Welcome to the New Manager Podcast.
I'm your host, Kim Nichol. Hello and welcome.
I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well.
First, today I want to say thank you for listening, for being a
part of this community. I publish my podcast through
Spotify and so every year at the end of the year they do a
special wrapped edition for podcast hosts.
And so I learned. I learned that 84% of my
listening audience found this podcast just this year, which is
incredible. And I just want to thank you for
being a part of my audience and a part of this community.
Just I appreciate that so much. And for me, I know that there
are so many other podcasts I listen to.
There are probably a lot of podcasts you listen to.
So I want to make every episode useful and practical, which is
why I very rarely have guests. And I will tell you, I get
pitched a lot. There are a lot of people who
e-mail me and say, oh, I want to be on your podcast.
I wrote this book. I did this you know, thing, so
and so. But for me, you know, I really
think about how can I use our time together to support you in
a very practical and useful way. And if I'm going to bring a
guest on, I really want it to be the voice of someone that you
might not hear otherwise. And so I'm, I tend to be very,
you know, selective. And I don't often have guests,
as you know, which makes today's episode really special and
something I'm very excited to share with you because I
thought, who do I want to amplify?
What voices, what stories do I want you to hear?
What came to me was, oh, obviously it has to be you.
It's about your voices, your stories.
Because you are a current practitioner, you are in the
trenches every day. You are the one who is managing
people and taking the insights from this podcast, putting them
into practice. You are making it real and you
are learning things as you go. And so I am so pleased to
present and share with you today the very first Listener
Spotlight episode. In just a moment, you are going
to get to hear a conversation I had with Amber Lee.
She is incredible and I'm so glad that you get to hear her
story and the things that we talk about because she is a
people manager and I know for sure you are going to get a lot
of value from hearing what she has to say.
So if you are interested in potentially being in the
Listener Spotlight, then make sure that you get on my mailing
list. I'll put a link to that below in
the show notes, you'll want to go to kimnickel.com, the new
managers page and then get on the wait list for the group
program. That's how you get on the e-mail
list for all things related to managing people and to work.
And also get on that emailing list.
If you want to get my free training on self advocacy, that
is where you're going to find that.
And it has helped so many of my clients and students in so many
different ways. I would love for you to also
feel more confident speaking up for yourself in all kinds of
different situations at work. So you'll find that also on my
website kimnickel.com new managers and then get on the
wait list. So having said that, get ready
for an incredible conversation. Get ready to learn from the
wisdom and insight of Amber Lee, who is a manager.
And you were going to learn more about her.
Here we go. Welcome, Amber Lee.
I'm so glad you're here today. Thank you.
Thank you for having me. My pleasure.
Can we start by having you introduce yourself?
Just tell us a little bit about who you are, where you are and
what you do. Yes.
OK. So my name is Amber Lee.
I am based in London, in the UK and I work in mental health.
That's my background. So I've worked in mental health
for about 13 years now, mostly in kind of clinical and
community mental health teams. And I'm currently in my first
ever management role. I made the move last summer from
kind of clinical mental health teams to a small mental health
charity. But the role that I have stepped
into is head of Impact and communication, which is looking
less at the person to person support I used to give.
And instead kind of zooming out a little and having a look at
the impact of that person to person support is having on the
people that we're supporting and on our kind of wider mission
work that we're doing. So I'm a year and a half into
that role. So new role and new kind of
industry so to speak, moving in the nonprofit world.
And I manage a tiny team of two 2 1/2 but sometimes but two and
separate to that. I'm also an illustrator and I
run a small illustration studio and do lots of really wonderful
creative work as well, looking at representation and the
visibility of women of colour. Amazing.
And yeah, How did you find the podcast?
So about I had a three month notice period before heading
into headed into this role and I'm a bit of a over consumer
especially when I'm anxious or worried about something new like
I'm very much like give me all the information and I work out
what works. So I was looking for lots of
really wonderful resources to support me during that three
months of winding down the old role.
And before I stepped into this role, I was looking for specific
resources to support people that are about to become first time
or new managers. And because the name of the
podcast is so wonderfully titled and very original.
Trying to keep it simple, just be really clear about what we're
talking about today. Which works because the people
that are looking for it can find it, which is what happened to
me. So that's how it happened.
Oh, that's awesome. OK, so it sounds like then you
started listening to the podcast before you, like officially or
formally got into the role. And I'm so curious to know what
your experience was like when you first started in that role
and what like if there's anything you can remember about
how did listening to the podcast help you?
And I I'm actually, I'm probably asking too many questions all in
a row, but I'm gonna go with it anyways.
