actually really sad, but you know, think of the least bad one then, right? It's all relative. So once you've got somebody in mind, then I ask people, I say, think of
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (12:56.501)
We wish.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (12:57.154)
Dang it.
Margaret Andrews (13:22.08)
all the reasons why you chose this person as your best boss. These are big reasons and small reasons, reasons that matter to everybody on the team, reasons that mattered only to you, right? Everything. And I say, go for a long list. And then this list can include tons of different things, you know?
were the smartest person I've ever worked with, they were so good at search engine optimization, or they were the best at coding in R, all of these things, or they were great at conflict management, or they saw something in me. I've been doing this for a very, very long time and I've heard loads of different reasons. So asked people to try to get a decently long list. And if you have things like they were a great leader or a great communicator, I said, those are huge terms. You got to break those down to what you really meant.
So then when you have a list of usually eight or more, then I say the hard part is going back and picking the top three. So it has to be exactly three, not two and not four. And this is where it gets hard because you really have to sift through them. So then once we get down to three, then I tell people, listen, I've been doing this for almost 20 years. I've done this with thousands of people across the world and every industry and things like that.
and that the reasons that everybody has almost always fall into one of three buckets. And the first bucket is around intelligence. The second bucket is around technical and functional skills, know, search engine optimization, coding, whatever it is. The third bucket is around interpersonal skills or relationship skills, soft skills, emotional intelligence, whatever you want to call it.
and then I go back and, if I, if we have post-it notes, I have them put them up on the wall in the right bucket. or, or, we do it a different way. And so what people see is when they go put them on the wall is that that third bucket is way overweighted that, so, you know, it has always been that way every single time I've ever done it. And so, several years ago, I thought, you know, it is always the same, but what really are the numbers here? So I.
Margaret Andrews (15:31.414)
took down all those Post-it notes, I took them home, I created this big Excel spreadsheet over different audiences and I found that on average 85 % of the reasons why somebody gives, somebody is their best boss is in that third bucket around interpersonal skills and that the remaining 15 % on average is relatively evenly split between IQ and technical and functional skills.
what that's saying is not that IQ and technical and functional skills are unimportant, but really that they're the threshold skills. have to have a certain level of those to get to where you are. But what makes the difference between a good boss and a best boss is those interpersonal skills. So, and it always works out that way.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (16:22.678)
It's such a fascinating exercise, Margaret, and it's interesting because as you were sort of explaining that bucket one and bucket two, it almost feels like the knowledge, the technical expertise are the pay to play entry. Like that's what you need to have to step into those roles. And it's really about how you connect and inspire and motivate people that takes you to that next level as a leader.
Margaret Andrews (16:44.256)
Absolutely, because it's those first two that got you where you are, right? I IQ is super helpful in school and early in your career as you're learning all kinds of new stuff. I mean, not that it's ever a bad thing, but the technical and functional skills, you have to get to a certain level for people would promote you. But what makes the difference is that third bucket, and that is where they all come out.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (16:47.668)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (17:10.19)
And it's interesting, Margaret, because I feel like I've heard also sort of stories of leaders who've been kind of parachuted in, would describe these leaders as like very high IQ, but not necessarily having the exact technical background that a particular department has. But because of their incredible interpersonal skills, which they've obviously proven to sort of senior executives, they've been able to come into an arena where they don't necessarily have the technical skills. But because of that powerful combination of baseline intelligence plus
all of those amazing emotional and interpersonal skills, they're able to create incredible outcomes and results and really transform those parts of the organization.
Margaret Andrews (17:49.324)
You know, I absolutely that is true. And I love those stories because that, because they really show the success of, you know, the power really of these interpersonal skills because you're right. And many of us, mean, I've, I've, managed groups that I didn't have their technical expertise and you have to rely on them, right? But they have to trust you too. And they, you know, you don't know.
what they're doing. it's, it is very interesting, but it's great because most of us in our career will end up managing people who we don't have that technical expertise. the only thing we really, you're right though, that intelligence helps there a lot too.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (18:30.996)
Now, Margaret, when you were speaking about some of these, the study that you conducted, I did have a boss that came to mind for me. And I wondered, could I share some of those skills with you? And I'd love to know how commonly you've seen these come up. the particular boss that I worked for was about a decade ago now when I was working in local government in Australia. I found him, I'll nominate him as my best boss for a few reasons. Firstly, he was wildly intelligent.
