People First! with Morag Barrett

Welcome to this week's episode of People First. And my guest this week is Sabina Nawaz. And Sabina is an executive coach who advises C-level executives and teams at Fortune, five hundred corporations, government agencies, nonprofits and academic institutions around the world. Sabina routinely gives speeches each year and teaches faculty at Northeastern and Drexel universities. During her fourteen-year tenure at Microsoft, she went from managing software development teams to leading the company's executive development and succession planning efforts for more than eleven thousand managers and nearly one thousand executives, advising Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer directly. She's written for and been featured in Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fast Company, NBC, NASDAQ and Market Watch. And we are here today, though, to talk about her new book, You're the Boss, Become the Manager You Want to Be and Others Need. But more on that later. Sabina, welcome to People First. Well, thank you so much, Marag. I'm so excited to be here. It's going to be fun because we were in the green room hanging out and then realized that we'd been in the green room a little while. So now we've come out to share our thoughts and experiences of what makes for a great boss and a sucky boss. And on that theme, let's just start with your great boss experiences, Sabina. So when you think about somebody who's had an impact for you and on your career, what Who comes to mind and what was it about them that made them special? There are so many people that come to mind. I wonder if I talk about a boss or a colleague. I'll start with a colleague and see because she did have an impact on my career and actually on me as a human being. And this is my colleague, Jane Gregg. I met her because she was part of the interview team when I switched from software products to running the management development group at Microsoft. And she was working on the employee development side. I was working on the management development side, both reporting to the same boss. Jane is second to none when it comes to generosity. You would never find somebody in a corporate setting who gives like Jane does. She would dedicate resources on her team from her silo to do, for example, the internal website for my team. So much so that when she left that group, I had to go find others, hustle to find other people. But every single time, whenever I said, oh, yeah, you know, I'm thinking about this or I'm struggling with that, Jane would come up with ways in which she might jump in and help. And this was about twenty five years ago. but Jane's giving still resonates with me is whenever I look to other people who are struggling with something, who are challenged by something, who are colleagues of mine, I channel my inner Jane and go, what would be helpful for you in this moment? I may not always be able to do what they're asking, but I try to be present to other people and be generous. And that is thanks to the lessons learned from my colleague, Jane. Oh, my goodness. Well, go, Jane. And I love the fact that you actually named her, because often I get people who will talk about their colleague in the third person as opposed to, well, name them, name them. So I'm going to give you the same challenge I give to everybody else. And for anybody listening to this, or not anybody, to everybody who's listening to this podcast, whoever you were thinking of in terms of your best boss, awesome colleague, I want you to send them a message after you finish listening to our conversation that just says, hey, you came to mind and here's why. But what stands out for me, Sabina, as I listened to you there was, A, generosity, because abundance and generosity is the foundational practice for our Ally Manset profile. And that opportunity to give and help others to be successful seems like a no-brainer to me. And yet I was reading some McKinsey research where employees were describing interacting. Seventy five percent of employees said interacting with their boss was the most stressful part of the day. So if it's relatively easy for us to name our Janes, why is it that so many not Janes and bad bosses seem to exist in the in the workplace? Well, because I don't think they're bad bosses or they're not Janes. I actually don't think there is a thing called a bad boss. It's bad boss behaviors that are forged under pressure. that I went from being best boss ever to the boss from hell under pressure. And so I think anybody can fall to that. Just about every boss that I've worked with, of course, I wouldn't be working with them otherwise, wants to be a good boss. Every employee wants to be productive, and yet we end up in this really fraught dynamic between boss and employee. And that's why I think two forces come into play. One, that it's not power, but pressure that corrupts us. And the higher you go, the more pressure you have. So as a boss, you might raise your tone of voice, you might frown a little bit, and people then misinterpret that or interpret that in a way that has a much harder impact on them because of the second force, which is power. The higher you go, the less you know. The less you know about the impact that you are having on others, particularly when your behaviors are corrupted under the influence of pressure. So when you combine power and pressure, you can turn the best bosses into the worst bosses. And it makes it a stressful situation, a stressful interaction for people. That's interesting because it makes me think about listening to Alan Mulally, previous CEO of Boeing and Ford, talk about the moment when he realized that his smile, or more to the