And the other question I I'm so curious about is, you know, like
what have you learned in your experience of being a new
manager that maybe wasn't obvious to you when you started?
Yeah, totally. OK, so this idea of how it felt
stepping into reality, what did it feel like to become a new
manager, having tried to do all the prep work that I could do
beforehand? It's interesting because I am a
people person and I think my my personality, my people
personness, but also my background kind of working in
mental health also lends itself well to being a people person.
So I feel like that helps a lot and that helps with the kind of
transitioning and meeting new people.
I love meeting new people. So there was a lot of ease in
that space. But I think what was most
surprising potentially, or didn't I didn't feel necessarily
prepped for, is just the logistics of transitioning from
being a worker, someone who is working in a team and doing,
doing their work and responsible for their work, to slipping into
a space where you are responsible for your work, but
also supporting others to be responsible for their work too.
I think there's something about that that felt like the biggest
transition for me. You know, you have your week,
you have your time that's scheduled, and it's very much,
you know, your time is your time.
You work out what you need to do for the week, and you're the
only person who might deter that.
And I think the biggest kind of thing for me to adapt to is that
actually when you step into a management role, the way in
which your time and energy and thoughts are going to be split
between you and the people that you manage is really different.
You have to shake off this whole I've got this to do.
When can I get that done? There's just more to it.
Yeah. Well, and I'm also hearing too
that the difference in mindset when you're just thinking about
the work that is yours to do versus you know, like all of the
people and all of the work that you're trying to manage on the
the people side of that. Yeah, absolutely.
And what was the, there was a the last question that you asked
that I really wanted to answer, but I can't remember what it is.
What was the last question you asked there?
Oh, I think it was Oh my goodness, I don't remember.
It will come to. Me.
There was something you said then I was, I really want to
touch on, but yeah, it will definitely come up and whatever
it is, I'm I would say to that I'm sure will come up in this
space. But it's just been a really
interesting transition from what you think management is to what
it is in reality, even with all the reading and all the
listening. That you do.
And, you know, I think that's OK.
I think that's so good to hear. You also acknowledge that
because I think there's only so much you can do to prepare
beforehand and then there's going to be the reality of what
it is. And I think there's a lot of
what I see is it's important to give ourselves grace for being
in that transition, you know, and to not be so hard on
ourselves. Like one of the things I see a
lot of it, I I don't know if this was your experience, so I'm
curious what you think. But there's often this kind of
background thought of, oh, if I'm getting this job as a
manager, somebody must think that I know what I'm doing.
And I've never done this before, so it can feel like there's this
extra pressure of am I supposed to know this already?
And it's OK. It's actually like, no.
Like, it's OK if you don't know this, 'cause you will learn as
you go and that can be so uncomfortable. 100% And that
taps into a lot for me because I, like many of us, do have this
kind of underlying perfectionism.
You know, you've got this. There's so many things that
contribute to that. I know a lot of them are just
kind of my schemers, just some of some of the some of the kind
of distortions that I carry with me, which is that if you're
going to do it, you kind of have to do it the best that you can
first time. Some of that is cultural and
kind of how I've been raised. You know, my parents, we're all
based in London now. My parents are Jamaican, and
they have this really wonderful I was raised by two Jamaican
parents who are, you know, who are raising children in England.
So they've got this kind of essence that they've taught us,
which is that you have to do something well and you have to
do it well because you're in this space and you might, you
know, there are, there are so many people that struggle to be
in this space and I've always been one of the only black women
in the spaces I exist in. So there's this kind of idea
that you have to be perfect because you've only just made it
into that space in the 1st place.
So I've always been very much like I pride myself on what I
can do well. So there's this huge adjustment
when you've done something really well for 13 years and
then you become in this new space where you're completely
relying from learning and getting things wrong and
uncertainty and all the rest of it.
So it has been a lot of a lot of grace and a lot of self
compassion. And one of the things I really
appreciate about your approach and your podcast is your
mindfulness and your, you know, your, your different layers of
you. And the fact that you have a
background in mindfulness and yoga and breath work and this
sort of stuff really taps into the language that I speak and
this idea of being compassionate and giving yourself grace.
It's been so helpful because I do naturally chastise myself,
myself, and I'm very aware of it.
And I'm like, of course you can't because you're doing this
for the first time. So get a grip and loosen up at
the same time. At the same time, do both of
those things. Because yeah, you don't know.
