Performing to Relating - A Leadership Shift That Builds Trust

Speaker A: Hi and welcome to the Human side of Business podcast. I'm Angie Cabe, CEO and co founder of Intuitive Performance. I'm a performance coach, HR professional, whole person leadership facilitator, and your host. The Human side of Business podcast is fueled by the genuine curiosity to understand how personal characteristics and skills can be leveraged to drive individual and team performance, tangible outcomes and ultimately organizational success within business. Each podcast is devoted to sharing knowledge, expanding our learning edges, and exploring the trends in corporate culture towards growing the emotional intelligence of organizations. I'm so glad you're here. Hi and welcome to the Human side of Business podcast. I'm Ange McCabe, CEO and co founder of Intuitive Performance. I am a performance coach, HR professional facilitator and your host. The Human side of Business podcast is fueled by the genuine curiosity to understand how personal characteristics and skills can be leveraged to drive individual and team performance, tangible outcomes and ultimately organizational success within business. Each podcast is devoted to sharing knowledge, expanding our learning edges, and exploring the trends in corporate culture towards growing the emotional intelligence of organizations. I'm so glad you're here.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Human side of Business. I'm your host, Ange McCabe and we're back with episode four of our back to Basics series. I'm here with Maria M. Our amazing intuity consultants and leadership coach. Hi, Maria.

Speaker C: I ang, I'm really excited about this one. Although I realize, I think I probably say that about all of them, but

Speaker B: what's, what's not to be excited about?

Speaker C: Exactly. I know they're all just such a core piece of, um, the leadership puzzle. So, yeah, I'm happy to be here.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And today we're exploring the shift from performing to relating, essentially improving ourselves to connecting with others. It's really about stepping away from performative leadership and stepping into presence, humility and connection. Because when we're thinking about the whole person leader, they don't show off, they show up. And one thing that I want to add to this is that when we think about stepping into presence, humility and connection, it's not the soft woo woo, it's actually thinking about it from, um, a cognitive and conscientious position is, is the way that that lands with me. So I'm really excited to, to unpack this with you.

Speaker C: Yeah, I agree.

Speaker B: So let's start by naming what we mean by performing. How do you see this showing up in leadership, Maria?

Speaker C: Yeah, in so many ways. So, uh, when leadership becomes a stage, when we're, I would say when we're constantly trying to demonstrate that we're competent or in control or the smartest person in the room. I would say, even if it doesn't necessarily mean it, it can come from a place or seem to come from a place of insecurity or pressure and it just, it creates distance, it's, it makes you feel unreachable. Managing impressions instead of building relationships.

Speaker B: The, the story that I'm telling myself or the narrative that's playing out in my head right now around what you just said is I'm wondering if there's a lot of like made up facts in our minds as leaders that take us out of the place of vulnerability when we're solely focused on competency.

Speaker C: Totally. And I, I uh, have a hypothesis that perhaps, I think this has always existed. I wonder if it's changed with the dawn of social media because now so much of a leader, a CEO, what have you presence, um, there's almost an expectation now to present yourself as, you know, whether it's a thought leader or um, having such an untouchable presence. So, so striking that balance between like you're saying, humility and connection, but also just the pressures of being in a leader, leadership position. So you know, as a leader, when you're performing, your team might admire you, but they may, they're not going to feel connected to you. So there's, you know, then that leads to less collaboration, less psychological safety and, and then you've cultivated, perhaps unintentionally, a climate of people, uh, just not being real.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And so hearing you, in short, it's, it's feels impressive, but it's not trustworthy.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: And I don't think that there's any ill intent from leaders, especially in today's market at all. Rather, it's thinking about the shift being we need to drop the mask and 100% as leaders ask ourselves the question, am I leading for my team or in this moment, am I leading for my image?

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker B: That's kind of like the coach approach question that comes up in my mind. Or is it something totally different in the same. I don't want to be wrong or it's my ego or what have you. Right.

Speaker C: So absolutely. So yeah, it's, it's moving from proving your worth to just being, not just to being with your team.

Speaker B: Mhm. Hm. Absolutely.

Speaker C: So I want to know from you, Ange, what does relating look like in action?

Speaker B: I enjoy it when you put me on the spot. It's awesome.

Speaker C: You're welcome.

