Why Middle Managers Are the Emotional Shock Absorbers of Change

It's really the leaders that have the emotional intelligence skills that are the ones that stay. You know, we used to rely on promoting leaders, again, for technical skills. You needed to have all the answers, so to speak, to guide your team forward. We don't need that anymore.

When we have processing power and knowledge at our fingertips, we need leaders who actually know how to integrate change and motivate their team. And so I often refer to technical skills as the work of one. Where emotional intelligence is about amplifying the work of many. That's the focus.

Whether that's going to be frontline manager, middle manager, or senior leaders. Those are the leaders that are really going to stay and bring that clarity that so many people right now are desperately looking for and looking to their leaders to guide them. Hi there, and welcome to the Step up podcast. I'm your host, Kent Knievel.

Every week I talk to experts who focus on helping leaders step up their leadership game and leaders telling their stories of growing up through the ranks. If you're new to the show, do me a favor and subscribe so you never miss an episode. One last thing. As a leadership development consultant and executive coach, focus area of mine is supporting newly promoted leaders.

One in three promotions fail because we never teach newly minted VPs how to stop being a director or a newly promoted director how to stop being a manager. If that's you, or if you support a leader who had been recently promoted. I encourage you to visit my website at Kent Coach Toolkit and download a free copy of the Promoted Leader Toolkit filled with practical advice and tools to help new leaders stick the landing and truly step up to their new leadership level. All right, I've dillied and dallied long enough.

On with the show. Welcome, everybody. Today we're going to be talking about one of the harder skills to truly learn and I guess deploy, which is emotional intelligence. Intelligence.

I want to call it a hard skill because I just remember from my background having these conversations of why are the things we call, quote unquote, soft skills, some of the actual hardest ones to learn and implement? And with me for this conversation today is Dana Eckert. She's the founder of Inspire. Welcome, Dana.

Thank you for being here today. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited for this conversation. Yeah.

Well, before we really get into it, you know, for the audience that doesn't know you yet, I would love for you to introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about your background. Often joke that I've been studying group dynamics since Birth because I'm actually a triplet. So I, yeah, I understood what it meant to be a team player and often leadership development very early on. But I actually started my professional career at being accepted into a leadership development program as a participant myself, which, so I started in hospitality operations, which feels very full circle to have started in a leadership development program and now having spent my career really building out leadership development programs.

But as I said, my, my early career was in hospitality operations and if you've ever worked in hospitality, you know, you get big streams of leadership very, very early on. You know, I kid you not. My very first week as a manager at the age of 22, I had to hire and fire someone on that week. You know, talk about being thrown on in the deep end right away.

But you know, I dealt with conflict, personal or professional issues, people testing me. I mean, a lot of people weren't necessarily pleased to have a 22 year old manager. And so I had to deal with that pressure in real time. And one of the pieces that really is where I officially kind of moved over to learning and development.

And that aha moment was my organization had high turnover and I helped put together a Train the trainer program at the time. Again, remember I was 22, I thought I was quite brilliant and clever having come up with the name Train the trainer only to then once I moved into learning and development, find out that's the most common name for a program like that. But it really just shared the love of building systems that helped people learn, lead and perform. Nice.

Yeah. I think from my time at Buffalo Wild Wings, I still remember a. I think it must have been, it was a regional manager perhaps or a divisional leader because I didn't know this at the time and I'm not sure if the statistic holds, but it was something like a third of the country of the US Their first job is in food service. Right.

I would be surprised by that. Yeah. And how they followed that up with was like, what an honor we have to train America's workforce. Right.

Because not everybody stays in food service. But oftentimes, you know, it's people's first jobs. And I remember how hard, you know, management is kind of front, you know, so to speak, frontline management at the store level. Right.

Because oftentimes you're tapped to be a leader within the same store that you sort of grew up in. And so, you know, literally. And I'm kind of thinking about your experience here at 22 of maybe this, maybe this wasn't exactly your experience. But you know, You're a server or what have you, bartender on.

On Monday and on Tuesday, you're suddenly all your peers, boss and, you know, not everybody. That is a hard transition. That was a very hard transition. Yeah.

I was within the Accelerate to leadership program. I was just immediately stepped into to leadership, but this is also my first role out of. Out of college, so that was quite the experience. But really, you know, talking about emotional intelligence, where my heart really lies now, during those early times, I actually had a foundational moment of seeing what it actually means to have emotional intelligence and leadership.