You won't know until you know. Yeah, and you know, you meant
you named something too. That I think is also so
important and often overlooked, which is the different cultural
layers that we are operating in. So both in terms of our personal
individual experience of our family and our, you know, our
heritage and also the context of the industry, different
industries have different cultural norms.
The country that you're in, or even within the country, the
whether you're in a very rural place or a very metropolitan
place, there are so many cultural layers that are always
in play that can influence both, I think the individual's
experience, like your experience of being a new manager, but also
can really affect the workplace in ways that I think we're not
always mindful of. And I'm really curious because I
know you've got this incredible background and intersectionality
of all these different dimensions.
And in your experience as a manager who has that
perspective, is there anything that you've noticed or that has
helped you or that you've just observed as a huge kind of
oversight in, you know, like like training or advising like
as people are moving into leadership roles?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a brilliant question.
So you touched on intersectionality, and I do so
much work, both research wise and in mental health, on
intersectionality. And I think that there's
something about looking at the different layers of people's
identities that are intersecting and are going to, no matter
what, influence how someone presents and how they perceive
things. I think just having that as a
lens from the outset in all support and conversations and
inducting into new roles and into new levels is helpful
because it helps us to remember that there isn't A1 size fits
all view of what a manager should look like.
Because this idea of representation and how much it
matters works the other way. Because when all of the managers
that you've seen and what leadership and authority looks
like is very homogeneous, then straightaway you have a warped
view of what does that look like for me.
Then what's my leadership style when all the managers that I've
seen kind of both popular culture and in real life have
looked nothing like me and we don't have any layers of
intersecting identity in in in common.
I think there's something about keeping that lens at the centre
and and reminding through training and conversations and
transparency that as you are stepping into your leadership
and working out and growing through it, remember that what
looks right on other people might look different to you
because you've got all these wonderful layers of identity
coming into it. And that can only help if you
harness it, rather than feeling like this is the bit I need to
get rid of so that I can step into this very samely version of
what Angela's like. Yeah, that really resonates with
me and also with what a lot of the conversations I have with my
clients also bring up what you talked about in terms of the
perfection part and this also this question of belonging.
So the sense of when you kind of step into the room of leadership
and you're kind of looking around to figure out how am I
supposed to conduct myself here or what does success look like
here? If you only have one kind of
example or kind of a limited set of examples in front of you, it
can be really easy to then discount your own perspective,
which might be different because you've had a different life
experience and so you see things in a different way.
And so sometimes, like a lot of the work is learning how to
trust that who you are is valuable just because of who you
are. And so the way that you lead and
manage might be different. And that can be such a value to
the organization and the team and it can be so scary to also
learn to you know, is it safe enough to trust my own
perspective and judgement here as I'm doing something new and
I'm noticing that it might be different and how it's, you
know, kind of being role modeled for me like that takes, I feel
like that's something that I don't know.
I I feel like that's in that that is often not acknowledged,
but is very present in the room. Could not agree more.
I think. I think that lesson is brand new
for me. It might be in the last couple
of months. I think that I'm finally, you
know, you kind of go all around the houses just to get to the
point where you're like I think the answer is here.
I don't think it's out here because I have always had quite
a strong sense of self where again because of my wonderful,
wonderful parents who are really you have to have a strong sense
of self, right. There's something that comes
really naturally to those who are living in a country they
weren't raised in, that's just ultra robust and wonderful and
multi layered already. So I've got that from them and
it I think it took me a while to settle into this new dynamic and
now I'm like, OK, your instinct is probably the thing that will
lead the way. Still, I think I need, I need to
work that out and and hone that and make sure I know what I'm
doing. But that makes complete sense to
me and really resonates this idea of trust and trusting
yourself. Yeah, I am also curious, I'm
looking at some of the comments that you shared with me when you
you first reached out and I'm so excited 'cause you're but you're
the first listener that I'm getting to talk to and and I
have to just share like just as context.
So you know, like I very rarely have guests.
I'm starting to think differently about that.
But I started thinking about, you know, my listeners, right.
And I was thinking, I know, I know that my listeners are
resourceful and I know from. I've heard from some of them,
it's so interesting. Very few of my listeners leave
reviews, but many of them will just find me on LinkedIn and
send me a message saying, oh your.
Your episode really helped me. This has been so helpful.
So it's very interesting, but it just occurred to me it would be
really nice to have some conversations with folks because
I know that your listening and I've heard people say like oh I
listen on the bus and then I, you know, implement something at
work. And so I was so curious to hear
more about how the show has helped you and what is different
now that you're, you know, kind of implementing things.
Like what is different? Because I know also other people
are listening and you have wisdom and insight that might
also help people think about, right?
