Become a Leader Not Just a Boss: Managing Teams with Integrity with David Hatch #97

Struggling with the shift from doing the work to leading the work? You’re not alone. For many first-time managers and founders, the leap into leadership is one of the toughest transitions they’ll ever face — bringing challenges like imposter syndrome, micromanagement tendencies, and even loneliness.

In this episode, we explore how to navigate that tricky middle ground between being “one of the team” and stepping into your new leadership role with clarity and confidence. You’ll learn how to avoid common pitfalls, build trust, and take simple steps to lead with greater self-awareness, integrity, and connection.

In this episode Al McBride speaks with leadership coach David Hatch about the six key challenges new managers face — and what to do about them. Whether you’ve just been promoted or you’re building a team from scratch, this conversation will help you grow into the leader your people need.

GUEST BIO:

Everyone has a story to tell about a bad manager. David Hatch is on a mission to change that by bringing great leadership to every new manager he meets. David helps new managers and first time founders with their leadership skills, so they can become leaders not bosses, lead with integrity, and build happier, higher performing teams, more effective organisations, and, ultimately successful businesses.

David has over 20 years of leadership experience, a MSc in Business and Management and is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management.

TOPICS EXPLORED:

• Transitioning from doing the work to leading the work: why it’s one of the toughest career shifts
• The hidden complexity of being promoted from within and managing former peers
• Six core leadership challenges every new manager faces: from imposter syndrome to uncertainty
• Micromanagement vs. hands-off leadership: finding the right balance
• Why loneliness is a common (but overlooked) struggle for new leaders
• The importance of early conversations to align expectations with your team
• How self-awareness lays the foundation for authentic leadership
• The power of networking for emotional support and leadership development
• Using fictional leadership archetypes to uncover personal leadership values

RESOURCES:
 David Hatch's Leadership Hero Quiz: https://leadingwithintegrity.co.uk/leadership-resources/leadership-hero-quiz/

CONNECT WITH DAVID HATCH:

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidhatch-leadernotaboss/

If you're interested in more visit ▶ https://almcbride.com/minicourse
for a free email minicourse on how to gain the psychological edge in your negotiations and critical conversations along with a helpful negotiation prep cheat sheet.

If you enjoyed this episode of Dealing with Goliath Podcast, hit subscribe to hear about our latest episodes.

Transcript

Al McBride 0:00
No, I have Welcome to the dealing with Goliath podcast. The mission of dealing with Goliath is to sharpen the psychological edge of negotiation, ethical influencing and high impact conversations for business leaders who want to be more effective under pressure and cover hidden value and build greater connection and business relationships, all while increasing profitability. This is the shorter form espresso shot of inside podcast interview to boost business performance using our five or so questions in 15 or so minutes, my guest today is David hatch. Now everyone has a story to tell about a bad manager. David hatch is on a mission to change that by bringing great leadership to every new manager. He meets, David helps new managers and first time founders with their leadership skills so they can become leaders, not bosses, lead with integrity and build happier, higher performing teams, more effective organizations and ultimately, successful businesses. David has over 20 years leadership experience, an MSc in Business and Management, and is a fellow of the Institute of leadership and management. David, welcome to the show. Well,

David Hatch 1:12
thank you for having me. Great to be here. Great to have you here.

Al McBride 1:15
And there's quite a few things I want to pick your brain about here. So let's start off just giving people a bit of context. So we have an idea from the little intro there. But Who's your ideal client and what are some of the bigger challenges they face?

David Hatch 1:31
Yeah, I mean, I kind of already answered it in the profile, didn't I? I've preempted the question, sorry, yeah, I think it look, it's, it's first time as people who are, they might be new managers in big companies. They might be first time founders, starting their own organization, for the first time growing a team. And what I'm really interested in is people who are in that moment of transition in their leadership, if that makes sense,

Al McBride 1:54
interesting. So is this going from being kind of a follower to now you're managing your own team or a high performer in your own right, and then you're suddenly have these four or five people under you or something. Is that?

David Hatch 2:05
Yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah. I mean, there's lots of transitions and moments of change in our careers, aren't they? And I've found this particular type quite interesting, because I feel like it's one of, if not the most difficult one you'll do, especially the first time. And you're right. I mean, it's that going from doing the work to leading the work, that that point there is, you know, it's a real challenge.

Al McBride 2:29
That's a great clarifier. So what are some of the biggest challenges people face when they're moving, as you say, from doing to leading the work?