point, his frown, was no longer his own. Because he became aware that if he's looking down and grumpy or whatever, then people are going to write a story and the stock price is going to go down was his story. And that doesn't mean that you smile all the time in a Pollyanna way, but you need to be thoughtful about how you're showing up, not just in what you're saying, but to your point, tone, how you're saying it. And as you become more senior, every time you open your mouth, you are creating ripple effects almost interpreted as orders to those who may overhear. So if you're like me and you talk to think, being very clear around, oh, no, that's just me thinking out loud as opposed to I want that now to become a reality. Otherwise, you're creating all of this chaos. unproductive work and chaos around you, but may not be aware of it because everybody's trying to create a professional face around you because you're the boss. One hundred percent, Marag. In fact, for many of my clients, the counsel I give them is arrange your face before you go into that meeting. Arrange your face. Your face should be in alignment with what you really want to convey because people are going to make up meanings with people in positions of power. We would love to make up stories about what they're thinking, particularly what they're thinking about me. And so. We really want to be mindful about what we're conveying or not conveying. You were saying as soon as we open our mouth, it's well before we open our mouth. All those facial expressions, body language, tone, all of that matters so much. And it gets amplified so much when we're in a position of power. Yeah. And I think as a leader, it's not that we're suggesting that perfection and poise in all situations is required because we're all human. But recognizing that when something unintentional has come from our presence, that we're quick to correct that. And either, like for me, I know if I talk and interrupt, then to apologize, but also sign it that I'm being thoughtful and I'm being quieter today than you may be useful because I want to hear your perspectives. Yes. Yes. go for it well because I was going to ask you you mentioned it earlier that we all aspire to being a better or the best boss and yet we all have days when we have bad boss behavior and you even alluded to the fact that you too have had bad boss behavior days so tell me how um bad boss behavior manifested itself in you and what were some of the things that you describe as pressure pitfalls what were your pressure pitfalls that created that? Yeah, yeah, for me, it was, well, I generally had gotten feedback that you're the best boss we've ever had. Because I cared for people, I coached them, I mentored them. And then I was in charge of the management development group, went on parental leave, and the first day coming back, as I'm getting ready to go to work, my assistant Lori calls me with a frantic tone in her voice. Where are you? Steve expects you in thirty minutes. So Laurie starts reading me the memo that I'm supposed to discuss with Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, as I hit warp speed on my way to work. And that set the tone, the pressure for my return to work with an overflowing inbox, high profile executives and tending to their requests and queries and an infant at home. So I had no sleep, no peace. no patience and overnight morphed from being nurturing and caring to snippy and short. I would say, I don't have time to explain this in detail. Go figure it out. I certainly don't have time to repeat myself. Empathy, that'll come later. I'm too busy right now. I would micromanage. I would signal to people with my hands on the keyboard if they came to my office that I was more important than them, that I was really busy. Go away or keep it short. The worst part of all of this, Marag, was that I thought I was doing a great job. I thought I was being really efficient. And then a colleague of mine says, do you know that Zach is crying in his office because of you? And that's exactly that catching of your breath. That's what happened to me. My breathing just suddenly went completely shallow. My heart is pounding. My body is flush with shame. And I realized, how did I go from being caring and nurturing to somebody apparently people are afraid of and really don't want to work with? So it's interesting what you say there, because there's two things that come to mind. One is that if we aren't creating the space for someone, even if it's not the person who is at the receiving end and is therefore crying and stressed about working with you, but for somebody else to gently say, hey, Sabina, did you realize? So how as leaders do we, A, create that space for feedback so we know how we're being perceived or misperceived, and in that moment when we may receive feedback that doesn't align with our self-image, how do we stay at our best in that moment versus being even more of our worst? Yeah. Yes. So the first piece, how do we create that space for feedback? It is very difficult. Everything that is going to come up is going to be somewhat muted, milder and cushioned in praise. So you have to amplify whatever message you're getting, first of all. But second, to even get some message, even some weak signals, the feedback you receive is directly proportional to the quality of question you ask when you're soliciting that feedback. If you say, how did that meeting go? They're going to go, it went great, boss. Where secretly they're thinking, are you kidding me? Couldn't have gone any worse. But they're not going to tell you that. Because by asking a yes, no question like that, you're not really looking for feedback. You're looking for a pat on the back, a reassurance