Like, especially if your organization doesn't give you
support, which a lot of organizations are just not set
up to do. So it's like we find our own,
our own resources because we're resourceful people.
So I'm really delighted that, like you were one of the first
people who said yes, I will talk, Let's have a conversation.
I jumped at it as soon as I saw the e-mail.
I was like count me in to whatever this is 100%.
Oh my gosh, that is so awesome. OK, what are your thoughts about
like, now that you've been a year plus ish in your manager
journey, your leadership role, What advice would you want to
give if you could go back to yourself, you know, a year and a
half ago? What would you want to tell
yourself? Yes, OK.
I think, and funnily enough, I'm pretty sure, that what I would
tell myself then is probably what I need to tell myself now
as well. Which is?
But I think that the advice I'd want to give is to really spend
time and effort honing the kind of collective collaboration of
the team. Really focus on all of us,
however many of that is. And my team is tiny.
There's three of us all together, 3 1/2, really spend
time honing the collective destination that we're trying to
get to and kind of harnessing the language and mindset and
community, the kind of unity, type spirit that's required for
different people from different backgrounds to all work towards
the same goal. I think that again, working as
an individual for so long, I have quite an individualistic
mentality. I think that what I'm learning
is that kind of being in this role and being in the team that
I'm in because again, impacts and communications are such
wonderful complementary departments.
But ultimately I'm, I'm head of two different departments,
right? You've got communications and
impact and we're a tiny organization.
So both of my team members also sit for some days of the week in
another bit of the organization because all of us are doing dual
roles. And so I think because of the
fragmentation and the resourcefulness that's required
for being such a tiny team, spending that time to ensure
that we're all on the same path together, working towards a
common goal, it's just a really wonderful use of time and it's
worth doing as soon as possible. And as you're thinking about
that now too, what does that look like?
Like How do you connect more with the team?
Totally, totally. This is so helpful, these
questions because I'm just really reflecting on this out
loud now. So I spent and spend a lot of
time talking 1:00 to 1:00 to each team member working really
closely together of course for relationship building in the
first in the kind of early days, but also in terms of development
and clarity and looking at workloads and things like that.
So one to one, conversations are crucial.
I think what I would have done and what I'm trying to do more
of now is making sure there are more collective conversations
with all of us at the table. Because even when it when we
talk about workload, there's there's a joy in trans and
transparency and there's a real benefit to transparency of
workload. There's an empathy that comes
from knowing what the other people are up to.
There's more room for collaboration when talking
together so that actually different people can say, ah,
that's really interesting because I'm doing this thing on
data and I'm wondering how that might connect to this thing
you're doing on social media or how you're trying to communicate
our organizational vision on LinkedIn.
So I think there's something about collective collaborative
conversations, more team spaces for the kind every time there's
a one to one conversation kind of questioning, oh, is this
something that could be beneficial for us to talk about
as a team? And that's not to take away from
1:00 to 1:00 conversations, because I think the relationship
you have with each team member is crucial and it builds trust
and it builds kind of connectivity.
But I think that there can be fragmentation, fragmentation
that happens there. Yeah.
By being together. Yeah, I'm really hearing there's
that perspective shift and and especially in the sense of what
is the one-on-one conversation for like, how do you use that to
be effective? And then the thought of, oh, and
how do we use a collective conversation and how does that
benefit us? And helping to talk about the
vision and create the empathy and understanding workloads.
You know, and you mentioned transparency, which I I think is
so great. And people I think can sometimes
get a little bit lost in knowing you know, like kind of what the
guidelines are on that. And the way that I heard you
describe, it really is about thinking from the perspective of
what will be helpful to know, like who needs to know what and
why, right? And that kind of I think
perspective can help guide like what you share and when and why.
What do you think? Totally.
I think that's that's spot on. And I think having this kind of
lens or having this filter, I see it a lot like a a bit of AI.
Don't know if funnel is the right metaphor or a bit of a
sieve, I guess. And the sieve, the questions and
the critical thinking, the kind of going meta.
And I guess what I want to do, or what I'd love to do is to
really keep this sieve in place so that lots of things are
happening up here. This is where all the work
happens, but it's always going through the same questions that
just remind me like a bit of a checklist.
Like, you should know about this.
How could it help? Would this be more helpful or
harmful? Will it add to people's clarity?
Or will it be more overwhelming to know what everyone else is
doing and there feels like what there needs to be?
And this is a practice I'd love to do more of, that I'm doing
more of in the past few months. It's just having this in place
to help support me with the kind of questions I'm asking, but
also make sure it's consistent and that people can start to
rely on that process happening because it always happens.
