Seasons Leadership Podcast
Join Debbie Collard and Susan Ireland, co-hosts and co-founders of Seasons Leadership, in making positive leadership the norm rather than the exception. On the Seasons Leadership Podcast, we will bring you practical, actionable advice you can apply now to improve your leadership - and life. Join us on Wednesdays throughout the seasons.
Selected by Feedspot as one of the Top 15 Positive Leadership Podcasts on the web.
Seasons Leadership Podcast
Leading from the Middle
Join us as we talk about our popular blog post “Embrace leading from the middle.” We share more insight into how this idea developed and the challenge we all have to lead from wherever we are.
Show Notes:
(1:00) What does it mean to be middle? We talk about what that means to us and how it sparked the idea for Debbie to write the blog and now to produce this podcast episode.
(5:30) You may be "middle," but it shouldn't be an excuse to not lead or put yourself out there authentically. We share examples of how the boundaries of your role sometimes define your leadership.
(10:29) Stop waiting for permission. We give a call to action to see the potential inside yourself. We challenge you to lead from where you are and be creative.
(14:34) There is a difference between being humble and restricting yourself. We encourage you to learn and grow your leadership role.
Resources:
Embrace leading from the middle: www.seasonsleadership.com/almanac/embrace-leading-from-the-middle
Join Debbie Collard and Susan Ireland, certified coaches and co-founders of Seasons Leadership, in making positive leadership the norm rather than the exception on Wednesdays on the Seasons Leadership Podcast. (Selected by Feedspot as one of the Top 15 Positive Leadership Podcasts on the web!)
And now you can join our community of values-based leaders on Seasons Leadership Patreon at Patreon.com/seasonsleadership. At our gold-level, unlock our exclusive Lessons in Leadership Column from our Resident Seasoned Leader David Spong, a lifetime member of the Board of the Malcom Baldrige Foundation and our Leadership Elements Series.
Hello everyone and welcome to Seasons Leadership Podcast, where we provide actionable advice to improve your leadership and life today. I'm Debbie Collard and here with my co-host, susan Ireland. We're here to talk to you today about leading from the middle.
Speaker 2:I just have to share this just for a minute here. I have to share this just for a minute here. This blog post came out in the last week or so, embracing, leading from the Middle by Debbie, and we got such powerful feedback and so much of it, I thought let's talk about this a little bit more. So are you ready for that? Let's do it. Let's do it. Okay, debbie, what motivated you recently to write this blog?
Speaker 1:Well, that's a great question. So a little known fact about me until I published this blog was that I have the nickname medium, and I don't mean like a psychic medium, I mean like in the middle medium size, medium high medium. Medium medium right, and I don't see that as a derogatory or bad thing either. It's just something that I knew myself as and somebody else assigned the nickname to me.
Speaker 1:But recently I was listening to one of our past podcasts that we had with Bruce and Pamela from Michael Bruce Image Consulting and they were talking about dressing for the size that you are instead of the vision in your head about the size you should be. And I'm getting ready to go on a vacation and I was going. It's so interesting because the sizes in my closet are all over the place because the manufacturers don't make them all the same. But if I were just pulling something off of a rack, I would automatically think in my brain I'm a medium. That's what inspired me to write the blog. Maybe a very circuitous route to writing this blog, but that's what inspired me.
Speaker 2:Well, and it sure brought you into some interesting aspects that I can really relate to, and maybe this is why people really related to it too, because I'm definitely a medium. You know, I would and I would always say I didn't use the word medium, I would say average, I'm average, average height, average size, you know. But it really is powerful because it really kind of sets the control limits on what we think of ourselves.
Speaker 1:Right, absolutely. And if you think so, let's say that you were someone who's always in the background, and on purpose. Maybe you're really introverted, or maybe you just shy, or you just didn't want to be in front for this particular thing. Then you're probably going to choose colors, positions in a room. Everything about that's going to be about being in the background, right, and hiding maybe not hiding, but maybe like just trying to stay out of center stage and the spotlight and anyone who knows me knows I wear bright colors. Yeah, I have recently had someone say to me I don't think you ever worry about being in the spotlight, that you're ever nervous about that, and that's pretty much true. So how did I get to this place, where I saw myself as medium or average, as you say, susan?
Speaker 2:Right. Well, the thing that amazes me is how did you get to the place where you saw yourself as medium, but you didn't behave or perform as a medium like that's a dichotomy.