David Hatch 2:38
Mean, some of there's a lot some of them, I guess. I mean, the most common ones, it's that changing relationship with the people around you, especially if you're doing it within the same organization, if you've been like promoted from within. So you've got that added complexity. Then of people that have been your colleagues and teammates for however long, and suddenly you're leading them. You're making decisions about their work. You're expected to inspire and motivate them as well, but you're used to just being like one of the people, and it's a difficulty

Al McBride 3:09
that is a challenge. All right, so what are the common mistakes people make when they're trying to solve that? What do they tend to go to first? It doesn't work out so great for

David Hatch 3:19
them. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if mistake is the word I would use. I think, I mean, there certainly are some things people do that are probably unhelpful, like, micromanagement is the classic one at this point as well. Because again, when you're so used to doing it yourself, like the temptation is to either just do it yourself, still anyway, in which case, like, what's the point of being in the leadership role? Or you just, you're like, micromanaging to the nth degree, and you're standing over people's shoulder and you're like tutting at them, or saying, well, that's not the way I would do it. Or you're insisting on them following your way of doing it instead of finding their own way, and things like that. But I think veering away from the mistake word a little bit. I don't know if there's one single option here, either, necessarily, but broadly speaking, I see kind of six areas where new managers, first time leaders will will struggle, right? I prefer to call them leadership challenges, if you will. Yeah, yeah. Like, they're things to overcome. They're not, you know, be all and end all. But so it's things like knowledge gaps, low confidence, imposter syndrome is quite common. Loneliness, dealing with uncertainty is big, given recent years and obviously the one I've mentioned already about those relationships and interactions at work,

Al McBride 4:41
absolutely, some really interesting with our interesting ones there that you mentioned, because, as you said, loneliness is key thing that a lot of people don't think about because it's not really talked about. Is it that, as you said, you were one of the gang, one of the group, one of the team, and then all of a sudden you meant to lead them? And. I was thinking earlier, when you were saying and you were rightly, were some of the challenges they have. One which you mentioned, was micromanaging and trying to control too much. But it also occurred to me that it's one of those things that can be the two extremes that other people are like, oh, I'll just leave them to their own devices. They're great because I used to work with them, but they're actually not feeling supported and led. They're feeling somewhat directionless. So it can go either way, right? Yeah,

David Hatch 5:26
absolutely, absolutely, and yeah. I think for me, one of the best ways out of that is to have the conversation early on and find out, like, how do people best work? Because some people prefer to just be left to their own devices, and as long as they deliver, everything's fine, whereas other people will maybe expect that level of micromanagement that's just what they're comfortable with and used to. And I think it if that's the case. I mean, maybe humor them to start with, but kind of wean them off it, if you like. It's not the right language, is it? But, and

Al McBride 6:00
what? What, you know, what are the thoughts on the loneliness part? Because, as I said, it's something that's often goes under the surface,

David Hatch 6:09
yeah, although, interestingly, I'm hearing it talked about a bit more recently. I mean, there's that cliche, isn't there about it being lonely at the top. And I think, like a lot of these sayings, they exist for a reason. And it is true. I mean it. I mean not just in that, that sense of like, all of your mates and your friends that you've been working with suddenly are treating you differently because you've been promoted and they haven't, but even if you're not promoted from within, so you're going into a new organization and being a leader for the first time. I mean, that can be quite lonely as well. And depending on the organization you're in and the culture and how it works as well, it can be like, almost intentionally isolating, because they want leaders to be apart from everyone else. So it's, yeah, it's one of those things where, yes, it's a thing, but it doesn't have to be. We maybe talk about that in a subsequent question, if you like,

Al McBride 7:09
Absolutely, because the next session is, you know, what's one valuable free action that the audience could implement that will help them with some of these issues?

David Hatch 7:17
Exactly, yeah. And it is tough to answer. And I've listed so many of them, I kind of made a rod from my own back there, didn't I? But yeah, I think, I mean, let's pick loneliness, and we'll come back to that definitely. But I think the first thing is that leadership is a journey, isn't it? It's, you know, the first step on that journey has to be, if you want to be a great leader, at least you want to be good at it and efficient at it and all these other nice words, self awareness has to be the first thing like knowing who you are, your values, the way you work and what you want to be as a leader. And if you can define that relatively early on and use that as kind of your touchstone, your jumping off point in everything you do as leader, your daily interactions, your decisions, things you say to other people, the way you behave at work, even that, that has to be give you a great foundation for anything else. So if we come back to the loneliness, I guess, as I say, I'm hearing it quite a lot, and we've talked about the cliche already, so I won't go back to that. But one thing I found really helpful that I really, really wish, in hindsight, I'd done much earlier in my career, is networking. So if you're a business owner, I mean, that's you're probably doing it anyway from a more of a sales mindset, but actually it can be quite useful for building up a network of, like a support network, people who are going through similar things as you, who are business owners, who are first time leaders and having that sort of shoulder to lean on, if you like, maybe not cry on, depending on the situation, but it's someone to talk through those challenges with, isn't it, who can empathize, but in that sort of slightly detached, low stakes way, where you don't feel like you're being too vulnerable to the people you work with exactly, and if you're a manager or an employee, then do a bit of internal networking, perhaps, absolutely meeting, building relationships with people who aren't in your team, but they're still in your company.