And this was about probably a year or so into being a people leader. I was helping open up a new restaurant at the location I was at, and my director was visiting my location. And from your experience in hospitality, you know, things can get heated on the line every once in a while. And so I don't remember what she got upset about.

That part has totally escaped me. What I remember so vividly is what she did next. The following day, she came back to my operation, told me, you know, a new manager and my team aside and apologize for her behavior. Said that wasn't how she wanted to show up as a leader and ask for all her forgiveness.

Again, for an early leader, myself, I was like, my God, this is what leadership is all about. She was human. She had a moment where she reacted, but it's what she did next and how she responded and changed the intent and seeing that ripple effect through not just myself, but I mean, clearly it's been foundational for me, but also through the team and how we navigated further challenges and how we were showcased, accountability from that example of the director. And again, I think it's just even more telling the fact that this webinar.

This was her indirect reports that she also apologized. Not just me, her direct report. And, you know, when we talk about technical skills, she had to know the ability to walk and talk. That is it.

But when we talk about emotional intelligence, she had to have self awareness, humility, stress management, relational skills, and the decision to repair. And that takes a lot of work. And again, that is just so formative into what leadership really requires. Yeah, that sounds very uncommon.

I think the more typical approach if a leader isn't managing themselves well is they just move along. They get to do that. They get to be that way if they want to. So to have a leader pull you and the team aside to apologize, that's really interesting.

Yeah, yeah, it was. It was. Again, Just. This is why emotional talent is so important.

It's. Those are the type of leaders. I hope to continue to build, you know, through my business, Inspire. But you know, after I left operations and after I built that train the trainer program, as I mentioned, that's when I officially stepped into learning and development and I actually moved over to a Forbes five star resort, you know, and so talk about the environment.

You know, it's now fully in person, frontline, heavy work. I'm deeply focused on service standards, as you can imagine being Forbes five stars. So then I moved into a global remote tech company that was shifting from very much of a startup field to a more organizational structure. And so that meant putting a lot of people systems in place such as onboarding, performance reviews, talent calibrations, leadership development, all really for the first time in a culture that was.

Change was constant, you know, anyone working in tech. So on the surface, these environments were completely different, you know, from enterprise to resort to tech tech. But what I saw was the same pattern kept showing up. Now, each organization may have named it differently.

You know, one might have called it communication, whereas the other one called it accountability. Or they focused on turnover or engagement or just simple change fatigue. But underneath that, there was often a need for stronger emotional intelligence, trust and clarity inside the organization and among its leaders. And that is really what shaped the work that I do through Inspire.

Nice. So what is your. Before we, I guess we get into the topic, what does your company do today? Who are you working with?

Whose ears should perk up on who's listening today? Yeah, so my work now focuses on working with organizations to build up the emotional talent, trust and psychologically within an organization really what I define as the human drivers and I help shape leaders with the relational skills and organizations with the structural clarity to integrate change and build a stronger workforce. So aside from the sort of these formative experiences that you're talking about with eq, Right, Because I feel like we've.

It's interesting because I feel like I, over the last, at least 10, 10, maybe 15 years, I feel like I've seen emotional intelligence kind of ebb and flow in and out of sort of, I don't know. Popularity? Yeah, popularity, yeah, like it kind of ebbs and flows in and out. So what kind of has brought this sort of to the forefront for you as like central tenet of what you're doing.

So the interesting thing is the data around high motion meters and high performance has been around for decades. You know, anyone who can speak to having had a leader moment like the one I shared knows exactly the impact of it. But what's really Interesting is the world that we're living in today. You know, I know at this point, and we're almost tired of hearing it, but we are living from major evolution of work, AI disruption, change, restructuring.

All of this is happening, and we are living in a state of uncertainty. And that requires something different of leadership. The pace of change is exposing the gap, is exposing the gap of especially around relational skills. And because many leaders were promoted with technical expertise, but were never really given the tools to lead through relational complexity like we're living through today.

And I think that's why it's so formative right now, because when change happens, as you know from your experience, you know, performance often dips. And the reason may not be always so clear, but it's pretty simple. It's because trust and clarity dip at those moments. But the challenge now is that leaders barely have time to stabilize themselves or in their team before another massive change comes around the corner.

And so in my work, it's really, although I work with all leaders, it's really the middle managers that are often really heavy, heavily carrying the load of this impact because they're the ones who necessarily didn't make the decision, but they have to translate it, become essentially the emotional shock absorbers of what's happening and create enough clarity for their team to integrate it. And so that's really the work that I do is shifting leaders from reacting to responding well.