Speaker B: For me will really start with listening without an agenda. Mm. And deploying Curiosity. And what this means is that from like the latter piece deploying curiosity, it's being vulnerable enough to be like, I don't have all the answers yet. And, and just having transparent conversations about what answers you do currently have in, in one perspective from the listening without an agenda. Uh, what I mean by that, in coaching we've learned that there's three levels of listening. Right. So in very short terms, level one, listening is to um, get and transmute information. Is my plane on time? What is on the menu that I can eat? Right. Level two is deeper in the sense that it's more of a dance in the conversation, you're listening to what that person has to say, not from a place of I need to respond with, but rather I need to hear them and then respond. And so there's more intent, less distractions. Level three, I always joke this is like that first perfect date that you've ever had with someone, um, man, woman, whomever, um, they identify with in the sense of like you're in a communication bubble with this person and the, the attention span, the intent of ensuring that they hear you and you hear them, um, is truly there, as well as the ability to not only be able to hear them, but to feel them. So you can understand the uh, the emotional shifts within the conversation. Um, level two, going back. Sorry. Level two is really about, you know, if we're interviewing someone, for example, that's you know, exchange of information, or maybe it's just a quick meeting, but we want to give someone our full attention so we make sure that our, our cell phones aren't even on the desk because that earmarks the fact that we're, we're timing something at this day and age. Right. Level three being like if you need to have a critical conversation within the workplace or if you are really in, in depth, uh, around conversations of strategy and you want, and maybe it's the first instance of the first conversation where you really need to be able to hear all of your directors. Right. So with regards to listening with ODIN agenda, it's really being conscious about what value am I adding to this conversation and how can I do it? At what level?

Speaker C: Mhm. So with the three different levels, are they always, are those levels always there or are you in one at a time?

Speaker B: That's a great question.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Um, short answer, depends. So it flows with regards to the type of conversation that you're having. Because you know what, it's like you and I can have fluid conversations where we could go really deep. Well, that's where we have. That's where I typically will have level three listening. I'm looking directly at the camera. I'm. I'm leaning into you. I'm watching your body language. I'm noticing and saying the same, versus if we're talking about a calendar booking, for example, you know, I might be looking off to the left of my desk at another note to make sure that there's something else that I'm not forgetting. Because we're simply just exchanging information.

Speaker C: So there's ebbs and flows and I guess, context too. Like, you know, if you're at a restaurant and you're placing an order, that's level one, I would assume, right?

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. Um, yeah. So it's, it's being able to A, identify what level of listening do I need to have for this type of conversation so that B, I can ensure that I'm adding value and I'm being an authentic leader for the people around me. And again, going back to a previous episode, leadership doesn't mean just title. Right. You could be a project manager, you could be influencing. You could be a consultant or a stakeholder. Right. So this, um, would apply to, to everyone in, in any type of relationship, really.

Speaker C: Yeah. So it's in a nutshell, less about delivering a perfect message and more about presence.

Speaker B: Yes, that. That's a great way to surmise that when we're thinking about building presence, immediately the word trust comes up for me. Because people really want to follow someone who sees them, not someone who consistently is trying to impress them or to have a transactional relationship, per se. Right, Absolutely.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: For me, it comes down to that human centric approach.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's. That's such an important distinction. And I would imagine that it also helps teams feel more. So high trust equals high psychological safety, which equals more engagement.

Speaker B: You nailed it. I like the formulation that you have there, actually. I can write it down. Please do. I can picture it in almost like an infographic.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker B: And when leaders relate, rather than focusing on performing, they create those environments where people feel like that they belong. The community comes down to connection. And we talk about that a lot across many of our podcasts. In the sense that we as humans crave connection. Um, it's funny because I listened to another podcast, um, I think it was just like a week or two ago, Maria. In the sense that, um, and everyone. In the sense that oftentimes there's a fine line between autonomy and connectivity. And in today's day and world, especially with social media, there's a huge, um, cultural or societal expectation about being different or that thought leader or having individualistic, um, proponents when we are not hardwired for that, which creates isolation, which creates ah, higher levels of depression, et cetera, et cetera. So it's really interesting timing in that sense of this conversation because, um, and maybe I'll put in the footnote of this podcast for everyone so that they can tap into it to really understand

Speaker C: that would be great.

Speaker B: Um, the fact that it comes down to connectivity and, and I'm seeing trends with regards to a lot of like HR research and leadership research and other business case studies and podcasts that keep circling back to this thought process around relating and connecting versus just being a performative individual.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I would think to, to add another layer to the equation that I formulated a moment ago, which is brilliantly, brilliantly is the safety equals engagement and then the engagement obviously equals retention, which I think in today's work landscape. And I know with a lot of our clients, they come to us wanting to know how to keep people in roles for or with a company, maybe not even in the role for an extended period of time beyond say two years. And so this is a big part of it is that connectivity piece. And we are living in that dichotomy of we are the most connected technologically we've ever been. But then we're also seeing that human to human, we are perhaps the most disconnected we've ever been.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: So again, in a work context, if you can keep that moving from performing to relating and creating relating and connectivity as a priority, then your retention will trend positively and all, all the problems will be solved. Just connect.

Speaker B: Just do it. Just do it.

Speaker C: Which, which is, which leads us to how can we help leaders and their teams make the shift?