Speaker 1:I do not know. I mean that would probably take some years of therapy to figure that one out. But I don't know. I mean, I'm the oldest child in my family, so I wasn't in the middle of that pack. Everything I've done, I always find myself, even when I try I actively try to be quiet, hold back, bite my tongue yeah, it doesn't last very long, cause I ended up being right up there in front and because I believe I can help. So how the heck did I see myself as medium? I don't know. I don't know, but, like I said, I never saw it as a derogatory term or a less than term. It was just a well, a medium height, medium size from the Midwest, it's all middle.
Speaker 2:You're in the middle of the country the country is my gig. You know, I am inspired by you by a lot of things, and this is one of the things that I'm inspired by you is that you don't um behave like you know medium you don't believe like a medium. I mean, and and I agree with you, it's not derogatory in any way, but it does have some there's some limiting ideas around that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely there can be. There can be limiting ideas around that, but I want to flip that. I want to flip that narrative. I want to reframe that because the way I see it and what I wrote about in the blog is about this you may be medium, you may be in the middle of a pack of people. You may be in the middle of an organization. You may be a middle manager, you may be. There could be lots of connotations with that, like being in the middle.
Speaker 1:It shouldn't be an excuse to not lead.
Speaker 1:It shouldn't be an excuse to not put yourself out there authentically and show them what you got, even if you feel like you're in the middle of something.
Speaker 1:Also, I didn't write this part in the blog because it came to me like afterwards, when I was getting such a great response from this blog.
Speaker 1:It shouldn't be that you put yourself forward as the expert or the person in charge when you're not right Right. So, thinking of myself as medium or in the middle, I enabled me to say, okay, I don't, I don't know about this thing, like if it's something to do with trigonometry, let's say, yeah, no, I'm not your person, I'm not going to step out and lead in that regard, cause I don't know anything about it. But if it's something I know something about, like, ask me any Disney trivia I I'm going to be out in front, right? So it shouldn't be an excuse. Even if you find yourself in the middle of something, it shouldn't be an excuse not to perform, not to lead, not to step out there and give what you've got to the team, and it also shouldn't be the vice versa right, you shouldn't always try to lead, and it enables you to be able to step back into that comfortable role and say, okay, I can lead, I can follow, in this case, instead of leading.
Speaker 2:Right. You know, it's also came to me that because I have this also this idea of average and I'm average again, I think we're alike in that way is that we feel this way, but in still, we became leaders and we lead and people who know us say hey, you're showing up as that. But you know, internally I feel kind of like I'm part of the group and also I feel like and I think I got this from my father Because he said really nobody knows, you know what's going on all the time with everything exactly, exactly so so if you're even though I'm feeling this way if there's a need for somebody to step up and at least start the ball rolling and get the, get the experts involved, and kind of.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's why we were both drawn to business operations, because we were the, the connecting of the dots, the get the best out of everybody the dot connectors, the just get it done.
Speaker 1:Make it happen people problem solving.
Speaker 2:You don't have to know the answer before you start. Kind of people and that leadership.
Speaker 1:So you know? You just reminded me of one time in grad school we had this guest professor who came in and he was a very challenging guy and what I mean by that. He would challenge us on things. He would ask provocative questions or put something out there and just sit in silence until someone responded or reacted. And that drives me crazy, even though I'm medium. It drives me crazy because I'm looking around, no one's answering, no one's responding, and we're just like sitting there in this uncomfortable, awkward silence.
Speaker 1:One day he had challenged us and he said how did you decide where you were going to sit when you came in the room today? How did you pick your seat that you were going to take your position at the table? Everybody was at the table in this case. But how did you decide where you were going to sit, who you were going to sit next to? Or maybe someone decided to sit next to you? How did you decide where you were going to sit, who you were going to sit next to? Or maybe someone decided to sit next to you? How did all that happen? What in your background contributed to that Right?
Speaker 1:So he's asking us these thought provoking questions and everything and he goes. Why, for example, did none of you sit down here? It was a U shaped table. Why did none of you sit down here in the middle of the floor? And I here it was a u-shaped table. Why did none of you sit down here in the middle of the floor? And I thought I was looking around, everyone was pondering and shaking their heads and looking very introspective about it and I'm like I grabbed my pin, my pad, and sat down in the middle of the floor. He goes okay, that was an unexpected reaction.
Speaker 2:That was yeah, that was not a medium reaction.
Speaker 1:That was not a medium reaction, for sure, but yeah so. But I was really inspired to write this blog also because of another thing. I have a client coaching client that I've been working with who doesn't see themselves as senior executive potential. Now, I see them as that, I see that in them, but they can't see it in themselves. They're like, no, I'm going to, you know, I'll be happy if I get to just the next level up and stop there. I'm like, okay, and so, as we're talking through it, I was thinking, you know, it's true, not everybody is going to be a senior executive.