Yes. Oh my gosh, that's really good.
And I feel like my brain is going in like multiple
directions at once and I'm trying to track my thoughts as
you share that because it because and you know tell me
your experience. But what I really see a lot of
too is that when we become managers, you now have more
perspective on what's happening higher up.
You're in different meetings, you're in different
conversations. So you might get more
perspective about what the leadership is trying to
accomplish and how. And so then there's also like
you're in this unique position to convey to your team like how
they fit into the big picture or how the goals are maybe changing
this quarter or you know, just helping them understand like why
are, why are we doing this specific thing, you know, in the
in the weeds. And it can be sometimes like,
oh, right, like sometimes that job is, oh, help, let me help
make sense of why we're going in this direction, right?
Because you have now access to conversations that your team
does not. Totally, totally.
And it's a really interesting, I guess the circumstances are
interesting because being a small team, there's three of us
in the leadership team, which is myself, a colleague and our
chief exec. So us three form leadership team
and then we have four other team members that form the different
kind of departments. So we're actually a really tiny
team with very minimal layers, right.
And we all work alongside each other.
And it's interesting because my role, my colleagues role, one
newly created role from an organization that simply had
four or five people. Everyone did everything.
And part of our kind of growth and development as an
organization was to hire 2 new heads of department, which is
how we joined last year. So it means that I'm also
sitting within. All of us are sitting within a
huge organizational shift. Our team culture is changing.
Even things like how we define and create our work strategy,
how that's communicated is really different now.
Now in my in my kind of time that I've joined from what it
was like for them just before I had joined, which was that we
all kind of muck in, just work out what works for us this year
and kind of do it, and it served them really, really well.
So much had happened in the kind of seven years they existed
until this, which is our 8th year.
So now we are on 9th year should know.
So now that we have more layers and that we are more kind of
formalizing our processes, there's also a lot of support
and conversations needed around the new structure and the
formalization of processes and kind of getting to know and
getting used to this new team that we're working in, whilst
also coming to terms with how different it is from before
where decisions were discussed and passed down in a much more.
Everyone just knows about it straight away kind of way,
whereas now we have formal processes.
So that's been quite complex as well for everyone.
Yeah, but like the change management part, like helping
people understand what change is happening and why, how it will
affect them. And and I don't know for you
too, but I in my experience too sometimes even just
acknowledging like, yes, things are different now and different
folks might have different feelings about that and that's
OK. But like, this is how we're
going to do it now. That's exactly it.
And that again, we've got these kind of words of grace and
compassion and patience and transparency, and these are all
the things that I think are going to carry us, have carried
us and will carry us through because we're all working
towards a common goal, which is the work that we do and the
people that we support and us having a wonderful time at work.
That's kind of the aim of the game at all times.
Yeah, it's just a really patient process.
Yes, OK. I know this new thought also
just came in. How do you think about how you
measure success, right? Like how do you know when you
are doing a good job? How do I this is so big?
Because I do think about this often I I keep going back and
forth around whether I'm doing a good job or not or not.
So this is an interesting one and I don't know if I've got a
definitive answer to it, but my thoughts at the moment, a lot of
it is gut feeling. So I have this thing around.
I have this internal benchmark, which is the case professionally
and personally around contentment.
And feeling content and content is a really immeasurable feeling
in terms of science, in terms of quantifying it.
But I know that feeling content with decisions that are being
made that I'm making, feeling content with the way that
projects have been carried out or the way that we feel at the
end of the quarter. For me, it's like, yes, you're
doing a good job. You're doing a good job.
Because I think my instinct is quite strong, which means I can
feel really uneasy when things, when I feel like I can recognize
where things could have been better or where I could have
done something differently or where I tried something and
realized afterwards that ah, there might have been a better
way to do it. The uneasiness comes straight
away and kind of hits me. And I think is this the moment
that you can confirm that you're not doing a good job?
So feeling content for me is one of the Bain benchmarks and I'm
also really learning how to step into vulnerability as a manager,
which is also ultra new for me. OK, tell us about that.
Very, very new for me. And that is because having
worked in mental health for as long as I have, there is a
warmth and empathy and connection that you have with
every single person that you meet day-to-day.
That has to happen without sharing anything about yourself
or not sharing too much about yourself, right?
So you're spending in an 8 hour day, you might have assessed 6
new people into a community mental health service.