Speaker B: That's a great question. Enjoying the knowledge to action coach approach question. My knee jerk reaction to this is really and truly coming down to the actions of modeling it. So going back to that, the thought process around transparency, um, with regards to your learning edges as a leader, uh, you can say here's where I'm still figuring things out or here's what I have right now. Um, more to come. Stay tuned. Right. This creates permission for others to do the same. As a leader, we need to, to replicate our expectations and behaviors, uh, in the workplace first and foremost. And then also focusing on connection. Again, I want to make it super clear that connection is not separate from operations. It's one in the same in our minds at intuitive performance. Anyways.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: So everyone who's listening to this when we say connection first it's meaningful. Based on that operational task, how do you create connection with the, with the individual or group that you are looking to either A influence B receive information or C solve a problem or something else. Right. So before diving into a task it's really about zooming out and looking at it from an experiential perspective. Earlier I mentioned how do I want to intentionally show up as a leader in this meeting. I think that's, that's a big coach broach question too. Like what is the actual purpose of the meeting? What does success look like for this meeting? And as a leader, how can I positively resemble the connection the, the task orientation, the outcomes, um, and influence the same when we're also thinking about this, it's consistency. So we talk a lot about habits at intuitive performance as well. And, and this is one of the biggest ones that requires so many reps because it's promoting the consistency around humanity really. And I know that sounds large or grandiose potentially to some, but it's simplistic in the sense of weekly check ins, not just from an operational perspective. Um, you know, it's again that connectivity, it could be uh, what we would dub as teen gratitude rounds and that could just be celebrating weekly wins. I've noticed with one of our clients they've actually turned to more of a strength building model with their team and it's beautiful to watch them because they have a whole cultural theme around promoting connection, um, promoting the wins, promoting a learning, safe to fail work environments and watching them build that uh, within their department is absolutely amazing. And so what they did as another example, um, it was just recently at their quarter quarterly meeting, it was a national meeting for the group. And instead of just talking about stats operations which they did of course, they added in a layer of identifying the micro wins which I thought was totally interesting. And ah, I just totally geeked out on the call with this individual because I wanted to, you know, what were the implications of that. And this individual or this VP actually lit up and you could see that they were so proud of the whole team because it actually changed the way that people spoke. And some people were kind of like teasing um, about their slogan that promoted um, the connectivity. However they're all getting behind it which was absolutely huge. And I had goosebumps from like head to toe. So that, that's a great example of identifying, you know, how we show up in the workplace as leaders is how it's going to implicate that domino effect of promoting again humanity, connection um, and those personal wins to make sure that team members are engaged and that they are staying motivated. Um, and they're relating to you as a leader, not just as a job title, essentially 100%.

Speaker C: I love that. And it really all begins to shift the culture from competitive and individualistic to collaborative and human. And, and it's how we move from performing leadership to practicing community. And you know, you know, we love a tool, of course. So Ange, give us the, the self. The self and or team check questions that we love to use at intuity.

Speaker B: Yes, I, and honestly, Maria and everyone, I get so excited talking about lists and tools. Like, I totally geek out on this because these are the things that I wish I would have had when I first started out, as well as being an experienced leader. So what, we have the things that help you.

Speaker C: Sorry to talk over you, but they're the things, you know, we, we, we harp on habits and, and doing your reps, doing your leadership reps a little bit. And without the tools and lists, it makes it super hard. So that's why we're all about them.

Speaker B: The how to. Mhm.

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker B: So this is really helpful in identifying when we're in performance mode versus relating mode and the intentionality of the shift towards connection. So step one is all about self awareness prompts. So at the start or the end of our day, we can ask ourselves, am I trying to be impressive or impactful?

Speaker C: That's a striking question.

Speaker B: Right. It really takes you out of just that autopilot mode and into intentional thinking as a leader, which I fully enjoy. Second question for self awareness prompt. Where today did I seek approval instead of connection?

Speaker C: Oh, that's another heavy hitting one.

Speaker B: Instead of. I mean we're just, we're just ripping off the band aid here.

Speaker C: Like 100.

Speaker B: You know my style.

Speaker C: Absolutely, I do. Yeah.

Speaker B: And the third one for the self awareness prompt, who on my team could benefit from more genuine presence from me?

Speaker C: Okay, so number one, step one, self self awareness prompt. So you're asking. And this could be at the start or the end of your day, Correct? As just as a bit of a debrief.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Am I trying to be impressive or impactful?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: Then where today did I seek approval instead of connection? M M. And who on my team could benefit from a more genuine presence from me?