And middle management right now, you know, from what I'm reading, seeing, hearing middle managers right now are sort of in the biggest. This is kind of a. Yes. And to what you were saying right there, they're in the middle.

They're pinched in the middle between upper management and the employees. But also from what we're seeing and hearing, some organizations, there's a big target on their backs as a group to kind of flatten. Right. That, you know, at least from what I'm seeing.

Right. That, that when we think about AI adoption. Right. Frontline workers are concerned about what's going to happen to their roles.

But interestingly, so are middle managers. Right. Anyway, I guess I'm kind of curious what your experience with kind of that, that pinch point in particular with managers is right now. Yeah.

I mean, I think that it's probably pretty clear that organizations, at least my interpretation of what's happening and evolving as far as organizations are slimming down. So, yes, kind of roles of all levels are slimming down. Middle managers would be one in particular. But it's really the leaders that have the emotional intelligence skills that are the ones that stay, you know, we used to rely on promoting leaders again for technical skills.

You needed to have all the answers, so to speak, to guide your team forward. We don't need that anymore. When we have processing power and knowledge at our fingertips, we need leaders who actually know how to integrate change and motivate their team. And so I often refer to technical skills as the work of one.

Where emotional intelligence is about amplifying the work of many. That's the focus. Whether that's going to be frontline manager, middle manager or senior leaders. Those are the leaders that are really going to stay and bring that clarity that so many people right now are desperately looking for and looking to their leaders to guide that.

The increasing importance of quote unquote soft skills. Right. The increasing importance of emotional intelligence and maybe even self regulation as AI is kind of coming in. And I don't honestly, I mean, I should start date stamping these conversations because I feel like there's such a ebb and flow of what's happening with AI.

Right. I think recent news is how much money companies have burned, laid off a bunch of people and then burned even more cash trying to make AI happen in their company. Now they're hiring, you know, a third of the people they laid off back. So who knows what's really going to happen with AI.

But I still think, you know, if we look at what is working and isn't working in the AI space is certain redundant work or repetitive work that is person to computer only work is ripe for automation and AI taking chunks of it over. Was it going to take everything over? I don't think so, no. But what it, what it's not going to do is eliminate human to human work.

Right. And so, and to this point of. Right. I think historically it's tale as old as time.

Right. We've been talking about it ever since I, you know, got into leadership development. I'm sure since, you know, the company I started with was founded probably in like the 70s, they've been talking about this too, which is, you know, when, when the widget maker boss is promoted or retires, who do we promote into the widget maker boss position? It's the best widget maker on the team, not necessarily the person who has the best skills.

Right. The best leadership skills. And so I just kind of have this feeling like those folks unfortunately are going to be at an even bigger disadvantage in the coming years versus those who perhaps are, you know, and I don't necessarily think we need to get into it, which we could, we don't necessarily need to get into a discussion of like how do we select better leaders. But right though those who have some level of maybe already baked in emotional intelligence, social skills, self regulation skills are going to do even better faster.

That's not to say, and maybe this is something we can get into too. That's not, not, not to say that emotional intelligence can't be learned. Right. But I guess I'm kind of curious what, what your thoughts are on that.

Right. I think it's going to become, and maybe we've been saying this forever and this is now just our newest reason to say it, which is, you know, that these human skills are going to become even more of a, I don't know, differentiator for those who have them. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, I think that's already what we're living through.

And you know, as you said, emotional intelligence is not soft skills. It is a business skill that helps leaders build trust, clarity and performance through pressure. And that doesn't change that just continues to increase, if anything. But you know, I think your, your kind of point earlier about selecting how do we select.

I think we actually need to shift the question. It's how do we build these leaders? Because emotional talent can be grown and developed. It's not unlike iq, which normally tears out, you know, stays about the same once you get to adulthood, emotional just continues to grow as you age and so.

Or devolve maybe even. Yeah, well, yes, for some, like, but that's where, you know, you give them my card and they come to me and yeah, yeah. But you know, what I found having worked internally in various organizations is whenever I worked with stakeholders on putting together leadership development programs, they always kind of want to jump to the questions of how do leaders lead teams? How do leaders lead the business?

Which are very important questions. But they skip over the first foundational piece which is how do leaders lead themselves? And that gets back to my, my moving leaders from reacting to responding because, you know, talk about the change that we're living through today. A leader who is stuck in reacting is a leader who might default to micromanaging or over controlling.