that you're great. So instead, I would say, be very, very specific and think small. Think small and think in third person. Here's how I would translate that. One, thinking small. What's one thing that you thought went well in that meeting? What's one thing, if I did more of or less of, would have made that meeting go even better? Now it's much harder for me with that second question to go, oh, you did great. And it's one thing. It's not the whole meeting. It's not what are five things. So it's less overwhelming for somebody who's just trying to give feedback to that boss. making it on the third yeah go ahead sorry I was going to say but making it small as I just interrupted and did my worst boss example on purpose um makes it as you say laser-like and easier for people to respond but then you talk about and you were about to go on to say the third person piece so how does that help yes so let's say that you're not getting a lot of quality feedback. Chances are that means you haven't created an environment for that. So even a small ask might feel monumental to the person being asked to provide feedback. In those cases, you might say, hmm, what do you think people who typically agree with me would have, what's one thing they would have said about the meeting? And what do you think are detractors If there's one thing that I could do more of or less of, what would they say that was the thing? So now I, Sabina, don't have to even own the feedback. I can just say, well, if I thought about your crustiest, most cynical detractor, here's what they would say. It gives me permission to be more honest. Is that something you want to continue in the long term? I hope not. I hope you can build a relationship where the person can own their own message. But initially, you're just looking for little chinks to try and get the message and then, of course, not react defensively when you receive it. Yes, I know. Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, my friend and mentor, always advises that whatever the feedback you get, there is only one response. And that is, thank you. And then you can go away and fume. You can be righteously indignant if you want, but you do that in private. Or ideally, you're filing it away and looking for the patterns. And then you can make a choice as to how you... move forward so you talk there about getting feedback in small bites making it third person I love the idea of what would my number one fan say what would my detractors or the the people who are more cynical about me what might they say so then how do we go about stimulating change because often the leaders I'm coaching are looking for the big silver bullet the one thing and I'm not sure that that even exists So how do you coach leaders to then act on feedback? Yes. So another perhaps surprising phrase I will use is to do as little as possible. Here's what I mean by that. It's the concept of micro habits. The only way to overachieve in these kinds of shifts that are part and parcel of your identity, they are things that have made you successful. My book is for people who are already highly successful. It's not easy to change those things. And if you try and take it on with the zeal of a fresh fiscal year's business results, you will fail because this is not the same as running your business. This is behavioral change. And so you want to start with what I call micro habits in the book, which is it's so tiny that you will almost laugh or you will laugh at the idea of doing something that small. And you do it every single day. For example, you had asked another question about how do they receive the feedback or what do they do with it? How do they receive the feedback? And I would say shut up and just listen and sense more about what's going on so you can have a better system to take in that information. So well, what does that mean? Does that mean now every meeting you go to, you're not going to say a single word? Of course not. Because then people are going to think, uh-oh, what's going on here? Clearly, they don't like anything I have to say. In fact, I don't think they like me. You know what? I better stop. I got to go shop my resume around. And before you know it, they've already quit. And just because you're practicing something ostensibly, that's a positive behavior shift. So micro habit to shutting up might be in one meeting, once a day, I'm going to be the third person to speak. Yeah, just that. That's it. And slowly, slowly, when you do that consistently, people go, Oh, this person really is interested in hearing what I have to say. Yes. I love that because, as you say, it's a micro habit. It's an easy thing to introduce into what you're doing. And if I may be so bold, I'd suggest that also let key folks know that's what you're practising. Exactly. Because then it's an opportunity to say in yours, as you advised earlier, in terms of not being the first to speak, how did I do, Sabina? And now you get that micro feedback that both reinforces me to keep it going, but also signals to others that learning and changing and flexing is not weird or unusual. It's something that we all need to be doing. your role modeling and so people don't make up stories about why is it that suddenly Morag is the first person to speak. Because of course, the story they make up is going to be far more dire than whatever you intended. Yeah. So we're here talking with Sabina Nawaz and her new book, You're the Boss, Become the Manager You Want to Be and Others Need. Now, you mentioned that this is for successful leaders. And in the book, you talk about how that time around being promoted is actually the riskiest time in our careers. So say more about that. When we are successful, We are