Margaret Andrews (18:40.939)
Please, yeah.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (19:00.546)
And that to me was sort of in the space we were in at the time, kind of the benchmark for entry. So he had that in spades. But what I found most inspiring about him was three things. The first thing he did so well was united a team. Like we had very different skill sets, but we had such a clear collective vision and excitement about what we were achieving together, that we had this constant underlying motivation that came from that. So that was the first thing I think he did remarkably.
remarkably well. The second thing he did is he didn't micromanage us. And I know that might sound like a broad thing, but he could see that he had a team of experts working for him. And so he wasn't looking over our shoulder every day. He gave us the trust that we knew what we were doing and we were the best in the best position to execute on that. So that was another thing I saw him do. And the third thing is I really felt like my unique contributions to the team.
Margaret Andrews (19:35.147)
you
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (19:58.869)
My expertise and the culmination of experience was so valued and respected. And that for me was maybe the biggest motivator is I could see that he had a genuine care for us as individuals and a genuine gratitude for the way that we wanted to work, the way that our expertise showed up on the team. And I never felt like I had to conform to a particular way of working or a particular
you know, pigeon-holed communication style. He was very open to us being individuals and bringing our expertise to the team. So I just, I wonder, have you had, I'm sure you have, but how prevalent are those three in some of the research that you've done?
Margaret Andrews (20:38.975)
very prevalent actually. that sounds like a wonderful boss. And I always think that when you have a boss like that, you, you always want another one. Cause that is such a peak experience. Like you can do things on a team and with a great boss that you are incapable of doing on your own. And so I think we, we spend a lot of time looking for somebody else like that because it was so great. which is a huge testament to them.
But, but I would say, yes, what you describe is, very much spot on. So three of the top ones that always come up are things around trust. and this comes up with, didn't micromanage. They gave me a lot of autonomy, a lot of leeway, you know, that kind of thing. The second one is around listening that they listen and they hear, right? that they're open to what you have to say.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (21:12.739)
You
Margaret Andrews (21:28.091)
And then the third area is oftentimes around challenge in the sense that they developed you or whoever through a combination of challenging assignments and support, right? Because they knew that you could do it and they were gonna stretch you that way. But actually not far behind those is what people will say that they valued this person as an individual and not an employee.
that they cared about them actually. One of my favorite little post that said I pulled down on that one was somebody said, this person helped me grow and glow. And I thought that was such a great way to put it. But I think that's what so many people are really talking about. So the ones that you gave are actually, think your three were probably out of my three top five or so.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (21:57.527)
Mm.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (22:22.643)
love it.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (22:24.278)
Amazing. And I think it's that sort of stretch that you allude to, Margaret, that isn't so important because just for my part, the person that came to mind for me was Anamique, who was my boss at a Japanese company I worked for in the Netherlands for a while. the things very similar, I think, to what you had alluded to was really that sense of trust that sort of real that I hadn't experienced before this real trust in my own intelligence and capabilities combined with the support to know that when I needed some
needed to check in with her with a question that she was there for me. And I think that sort of kind of almost seems like a paradox to have both, but it's a really lovely skill set. Yeah. And I think also for me, one of the things that I'm curious if you label this as an interpersonal skill, but she had incredible cultural awareness. So we worked with Japan quite directly, but we spent a lot of time in Sweden because our clients were there and she was so good at being able to navigate and just really
Margaret Andrews (23:02.621)
No, it's a great, yeah, is a great paradox if you want to call it that.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (23:23.426)
be with people. think there was quite a genuine presence to her in how she was able to relate to people, irrespective of the cultural background. And I think that sort of patience, curiosity that she brought to it as well was really meaningful for me. And I'm very lucky.
Margaret Andrews (23:36.749)
yeah, that's a great one. Yeah. Yeah. And it sounds like empathy, right? And, and, treating people as individuals and not a part of, you know, this is not a Swede and I have to treat them this way. This is not somebody who's from the U S and they have to treat them a certain way. It's, we're all individuals and we have all of these components to us, but yet we're all very different.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (23:47.809)
Right.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (23:58.07)
Absolutely. And I love that because I think there's a through line of humility as well, which she absolutely had in spades. Now thinking of all of these beautiful, into my mind, these are very human characteristics. I'd love it if you could explain for us, Margaret, you know, we're obviously entering, we're very much in an age of AI. We hear the term about 6 trillion times per day. We would love to hear from you, your perspective on the role, perhaps the importance of emotional intelligence for humans in this age in particular. How do you see that?