You might have spoken to, you know, 20 people in a in a week
and formed wonderful connections with them and found out about
their history and their mental health history and their biggest
complexities. Right now when you have to have
these conversations and create these really beautiful
connections by only sharing kind of your personality and your
charac and your character and your authenticity, but not much
about you personally. Because in a mental health space
and in a clinical space, one, it's not appropriate.
And two, in that very limited time your focus is on the person
in front of you. And because I am a people person
and I really enjoy being around people but I am really good and
really well practiced in being able to have that connection
without having to share much about myself just because it's
it's not appropriate in the in the industry that I've come
from. So to learn, which I did learn
in a very surprising, startling way that vulnerability is really
important to management and that leadership is is a really like a
really key part of leadership is being able to be vulnerable.
And I really struggled with that because it wasn't quite a
natural language for me. I couldn't quite work out what
does that look like. Like I know what this term means
dictionary definition. I know how to do it in every
space that I'm able to be, but work has not usually been one of
those spaces and that and I and that.
I don't need that for connection, so that I didn't
need it at the time. I absolutely need it now in this
new space that I'm in and this new context I'm in.
But I've just had a really tough time trying to work out just
simply not knowing. So what?
What should I be sharing and what shouldn't I be?
And what are the rules of engagement here?
What does vulnerability look like in a way that doesn't feel
inappropriate? Yeah, you know, that's there's
so many things in what you've just shared it that I think are
just so, so great. And one of them was the
acknowledgement of part of what's required when you were in
a different stage of your career was keeping your personal self
really contained and organized, like separate, right.
And then realizing where you are now in your career, you it
actually requires you to expand your skill set and your way of
thinking and learning how to do that differently and that it can
feel disorienting. And you know, like how do I do
this and what are the rules of engagement?
And so, and I think that's something that happens a lot
with folks, right? Whether it's around the
transparency piece or just, you know, with the managers too,
sometimes the thing that made them really successful as the
individual worker is they're really good at just saying yes
to everything and then doing it until it's done.
And as a manager, that's actually not your job, right?
And that shift can sometimes feel like very jarring.
And so having that self-awareness to acknowledge,
OK, the thing that I measured my success by before, I'm going to
need to adjust that. And that is a complete learn as
you go, right, Because no one tell you what vulnerability
looks like for you, only you know that.
So this has been completely earned as you go and having all
these internal are you doing a good job?
Do you feel like you 100% know what you should be doing?
These are the kind of conversations that I would never
have felt able to have in my in the early days of this role,
that just felt like it was a no go, like to be in this role,
What? How could you kind of confess
that? I'm even using the word confess
because it feels like this illicit secret that I shouldn't
be telling any, I shouldn't be telling anyone.
Yes, and now we're all going to know because we all listen to
the podcast. Welcome to.
My world. Well, and it's still great that
you're sharing your world, right, because we often don't
get to talk about this with our colleagues.
And you know it's a different, it's just a different kind of
conversation. So you know, it's like yes, yay
to all of that. And when you talked about having
an internal sense of success and for you that sense of
contentment with your decisions and that internal orientation I
think is also so, so important. I'm also a huge advocate of
that. And I think that when we step
into a new role, it is important to understand how are you going
to measure your sense of success?
How will you know if you're doing well or not?
Because often if you're a very, you know, if you're used to
being good at things, there's a part of your brain that's going
to be searching for, am I being good at this?
Am I doing a good job? Right.
And especially when you're a really heart centered person and
you care about your people and your work, you're going to want
to know, am I doing a good job for my team, for my people?
And if we don't have, you know, a clear sense of that, number
one, it's really easy to feel like you're failing all the time
when maybe that's actually not what's happening at all, right?
It's like you're not failing. It just feels super weird
because you've never been here before, right?
And you're kind of learning something new.
So that might be what you're experiencing.
And sometimes what happens is we do need to make decisions that
maybe people don't agree with or they don't love.
Or you arguing something in a bit of a new way and you might
be getting a little bit of the raised eyebrow from, you know,
the leadership team, like you're oh, you're doing it that way.
You know, we haven't done it that way before, but OK right.
Like those are the kinds of things that if we don't know how
to like what to do with that feedback, right.
It can, it can land in a way that makes us smaller and
creates more self doubt. So having a clear sense of OK,
like success means that I feel content with my decisions.
You know, if if other people are unhappy, that's OK, right.
Like, I can see why that would be.
And it doesn't mean I'm doing a bad job.
Yeah, so I love what you had to share about that too.