used to being right a lot and we are right a lot, except you don't change the terrain changes when you get promoted. A significant way in which that terrain changes is what was once a strength of yours is going to be viewed very differently and less charitably by the next that are craning up to look at you in your newly promoted perch. So for example, actually Marag, what would be a couple of your strengths? My ability to connect dots in unusual ways. So I'm always seeing ideas and possibilities. And my strength, I'll go, I'm similar to Jane, the abundance and generosity in terms of how can I be of service? How can I help others? Yes, yes. So let's say you got promoted to a more senior role in an organization. with that generosity mindset, and you're responsible for a much larger group of people, and you go to your peers and you pull a Jane on them, where you've asked for a lot of ways in which you might help, suddenly your team is going to feel overwhelmed. Because they may not have asked the team, hey, how much capacity do you have? And you've gone and promised the farm. So that could be an example of that. Connecting the dots is great. I'm the same way, an ideator, a pragmatic ideator like you, Morag. We're very aligned there. And that could come across as you're randomizing the team. It's like you've been following me. Right. So but the higher you go, the more impact those kinds of things have. And there's a downside to these things, which if not managed, if you just tell the story from your perspective, you don't see that it's having this kind of impact on other people. So I like what you share there. It's essentially what got me promoted isn't necessarily all of the skills that I need to be leaning on at that new leadership level. And it's letting go of some, but I don't need to change who I am. What you're saying is I'm changing how I show up. Yes. Yes. It's positional, not personal. It's the role you're fulfilling. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So you do talk about self-care because one of the things that I've learned about my abundance and generosity, it's not just that it can overwhelm my team. It can overwhelm me, too, if I'm not setting guardrails to what I'm saying yes to. So how do you advise leaders and managers, especially in the Western world where hustle, hustle, hustle and the hamster wheel of continual success and more and more and more is kind of so revered? How do you help them to focus on that self-care element? Well, it's a fallacy to think that if I invest in self-care, I will slow down or I'll get less done. So it's about breaking that down for them. And this is personal. In about, I was really tired a lot. So much so that I went to a sleep specialist and they hook you up in a lab all night long. They put electrodes all over you to monitor your sleep. And he said, there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with how you sleep. You're just getting too little of it. And so I thought, oh, my gosh, but I'm so tired. I'm going to have to put more time into sleeping. And I was almost panicked. I thought, how am I going to? I've got young kids. I've got a mother with Alzheimer's. I'm traveling a ton with a relatively new business. I'm not going to be able to get everything done. Clearly, I'm going to have to shed some of my clients. Maybe I'll have to stop writing for Harvard Business Review because I'm going to be devoting all this time to sleep. And guess what? Not only was I better rested and more healthy, I actually got more done, not less. Because of course, when you're not so tired, you're sharper, you're more productive, you have higher quality work. So it's that, recognizing that fallacy. Now, again, it's very hard to do. I did it because I was in this quite dire situation where I was really not feeling very great with the sleep deprivation. So I had to make a big change. But making a big change before it's too late is much harder to do. And that's where micro health is coming again. I have a client where she decided that instead of turning off her screen at eleven thirty p.m., she would turn off her screen at eleven twenty five p.m. Just five minutes because she's like, oh, that's just ridiculous. I said, well, why don't you just try that? Let's see. And even that eleven twenty five, she didn't succeed five days out of five. It was about three, four days out of five. Well, let's do that for a few weeks until you really get it. And then it's, you know, slowly, slowly, slowly you move back so that now she's she's able to unplug at ten o'clock at night, which is a much more reasonable time. So it's taking really tiny pieces. If your self-care is around physical activity, it's one push-up, not half hour at the gym. Does not work. One push-up. Like that. So it happens a bit like I talk about relationships, one conversation at a time, one micro habit at a time. But in doing so, you have to be paying attention and you have to make that choice to unlearn. so that you can create space for the new behaviors, the new approach to come in. Exactly right. So I'm curious in terms of, you've shared some wonderful case studies there. What have been some of the biggest turnarounds that you've seen in managerial leadership behavior? So many, so many. And again, mostly it's because the power has distanced them so much from even understanding. For many of my clients, I do something called a three sixty process, which I'm sure you're very familiar with in our profession, where I'm interviewing about a dozen team members to say, what is it actually like to work with this person? And when I share that data with my clients, nearly one hundred percent of them, even the ones who profess to be very self-aware, are