Margaret Andrews (24:02.187)
Mm-hmm.
Margaret Andrews (24:16.938)
Mm-hmm.
Margaret Andrews (24:28.264)
Yeah, I think that human skills are going to be more important than ever. That, you know, we need them. I mean, that is how we thrive as individuals is, you know, face to face, person to person, and these kind of skills of empathy. So.
I think that, I mean, you there's so much that we don't know yet about AI and how helpful it might be and also how hurtful it may be. And, you know, I think this is one of those things where it's going to be a yes and, you know, I think when we hear about AI, we hear everything from, is going to be the best thing ever to it's going to kill us all. And I hope that, you know, it doesn't get to that extreme, but there's going to be a little bit of everything. It's a tool, it's a technology and it's going to, it's
going to be used however we use it. But I do think that the human skills are never going to go down in importance. And in fact, I think we need more of them now. And we see what happens when we don't have them. So yeah, it is more important.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (25:32.127)
It's a great point, Margaret, and it's interesting because Sally and I still hear a lot of organizations who want you to present a business case for developing these skills or training these leaders in a particular way. And it is interesting because there's a plethora of research that supports the need for this. I wonder, can you perhaps help us pack that a little further? What do organizations stand to lose if we don't invest in training leaders in self-understanding and self-management?
Margaret Andrews (26:00.755)
Yeah, think, well, so a lot of things is that, you know, when we don't, and if anybody has ever had a bad boss, so let me back up. There's a lot of research, a lot of it done by the Hogan organization. And so they've done these meta studies on all these other different studies saying, you know, roughly what percentage of, of, managers out there are, you know, not that good.
And the research dovetails quite nicely on the number 50%, meaning about half of all managers are somewhere along the continuum from ineffective to toxic, which is not a great place to be. then another research organization found that about 70 % of us will have one pretty bad boss in our lifetime and about 30 % of us will have more than one. And when you think about that,
And all of the people that that impacts, that's huge. You know, it comes in depression and anxiety and loss productivity. People bring it home from work and it, you know, ruins their weekend and their family life and things like that. so it's, it's bad. It's bad. It's also bad for the company because there tends to be higher turnover. If you want to find out, especially in the large organization.
where some of those weak managers or toxic managers are look for high turnover because there's usually higher turnover on that team. And so that costs organizations a lot of money, right? Because when somebody leaves, we've got to replace them. Other people are taking on their work. It's burning them out, right? So, you know, all of these, all of these things. So, it, it, it amazes me that we have to,
even argue that if you've ever had a bad boss, which I think many of us have, you know how painful that is and how it really can ruin your day, your week, your month, whatever. So yeah, it's pretty costly.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (28:03.67)
Absolutely, Margaret. And I appreciate you helping us unpack some of those organizational costs as well. And it was interesting, I was reading a piece of research fairly recently, fairly recently that was saying the most important relationship in your life might arguably be that with your direct supervisor or manager at work, because they are really the person you spend the most amount of time with, which is quite an interesting thing to think about.
Margaret Andrews (28:30.14)
Yeah, you do. You spend a lot of time with people at work, whether it's your, your boss, your peers, your, people that work for you, et cetera. mean, we spend a lot of time. And also the other is, is that we spend a lot of time when we're not at work thinking about that. so, you know, we don't just, turn it off at five o'clock or whatever. We keep thinking about that.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (28:53.334)
I think it's a really important point, Margaret, and as someone who's researched burnout quite a lot as well, there's such a huge correlation between the quality of leadership that we experience and the level of chronic stress that we're under, which can often lead to burnout and other consequences. And I almost think there's something we, you know, as particularly senior leaders, there needs to be perhaps a little bit of a courageous approach here, because without getting too meta, I think when we treat humans simply as resources or as capital to be sort of shifted around, we
miss the point of how important and how multi-dimensional humans are, both as employees, as individuals, but certainly in that leadership context. And I think if we can start to see that it's not just, we need to not treat humans in the same way that we treat other forms of capital and resources within an organization. We invest differently. We know, as you alluded to, that having them stay longer really adds so much value and reduces so much loss in an organization.