They might be avoiding hard conversations or kind of on the flip side just rushing to fix everything and changing everything at once, which ultimately leads your entire team reacting in the same way. Now a leader that responds is one that builds in a pause. They pause, they name what's happening, assess what they're feeling, what the team is experiencing, and they move with by providing clarity and choosing the next trust building action that they Have. So this is why emotional talents matter so much.

It's not about being nicer, which is a common myth that leaders often think. It's actually about turning emotions into data so leaders can respond with intention, especially in these moments of change and pressure. So tell me, like, I would love to drill in a bit on leading self, right. Because I think an example I still remember and I'm gonna, you know, to protect the innocent.

I won't say when and where, but I, you know, I certainly. And actually it's probably happened more than once in my life, right, where there's been a leader above myself and the team who clear, very clearly has good days and bad days and how that shows up, how that affects the team how. And so, you know, there's this classic drive by walk by, but like, drive, we call it like this classic drive by activity where the team members might kind of stop by each other's desk to do what's called a temperature check.

You know, how is. I'll just pick on you since, since you're here, like, how's Da. How. How is Dana today?

Like, basically like, what kind of day is Dana having today? Is today the day to ask her this kind of question or that kind of question? Right? And so, I mean, so there is this element of are you taking care of yourself so that you can show up your best?

So I guess I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on what do you mean by leading self? Absolutely. And no, you're naming it this perfectly because this is where organizations are struggling with it. Because as you said, organizations today are starting to name emotional intelligence and the human skills as the driver.

They know this and yet they're struggling with integrating it. Because for two kind of key reasons, they get stuck in emotional intelligence. They either go too targeted, which, you know, whenever I talk about my line of work, I get those exact same comments where someone's like, oh my God, my leader is terrible. Like, you need to talk to them.

We're like, how can I give them your card without it coming across a passive aggressive like. And so the unique thing about emotional intelligence and what's different about other capabilities across the workforce is it sits in the intersection between personal and professional. And so when you go into too targeted saying again, any executive probably could be like, oh, I have these five leaders I know exactly who are my black sheep, so to speak, who need this. If you go to them and say you need emotional intelligence training, you know, you're X, Y and Z.

They don't hear this is Development, they hear you are a problem, there is something wrong with you. And rightfully so. I mean, how many of us would really respond pretty well to that type of development when someone approaches it as too targeted as is to the work. Now on the flip side then we have organizations who don't want to go the too targeted, right?

And they go too generic. They go, okay, let's talk about emotional talents in theory and see, like if it just integrates and so it becomes a nice conversation, but no real behavioral change occurs. And so the best approach as far as shifting someone from leaving the self and building emotional intelligence is individual insight within a cohort based learning environment. So leaders get to understand their specific patterns, but they also need to develop within that cohort in the organization.

Because the organization is now saying, not you are the problem. They're saying, this is how we lead here, this is how we communicate under pressure, this is how we repair trust, and this is how we create clarity. And that narrative changes the entire experience of how we build leaders. And it's the foundation of the work I do with my EQ lab developmental journey.

There was something that popped in my head that I wanted to ask about, which is, and I think you were sort of going here because the one way and then I wanted to hear about this lab to your point, right, we've got to be careful how we introduce this to leaders, right? Because it's not a you are the problem. Frankly, it's kind of the opposite, which is you are the solution. I love that narrative.

The one thing that I, there's at least one high level person that I'm talking to, I want to protect their anonymity, who I think on a regular basis because and on a regular basis, one thing I'm talking to them about is, right, you need to start crystallizing your arguments in dollars and cents, you know, for this leader, because they're clearly not hearing you right. And so I think there's likely a business case, right, for right now because I wish we could say, and this is same from when I was in dni, I wish we could say it's the right thing to do, so just do it.

But I think we often have to with organizations, explain to them why it makes business sense, right. To do this. I guess I'd be curious what your findings, thoughts or how you share with organizations why this is a business imperative outside of just, we're all humans who spend 70% of our waking life at work. And so perhaps not being miserable is a good enough call to action.

When I talk about emotional tolerance and trust, we're not talking about, you know, we talk about it and it feels so abstract. But what we really are talking about when we talk about the consequences of emotional tolerance, trust and an organization is how work moves through your organization, and that affects performance, retention, how people show up. And I usually use this analogy about looking at performance differently. If you've ever eaten at the restaurant five Guys, you may have experienced that they always give you an extra scoop of fries at the bottom of the bag, and that's intentional.