Speaker 1:That doesn't mean that all the people who have the potential will be either, because there's very few of those spots. It's a, it's a apex or a mountain, if you about it Fewer spots as you get higher in the organization, and so I think this particular client is setting themselves up for not being disappointed if they don't go any further. But I was thinking about that and I'm saying so many people use it as an excuse I'm not saying this client's doing that because they're not, but use it as an excuse when they're in middle management or even lower level executive management to say, hey, I'm just doing what the bosses tell me, like, do you have a vision for where you'd like to go with your part of the organization? Oh no, I have to follow the bigger organization's vision. Well, ok, and what is your piece of that? Oh, I just do what is assigned to me and I just have my people do it. So that was the other reason I was inspired to write this blog was to say snap out of it. To quote Cher Snap out of it.
Speaker 1:You do not have to. Why are you letting those boundaries be your boundaries?
Speaker 2:They're artificial you choose to. If it's a conscious choice and it's not something you want, that's fine. But if you're doing it just because you don't want to be disappointed or embarrassed, or you know not be able to make your dream, you know it's better to not have such high hopes, I guess, or something that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's almost like they're people that find themselves in that situation are waiting for permission from somebody. Yeah, waiting for permission to somebody. Yeah, waiting for permission to be a leader, to show up, to have a vision and make that vision a reality. Do you have to comply with, whatever organization you're in? Yes, of course you do. That doesn't mean that you have no brain of your own or you can't lead from where you are, and it's an excuse, quite frankly, and I would challenge people who find themselves in that situation If you find yourself using it as an excuse, saying, oh well, I can't do that because so-and-so would never approve it or this would not fly. Well, how are you thinking about that creatively? How are you thinking about that about? Okay, here's the boundaries or control limits as I love your word on that within which I find myself. Or the bumpers, if you think about bowling. Right, here's the bumpers, so I can't, you know, go outside those bumpers, but man, there's a lot of space inside those bumpers.
Speaker 2:Well, and those are self-imposed bumpers.
Speaker 1:In a lot of cases, I agree with you. Yes, yes. And those are self-imposed bumpers. In a lot of instances, I agree with you. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So even I think, people that are so self-imposed, they have such a strong identity or belief in their own limitations that even when they have people who see the potential in them like you with your client, I would bet that you're not the only one that is seeing that potential in that person Yet that person still, like believes their own self-imposed limitations over even outside input Right.
Speaker 1:So I like it.
Speaker 2:It's like snap out of it, Snap out of it.
Speaker 1:You know, I think a lot of times it's under the umbrella of being humble, right? Well, there's a difference between being authentically humble and constraining or restricting yourself Right, artificially, like you just mentioned. You know, like that one person said to me I don't think you've ever worried about being in the limelight or being out in front, and you know what I'm human. I screw up, I do it a lot, yeah, but it's. The difference is, are you willing to put it out there, where you do make mistakes and maybe they're pretty visible, but then you learn and grow from those Right?
Speaker 2:All right, and even I mean we. We are the ones that care about our mistakes Mostly. Most other people forget about them. Yep, you know it's not that big a deal to blip on their radar and you know it might be something huge on ours. So well, this is wonderful. So thank you for sharing yourself with this and your mediumness. I had no idea that was your nickname. It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
Speaker 1:Right after the blog went out, I got a text message from another colleague, a friend of ours, and she said so should I start calling you medium now? And I said, well, only when I do really awesome things. And she said, oh, so then, like every day, which I thought was very funny. But you, you know, this is in line also, susan, with what we said we were going to do at the beginning of the year. We committed to this year sharing more of our personal stories and in this vlog, if you guys haven't read it, go read it. It's a short read, um, and you'll learn a lot more about my personal story and preview of coming attractions. Susan's going to be sharing a personal story next. It's going to be up to her.
Speaker 2:Yeah this is great. Well, and I do like this talking about the blogs, because we, I think we share a lot in our blogs, so not everybody reads the blogs and listens to the podcast, so, um, this is a nice way to do it. So so, if listeners, if you like this, let us know and we'll do more of it.
Speaker 1:Okay, absolutely All right. See you on the next one. Thank you, listeners, for joining us today. We hope that you were inspired by this conversation.
Speaker 2:And we invite you to join our community on Patreon See the link below. There you will find more resources to help you on your leadership journey.
Speaker 1:Make sure to join us next time for more conversation about leadership excellence.