surprised. are shocked usually because it's one thing to intellectually get it. It's another thing to read in the words of your coworkers, how they really feel about working with you. So it's about, sorry, repeat your question again. So the biggest turnaround, and I was thinking as I was listening to you there in those three sixties, I know the leaders that I'm coaching, they tend to go straight to the middle or wherever we put it. What's the bad news. And I'm wondering like even Jane, your best boss, they've got things they need to do different, but they've also got skills that actually just do more of the good stuff. Do more of the good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Is a shift in behavior always about fixing the gaps or is it? Not necessarily. Completely. And, but also make sure your strength is not overplayed in ways you don't want it overplayed. I am doing a three-sixty right now for somebody and it's, her strengths are a great human being really cares about people extremely responsive and responsible and, and optimistic. Now that causes her to say yes and take on work on behalf of her team that she shouldn't be taking on causes her to say, Oh, we're good. We've got this. So her peers actually are really excoriating her for being their perception now of arrogant, disconnected from reality, because of course there have been problems that have shown up. So that comes around if you are not mindful of and overplaying your strengths. But yes, the feedback, absolutely. I ask people to really work on, you're going to get to world-class by working on your strengths. You're going to get to mediocre by working on your weaknesses. And the biggest turnaround actually, or one of them, was this person who got incredibly, this was one of the harshest three sixties I had done. Very, very negative feedback. They called him words that I won't repeat on your show, but also a thug, a bully, that meetings with him were a stream of insults. It was very, very painful for people to work with him. Now, again, he was shocked and surprised because he was what I call an innocent saboteur. He was making jokes because he thought it would ease the tension. He was using sarcasm because, believe it or not, he thought that would motivate people. When he received this feedback, he was able to just stop those things and continue to focus on the things he did really well, which is set really clear vision and direction for and technical guidance. And when I conducted a follow-up three-sixty, it was one of the most positive three-sixties I have done where people called him a thousand percent better started. Simply by dialing down these destructive behaviors that he thought he was doing for good and continuing to simply focus on the things he did so well. So having that abundance mindset about what is already abundantly present in you will generate abundance for other people. I love that the idea of a thousand percent better by adopting a few micro habits that you care enough to integrate into your day to day. That sounds like a great ROI for coaching and for leadership development in general. For sure. So Sabina, as we come to the end of our time together, what's one, one message that you hope our listeners are taking away from this conversation? Well, I'm going to give a fresh message in addition to whatever they might be taking away from this conversation, because so much of the book is about pressure and the fact that it's not power, but pressure that corrupts you. So when you are under pressure, do nothing. Our tendency when pressure starts coming at us from all directions is to do even more. to make more to-do lists, to have more meetings, to answer more emails, to work later and do less self-care. Instead, I advocate for a practice called blank space, which is two hours a week where you push away everything, all the doing, you completely unplug, no online presence, No reading, no talking. You step away from your office so you can get your head back on straight and put things in perspective. It's also likely then that you will get these insights, which research shows come when our active brain shuts down, like in the shower or during exercise or during our commutes. So you can work on things that are truly game-changing versus knocking off one more email, one more Teams message. I love it. It's less about doing and it's more about being. Exactly. Exactly. I love it. So Sabina, where can people learn more about you, the book and the work that you're doing? The book is called You're the Boss, Become the Manager You Want to Be and Everyone Loves. needs and others need. And it can be found wherever books are found. Best way to connect with me would be to you can follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. But you could just go to my website, sabinanoise.com. There you're able to sign up for my sub stack called pressure proof. Or you can get in touch with me if you're using these tools from the book and have questions. I actually love to hear stories about how you might be using these. or what you've done to tweak it, just like my clients have done over the years. You can receive book bonuses if you buy the book and then go to my website and download some of these tools that we've been talking about. Well, Sabina, thank you for joining me here on People First. To everybody who joined us to listen to our conversation, I thank you too. Please do get your hands on You're the Boss by Sabina Nawaz. Become the manager you want to be and others need. And those bonus materials, they are worth their weight in gold. So make sure that you click through to those too. And we'll make sure everything is in the show notes down here. Thank you again. Thank you, Marag.