Now, if I was a cfo, I might be able to quote you how many millions of dollars you know, I'm losing on this extra scoop of fries. If I was someone in product or engineering, I might just redesign the cup so it fits the amount of fries. Neither of these are technically wrong, but they'd miss the true net value effect of that action. And so psychological effect of generosity, extra warmth that actually drives human behavior.

And so this is really a psychological effect that we're talking about. We're not talking about. We're not talking about these abstract concepts. We're talking about genuinely, what is the human condition, the human drivers, emotional tolerance, trust, and building an environment that has some strong signals that support all of this.

Like that. I like that example because I was even going to say it's, you know, what the CFO has to say, what, you know, the product designers have to say, and then there's what marketing has to say. What's bringing people back, what's, what is make, you know, because I think, I mean, since we both have some hospitality background, right. There's something about, like not to make this all about food, but it's, you know, if you, if you can get someone to come back a third time, right.

The likelihood that they will be an ongoing repeat customer is that much higher. Right. And I. There's some research behind that.

Like, if you can get someone to your restaurant three times the likelihood that they will be there a fourth time, fifth time, sixth time is like, it's exponential. And to your point, like, this is where marketing steps in. This is memorable. This is something we are then known for, right?

Let alone, you know, that five guys has a giant basket of salted shelled peanuts or unshelled peanuts. I don't know why, but they're there. It's like, it's just this, like this extra, this generosity, right. That you are kind of feeling through the process as, as the consumer.

And I even think back to some of the work we were doing with engagement Surveys, interestingly enough. Right. And this is at the restaurant level that, that the restaurant with a higher level of engagement at the employee level had higher performance numbers. Right.

Had had greater sales. Right. So there's like some level of proof to when your, you know, employees are happy to be there and treated well by their managers and you know, trusted, etc. That they in turn, that how they treat the work, so to speak.

Right. And so in the, in the hospitality, that's how they treat the guests in a more corporate environment. It's, it's how they're treating their peers, how they're, you know, the discretionary effort that they bring. Oh, absolutely.

And I mean, I think I've left them to go back on. Like one of my favorites that I always share is Google's project Air Saddle found the number one contributor to high performing teams was psychological safety. How do you build psychological safety? You have a leader with emotional content and an environment full of trust.

And it's those type of environments that we really need to focus on and build for. And it's funny because that study even drilled down to, well, what if it's a team of all high performers, but they're in this low trust environment compared to mediocre performers. High trust. The high trust team outperform the low trust team.

And that's really a marker of the return on investment as far as focusing on building and shaping these environments that drive performance, drive sales, drive engagement, lower turnover. Headcount is always one of those most exciting, expensive costs of any organizations. And really getting people bought into what you're doing and integrating the changes that continuously keep coming around. Well, I'm a firm believer in that.

No leader shows up wanting to be a monster. True. But there are naysayers out there too who would say there's people who are wired for this and there's people just who are. Maybe not.

I guess I'd be curious what your experience has been with perhaps those who might be classified as. Not as wired for this. Like, how do you work with people who maybe this isn't as innate of a skill, you know, where do they start? How do you, you know, work with.

Absolutely. To. To, I don't know, get on their journey of building. Huh.

It's true. Actually, you know, most people are wires of this. It does. It takes organizations to really build this into their workforce.

That leaders can step up to this. But speaking to the leader themselves, I always encourage them first to ask, how well do you know your people? That's really the first piece. And so A practical action that a leader can take, you know, to do with each of their direct report is to do a intentional conversation.

Not just a status update, but ones that include questions like what are you working towards? What's creating friction in your, in your spans? What, what do you need more clarity on for me, and what is one thing that I can do differently to better support you? Those simple questions get to know your team.

Because when I talk about earlier, the leader who reacts versus respond, this connects directly into that. Because when you know your people, that built in pause becomes even more useful. You instead of asking, you know, you start with of course, how am I feeling? But then you start asking, given what I know about this person, this team, this moment in time, what clarity can I provide and what would that action of trust be?

I would even go a step further because I like that, because I would say, you know, I talk about having really good open career conversations with people too, just around what is it that they want to do? What are they here for? So I like the, you know, what's getting in their way? What can I unlock for you?

I would even go a step further and say if you don't truly know what you're. Now, I'm not encouraging people to get like inappropriately interested in their people and their personal lives, but you should probably know a thing or two about your employees life outside of work too. Right. I think for years there was this leave the personal, leave your personal life at the door kind of thinking.

And my, you know, my terrible saying is, you know, no one is paid to take a bullet for someone they don't like, except for perhaps the Secret Service. Right. And that is not a political statement. That is, I've said that under every administration, but.