There's such a flow on effect to these investments made into leadership at individual and team and organisational levels. And I think also at a societal level, because we obviously take those experiences out of the door at the end of the day as well. They inform who we are as humans outside of work too.
Margaret Andrews (30:05.532)
Absolutely. And you know, the other thing is, you know, think back to, you know, earlier in your career, you probably still keep in touch with some people from, you know, earlier jobs and things like that. And managers, you know, I have a friend who was always a very good, she really enjoyed working with people and, and, you know, helping them get better, et cetera. So she was like one of those dream bosses. And, so she, but she told me, that
A lot of times she was known for being really a good manager and developing people. so people in the rest of the organization would sometimes hire from her group. And I said, I said, well, doesn't that make you mad? You know, you spend all this time developing somebody and then they end up, you know, another part of the organization. And she said, oh no, she said, you're looking at this all wrong.
She said, she said, I, you know, I work with people and I get them as good as they can be in my group. But then at some point, many of them are going to outgrow the work that they're doing. And when that's the case, she said, I want to find them another, you know, position. And if it's within the, the company, great. If it's outside the company, fine. She said, I really, you know, I, I'm really doing this for them. And, so she said, and you know, there are benefits to this. She said, you know, first of all,
that people want to work on my team. When I have a job opening, people are fighting to get that job. But the other is that she said, I can get stuff done that no one else can get done. Because she said, when I hit a roadblock, she said, I just pick up the phone and I call one of those people that used to work for me and they're very grateful of what I did and they will help.
She said, whether it's in the organization or outside of the organization. So I thought that's such a great, you know, she sees the benefit. And by the way, so, so did the organization.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (32:01.544)
It's such a deeply expansive and very human way to view your opportunity as a leader. And I think that's so often what we forget, Margaret, is many people get into a position of leadership and we can forget that it's not just about us. It's about how we can help those, as you say, grow and glow up. think you mentioned grow and glow. It is such a beautiful thing because when you...
Margaret Andrews (32:21.739)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (32:27.208)
When you as a human show that you have belief in the development of other people, that dividend will always come back to you tenfold in the future in a very human way. And so I think that's such a profound example to share with us. Now, Margaret, this conversation has been really expensive, actually, for both Sally and I. And I think you sort of tap into a few of the different sort of implicit mindsets around abundance and things like that, a curiosity that we we talk so often about.
on the podcast, but I'd love if you could leave us with a parting message here. If there's a leader listening to this now who would like to begin their journey on managing themselves better so that they can become a better leader of other people, where would you recommend they start that journey?
Margaret Andrews (33:13.563)
I would recommend that they start with those three questions that I mentioned, know, the, you know, what type of leader are you now, want to be, and therefore what do need to do? But then there's a series of six questions that I have that take a lot more time. And I think that that is the next step on it because those six questions go to question one, really about what type of leader am I now, right? They give you a lot more information. And those six questions very quickly are, you know, who and whose thinking have influenced you?
throughout your life? What situations and events have perhaps changed your life? know, lucky and unlucky accidents. You know, your personal definition of success in your personal life and your professional life. Not your parents, not societies, yours. What are your core values? And I have a couple ways into that that, you know, people might make it a little easier. The fifth is around to what extent do you understand and feel your emotions?
And if your answer is, I'm not sure, then we do know that you probably don't. Right. and then the sixth question is about what type of feedback have you received in your personal and professional life? And what's interesting is that this oftentimes points back to question five, that the feedback we get is about how we impact other people. And it's oftentimes cause we're not aware of our emotions and how we are impacting other people. So.
All of those are big questions and they are all they are. It's kind of like a weird Venn diagram. Some of them bump up against each other.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (34:43.254)
The incredibly profound questions, Margaret, you know, can see these seating dinner tables and lunchtime discussions around the globe as people listen to this conversation and are inspired by your work to really delve in to these, this sort of self exploration, self understanding so that we can manage ourselves and, and others better. Thank you so much for being with us today on the podcast. It's been such a delight.
Margaret Andrews (34:48.187)
Hehehehe
Margaret Andrews (35:05.811)
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