Speaker B: Absolutely. So asking those three questions, I mean, you don't have to do all three at once. You could pick one. But those are, those are generally what we would dub as the self awareness prompt to get you into that mindset. Um, Step two is team connection action. And what we mean by this is choosing a micro activity to do with your team each week. So it could be opening a meeting with a personal check in round so you could say hey, tell us one word of how you're arriving today. In this meeting you can share one recent mistake you made and what you learned from it. Um, of course there's an asterisk beside this. We need to make sure that there's that safe to fail environment. There's trust, you know, there's, there's no essentially backlash that would come from having that type of share. We're assuming that all things are proverbial equal playing fields in doing that activity. There's being ask a team member, what's something I don't know about your work right now that would help me support you better? And I really enjoy this question because it helps us get out of assumptions of knowing what's going on with individuals, especially the work and where they're at and also identifying how willing we are as leaders to show up for them.

Speaker C: Yeah, I don't, I'd almost even just like half that question for me and, and ask what's something I don't know about your work right now?

Speaker B: M. I like that. That would be a good conversational prompt and then following with you know how that all are. Can I support you better? Yeah.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker B: Yeah I like that thought process third step reflection and feedback. So once a month you ask your team, you know, could be in a anonymous way or not just depending on again the vibe of your team. You can ask some things like when do you feel most connected to me as your leader? Or you could ask another question where it's like when do you feel least connected? And essentially as a leader you want to review those results, share one takeaway and commit to one small change. So this is the huge caveat with this one Leaders is that M as soon as you put questions out there which inadvertently um, identifies a social expectation for action, you need to follow through or this will just decrease trust versus increase. Exactly which is intended. Right. So making sure that your team members feel comfortable giving that feedback in whatever form, whether it's anonymous, um, poll whether it's you know, um, basically drop down type selection, um, or maybe it's a numerical rating system that just kind of comes through rolled up. I don't know. There's many ways to do it. All this to say and ensuring that you have that pulse of what your team needs to feel connected and how your team perceives you in your actions of connecting with them.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker B: So a tip.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker B: And a tip to this is is basically you want to repeat this monthly and essentially over time these three steps will be able to have ultimately created micro moments of connection and therefore increasing trust. And we all know what happens when we have high levels of trust that positively impacts performance overall.

Speaker C: Absolutely. And I would flag two really great points that you brought up as a bit of a caveat at the end of some of the questions is don't open this line of communication if you can't follow through on feedback. And if there's low trust to begin with, don't start out super deep. Come at it from a place of self awareness. So those step one questions and then I personally what I've seen be successful in a lower trust environment is that you know, one or two word check in in a weekly meeting, for example and then slowly if it's a, if it's maybe not a fail safe environment, you again modeling the behavior. You begin sharing your wins and your not so wins and give it time.

Speaker B: I think that's a great summation.

Speaker C: So that's our take temperature check first.

Speaker B: Yes. You need to take the temperature. Just like I don't, I don't know why I'm going to say this, but I'm going to say it out loud. Just like cooking a turkey at Thanksgiving. You want to make sure that the temperature's just right before you serve it to your family so that they don't get sick. Same thing in the workplace.

Speaker C: Exactly. Don't start or ask for feedback if A, you can't handle it or B you're not going to do anything about it very much. So the proverbial turkey. Oh my God. Okay.

Speaker B: Don't know.

Speaker C: Love to make sure that we, that we uh, include that in future episodes.

Speaker B: That's our metaphor. That's our metaphor. The turkey. It has to be just right. Um, so that's our episode four performing to relating. When we stop trying to prove our value and instead focus on human connection, we become the kind of leader people trust and grow with.

Speaker C: Yeah, whole person leaders show up, not show off. It's not about being impressive, it's about being real. And again, a big episode to take in if, if you're having a bit of a retention challenge.

Speaker B: Uh, and I want to, to give a huge shout out and gratitude for all of our subscribers. We've actually uh, looking at the stats and Maria, I haven't told this to you yet but looking at the stats we've actually hit almost all of the continents across the world. Very cool for listeners. So super excited. Thank you so much. Uh, thank you, thank you, thank you. And if you haven't subscribed yet to our podcast, please do Share Share Take the time this week to notice when you're performing versus relating and see what happens when you choose to intentionally relate. Join us next time for episode five of our micro series. From, um, directing and doing to co creating and coaching. I'm, I'm excited about this.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's going to be your favorite coach, Ange.

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely right here on the Human side of Business. Thank you so much. Take good care.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Human side of Business podcast. I'm glad you could join us. If you enjoyed today's episode and want to stay updated with our latest content, make sure to visit our website. The link can be found in the episode description where you can subscribe to the podcast, Sign up for our newsletter and learn more about our Whole Person Leadership Services.

Speaker B: Sounds interesting.

Speaker A: Explore the Whole Person Leadership Cohort by Intuitive Performance, a unique program that offers unparalleled support to managers on every step of their leadership journey. Our program features evidence based assessments, workbooks, group coaching, and interactive learning experiences to help you level up your leadership skills.

Speaker B: Reach out today to apply to one

Speaker A: of our upcoming cohorts.

Speaker B: Until next time, take care and stay curious.

Speaker C: Sam.