Totally. And it's it's that idea of
feeling small. So many of the feelings I've had
over the past year or so has often been selfed out because
again, if you're not 100% sure that you know what you're meant
to be doing in the first place. In certain things or certain
decisions or the way that things are being delivered when it has
happened or when you are kind of performing in your role and
doing what you need to do, there are going to be moments where
you're like this is where the self doubt kicks in.
And interestingly, another feeling that I noticed came up a
lot for me is guilt. I often feel really guilty
because I'm like could this have been done better?
And if it if it could have been, then I kind of consume that as
guilt. So I've really had to kind of
talk my talk myself around that, talk myself through that to make
sure that I'm not carrying guilt.
Guilt is such a what is the word unhelpful feeling I feel to to
carry just gets in the way of doing what you should be doing,
which is working out how it could be, how it could be
better, basically. And learning as you go, right?
Like it's OK to learn as you go. We're all doing it.
Totally. And I think psychological safety
comes in a lot with this because I'm the self doubt that we spoke
about and the kind of uncertainty and the ground
feeling shaky it doesn't help when it comes to psychological
safety and that is very important to me.
I need to feel psychologically safe and the team I know
especially my team thinking about them particularly.
But all teams need to have psychological safety in their
workplace. So that actually there's room to
learn as you go and there's room to do something and try it and
it not work out and it not be seen as a failure.
That kind of has a lesson. None of that will happen if it
doesn't feel like a psychologically safe
environment. And that's another thing that
probably has been one of my biggest lessons over the last
year and a half, just really channeling and centering and
focusing on how do we improve psychological safety in this
space. Yeah.
And that's something too. I really see as a very like
that's where we can take the lead on that.
We can create that for ourselves by not being a harsh judge or a
harsh critic, by seeing learning as learning and and like
creating more safety for ourselves internally.
And that also then starts to role model and helps us kind of
set the tone for others, right, because every organization is
different. And you know, depending on the
organization that you're in, you might be a 10 out of 10 on
psychological safety or it might be more like a three out of 10
and you're trying to create a little pocket of it, you know,
in your team. So that awareness of, yeah, I
think #1 awareness that it's a, it's a real thing.
It is super valuable and we have the ability to influence that
and we can start small within, which is actually a really big
deal. Yeah, I think you're so right
about this idea of, you know, it's so funny how many concepts
feel like one rule for us and one rule for everyone else.
But psychological safety absolutely starts, starts with
us. And you're right that me being
more compassionate myself and remembering that I'm learning as
I go. Is one of the best ways to start
creating is to model a psychological, psychologically
safe environment rather than making it purely theoretical.
There's something about it, starting with us.
Absolutely. And I find there's a lot of
relief in that too, because you might be in an organization or
facing circumstances that actually makes psychological
safety really difficult, but it doesn't make it less important
or less valuable. So knowing that even if you can
bring a little bit of it, even if it's just in your in your
team, it still makes a difference.
I, you know, I think because sometimes you'll, you will have
a really toxic environment or a really terrible manager or just
a really good person who's very unskillful and so there managing
in a way that is just not that effective.
And so being, you know, if you're the person who has that
manager or is who is trying to lead A-Team within that context,
right. It might be harder, but it's no
less important. And knowing that, OK, I can
bring a little bit of it, you know?
Yeah, couldn't agree more. And I'm really looking forward
to continuing to dive into that. Actually, I think working out
what that looks like for us and our team, what that looks like
for me, yeah, it was really new. I'm kind of looking forward to
that. Totally.
You know, this is also kind of making me think of what you
talked about earlier when we were speaking to
intersectionality and just the awareness of different
identities, because also so as a manager, we have this for
ourselves, right? Understanding what that means,
you know for you individually, but also when you understand
that that is a thing, right? And you have people on your team
who also have different identities and different layers
of how they experience you know the world and how the world
experiences them. That also can be a way to create
psychological safety just by being aware.
Like everyone on your team is not the same, and they might
have different experiences that are not visible to you or that
you're not aware of. But they might be there and they
might be influencing how this person is performing or you know
what is or isn't happening. And even just knowing that
that's also in the room I think can be really helpful.
What are your thoughts? Completely.
That's we talk a lot. I talk a lot about duality and
this idea of us each being more than one thing, and often those
things can feel conflicting, but actually it's just a result of
us being complex humans. We're just very complex people
that are often more than one thing that sit in, that feel
like they sit in different spaces.
And I think it everyone benefits and everyone wins.
When there's a general assumption that our different
identities and different ways of being are going to intersect to
lead to a really unique experience for everyone, nothing
is going to work for everyone. I think it's just really safe to
assume that as a as a default, which means that all points,
everything is person centered. That just feels like a really
great rule, blanket rule for me. Nothing is going to work for
everyone and it's important that we're really considering the
different layers and the kind of duality that each person brings
because luckily we're a small enough team.