Right. Like not with your peers, with your direct rapport. There's a bit of even benefit of the doubt that one can earn when intentional about relationships, when intentional about wanting to know a little bit more about you than just your work output and what you're good at. Right.

So you know, I would kind of add, I would add that to that like, you know, spend a little time getting to know people and asking, as silly as it is, how was your weekend? You know, what did you get up to? Go ahead. No, I agree and it's a slightly changed conversation.

But, but I think kind of going into today's world especially we are living in what I call, you know, the attention economy. Everything is trying to grab your attention off hours and that affects how you show up at work. And so yes, when you have someone who actually pays attention to you and not trying to always cipher something from you, but actually wants to get to know you as a human being. That shifts how people work with you.

And so, yeah, I love that call out. Because I think it is so important for a leader to get to know them, not just on the, you know, where they want to go in their career, but also just what's happening, what's affecting, you know, your day, both positive and negative, you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, I've got to start bringing us in for a landing here, so let's start with.

You know, I write a lot about how hard it is for leaders who have just been promoted because most organizations don't have a lot of kind of programmatic support to teach a director how to stop being a manager or teach a, you know, VP how to stop being a director and therefore how to be a director or be a vp. But first, you know, just to take that, you know, back a step. You know, for those leaders out there who are thinking about their next promotion, trying to prepare themselves for their next.

For that next promotion, to get that next level. Do you have one piece of advice for those leaders? You know, it's about understanding that as a leader, you don't need to have all the answers. Actually, people aren't looking for you to have all the answers.

It's about giving people clarity, and that confuses some people sometimes because clarity doesn't mean answers. Sometimes. Sometimes it means this is how much I know, this is how much I don't know, and this is what you can count on for me on this team. That's what clarity really means.

And again, that's the reality that we're living through in constant uncertainty. That's the type of leadership that really helps navigate the team. People trust a leader who can tell you, even when they don't have all the answers, why they're making their decision and how to move forward. Yeah, yeah.

I'd add to that even, you know, what are the guardrails and what's the tolerance for, you know, mistakes right. In this. With this current situation or what have you. Awesome.

So for those leaders who have found themselves in their first week or first month at a new level, they're getting their bearing. They're trying to learn how to be a director, learn how to be a vp, and leave the old role behind. What's one piece of advice you have for them? Kind of going back to my story in the beginning.

Be human leaders. We're not asking you to be, you know, these all impressive beings. We're asking you to be human, have human moments. But it's about how you show up next.

You know, it's about how you react and consider how it impacts the team. And yes, kind of full circle talking about that shift of reacting to responding. I like how you put that because I think a lot of leaders feel that the promotion itself wasn't the proof that they should be in the role. Right.

That they, they, they kind of enter in to feel like I've, I now need to prove that they made the right disprove to everybody. My new direct reports, my new peers, my, my boss that they made the right choice. And I feel like they don't ask for help quickly enough for or Absolutely. New leaders are notorious.

Actually all leaders but new leaders especially notorious for imposter syndrome. And yeah, and that's kind of one of. I'm sure the work that you do as well is my work is not training you to be this exact leader. My work is training you to be your specific best self leader.

And that does not mean you're going to copy every single framework that comes your way. Some things are going to work for you, some things are not. It's about finding your identity as a leader. But again understanding the key ingredients as it were, that really help drive performance underneath it all.

So for those out there who want a little more Dana Eckert in their lives, where do they find you? Where do they find more information on your company? Yeah, you can go to my website, Inspire Skills Trading.com and the Work that I often do with organizations is if an organization is going through a moment of change right now and they need help with their leaders to have that framework and shift from reacting to responding in the moment is a trust and EQ reset workshop that helps integrate a real moment of change.

And then for organizations who want to turn leadership development into a standard, not just a one time workshop, there's that EQ lab that's a three month journey for true behavioral change that includes that individual insight within a cohort based learning that I spoke about earlier. Excellent. Awesome. Well Dana, thank you so much for coming today.

This was a fun conversation. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I always love talking about leadership and I love the work that you do. Me too.

Thank you. All right, take it easy. That brings us to the end of our episode. Thank you for listening.

I'd encourage you to head on over to my website Kent Coach and start a conversation with me there or check out my promoted leader toolkit at Kent Coach Toolkit. Before you go on with your day, please take a moment to leave a rating and a review. Wherever you listen to podcasts, click the five stars that helps put this podcast in front of more ears. Till next time, take it easy.