I feel like I have a small enough team to be able to do
that and it feels like a a great way to, yeah to to harness the
power of visibility I think, and ensuring that each person is
being seen. I think that also what also
comes to mind too that I love about this is you know, the
remembrance that it's person centered, that the same thing
doesn't need to work for everyone.
So again, like we're learning as we go and also I even feel the
conversation when you were talking about you know,
transparency and vulnerability also really rising.
The people on your team might also be struggling to know, like
how open to be with also what's going on, right?
So 'cause as as the manager too, we don't necessarily need to pry
into people's personal lives, but we just want to be aware
that they have them and that there might be something
happening, you know, outside the workplace that perhaps they
don't wish to share. It might be very, very personal,
but it can still be affecting kind of what we're experiencing
when we're working together. That makes complete sense and it
reminds me. So it's a bit of a parallel
example of the approach that we have to reasonable adjustments
and supporting those with accessibility needs, which is
that some accessibility needs are invisible.
So the key is to ensure that accessibility is open to
everyone, so those who disclose can benefit from it.
For those who don't disclose either because they don't want
to, because they don't feel like they have to, are still
benefiting from the more accessible physical space, for
example, or the more accessible way of learning that's being
provided. So it kind of feels like that
that was like a very parallel example to me.
Yeah. Oh my gosh.
This has been such a rich and valuable conversation and it's
been wonderful to meet you and hear about your experience and
all of your insights and learnings.
Is there anything I haven't asked you that you want to be
sure you get to share? I guess there's something, one
of the things that I've been thinking about a lot, we've
touched on it a little bit, but is the idea of stepping into a
new manager role with a small team and what that feels like in
comparison to stepping into a new manager role with a huge
team. I this has been my only
management role when I found it really interesting what has come
up in terms of kind of people management and change management
and relationship building and just some of the dynamics that
have come up in a really tiny team of what that feels like.
It still feels like it takes up so much time and it's so energy
filling. And I guess the the one of the
conclusions that I've made in the past couple of months is
that whilst I think it's been really helpful for me to start
really small and have this small team, it feels like there is no
less work to come round to learning how to be a leader or
to develop your leadership with a tiny team versus a big team.
It's no less work, it's no less energy.
There is no respite that comes from having a tiny team.
The learning is just as big, I imagine as it would be with a
huge team. And that has been huge for me.
I did. At the start I thought, I'm sure
it's 2 1/2, have a great time, it's going to be good.
And all the lessons just came flowing out day and a half.
And I thought, OK, no, that's. A really important reminder.
I'm really glad you said that. So just because you're managing
a team of like 2 1/2 people, it doesn't mean that the learning
is smaller or easier. It's still you know.
And just on a on a perfectionist note, you don't want to feel
like you can't ask for help, that you shouldn't be struggling
to learn just because it's a tiny team.
Like your challenges are just as valid.
There are going to be people that are managing teams of 20
and 30, but you are no less worthy of working out what on
earth you're doing just because your team is tiny.
Oh my gosh, 100% yeah. Like, watch out for the thought,
which is, I should be able to do this on my own, because XY and
Z, right? Ask for help.
Help is available. Find it.
It's it's OK. Totally, totally.
Yeah. Well, I just thank you so much
for being here and for sharing. And yeah, I'm really glad that
you got to come on today. Me too.
I've really, really enjoyed this conversation.
I enjoyed all of your podcast episodes, but it's just been
really wonderful to chat to you. And even in our conversation,
there were lots of things that I probably would have scribbled
down if I was listening to this in my head.
So I probably will. Yeah, listen that because it's,
you know, it's different when you're in the conversation
versus when you're listening to it and be like, oh, that was
really good. The thing that I said that I
don't remember so. I think it's more of a thing
that you've said. But yeah, I'll keep, I'll keep
my eyes open and see what comes out.
But totally, one of the things I've just really appreciated
about you is that your multidisciplinary lens, There's
something about the fact that it comes from a place of
mindfulness and meditation and breath work.
That is the holistic approach that I need, especially with my
career background. But just me as a person, I need
that lens to be able to receive info.
So it's been. Yeah, it's really.
Helpful. Oh, I'm so, so glad.
Thank you so much. Thank.
You lovely to meet you. When you're more effective at
work, you're happier in your life.
And when you're happier in your life, you're more effective at
work. I can help.
Go to my website kimnickel.com and sign up for a coaching
consult. It can get better.