Al McBride 9:15
Maybe it's something I think we talked about when we we had our first conversations. Is exactly that. When I was running my first business as an art dealer, you know, I don't. I went a lot to networking. I don't think I hardly had any sales through it. They were through completely different channels, but I had a complete brain trust of advisors who've gone through all sorts of different experiences before me, and could offer insights. And if I, as you said, you just didn't feel as isolated or alone with some of the challenges that you were you were trying to face. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So it's a great, simple suggestion, and as you said, it's, it's a perspective change, because a lot of people are doing this stuff anyway, but more so solely for the the explicit business. This outcome, very good. So what would be one valuable free resource that you could direct people to that will help them with some of these challenges?

David Hatch 10:09
Yeah, okay, so try not to be too self promoting, I think. Yeah, so. So, I mean, not everyone experiences all of these challenges in the same way to the same level at the same times. But one free resource that you can find on my website actually, which is the quiz. So it's the leadership heroes quiz, and that serves two purposes. It has a short version and a long version. If you take the longer version, then Firstly, it will help you hone in on what the balance of those challenges is for you, which one maybe stands out amongst the others, and which is your biggest one right now, which can then inform what you what you do to address it, and what what you might change in your approach. And then secondly, as the name suggested, it will help you find, identify, maybe suggest a leadership hero. They're almost all from the world of science fiction right now. So you know, don't let that put you off, but it will give you some some ideas about what you can learn from those characters, and a way of thinking about leadership, really, and what you can do differently, what you can take as inspiration. It can start you off on that process of identifying your leadership values, as I talked about earlier, it's

Al McBride 11:23
also it's a very important thing, and it's a very interesting way of doing it. There's a book there a few years ago called the alter ego, and it kind of parallels that I checked picking a character that you admire, your version is an actual character, because it's easier to imagine because you remember them from a show or a movie or something, but it is that kind of, what would they do? What would that person do? And it just gives you this other series of potential options or ways to see, yeah, definitely. And

David Hatch 11:52
also like, what can I learn from their leadership? So I've tried to pick ones that had some aspect of a leadership role in their series or video game or whichever. Anyway, it's a bit of fun as well.

Al McBride 12:03
Yeah, you can't take that stuff too, yeah, but very useful, as you said. These things can, can creep onto the surface, you know, you know, they can give serious value when it seems to be a little bit light, yeah, absolutely, absolutely understand that. Like, let's just explore some of your own I mean, you mentioned was values. I also mentioned, when we talked earlier about principles, it's the same thing. It's something that so many executive coaches do first with executives or business owners or leaders. Is a values exercise to actually just clarify that. And I was looking on your reps website. We were talking about this, about your four stated principles or values, and I thought they were kind of indicative of what you're all about. Which magic values should be. That was the goal. Yeah, that was the goal. So it would be interesting just to talk through them for a minute. So the people before profits. What do you mean by that?

David Hatch 13:05
I mean, I hope it's self explanatory. I think it's partly about the approach to leadership that I'm trying to put out into the world, and it's partly kind of a symptom of my own experiences of leaders I've worked for over the years. But I think the core message behind it really is that, yes, we're in businesses, yes, profit has to be on the radar. But actually where things so often go off the rails in terms of leadership and culture and just dealing with people in these kinds of organizations is when you put that profit motive before all else, exactly, and actually, no if you put the people first most times 999, times out of 100 they will recognize that, appreciate that, they'll be more productive. They'll be more innovative, they'll produce better results. And lo and behold, the profit will come anyway. I

Al McBride 14:02
can't agree more. It's one of those things. He said, that they'll go the extra mile and help each other out. You know, help you out when they don't have to. Whether it's whether, when it's solely a profit thing, then, yeah, you know, it's that there are means to an end, and people can notice that they feel that, yeah, yeah. But next was leading by example, the integrity and authenticity. That's a great one. But tell me more about the collaboration. How do you mean collaboration? How do you envision that?

David Hatch 14:37
So again, I mean it's it's a symptom of my experiences, I suppose, and it's kind of linked to the people before profit aspect as well, because we have this sort of traditional understanding of leadership, especially in business and workplaces, about this kind of top down authoritarian micromanagement is a theme as well. And this sort of understanding that it just doesn't fit the modern workplace, in my opinion, anyway. So I think the leaders that truly excel, especially in this world where technology is so prevalent and it's at the forefront of most jobs and careers now, when knowledge is so accessible, you can't rely on the leader knowing everything more than anyone else. Therefore, if they don't know everything and more than everyone else, they're not necessarily best placed to just make these decisions and hand down directives anymore. So what is the answer? Well, to me, it's more collaborative approaches to leadership. It's more about a give and take, a conversation, a consultation. You know, any of these C words that you like? Really,

Al McBride 15:46
for me, I think you hit on a brilliant point. Because I think a lot of people, when they get into leadership roles and they don't really know what they're doing, feeling a little insecure, they tend to go to the classic model of trying to control, trying to dictate, whereas, in actual fact, that stepping back, but more direction and collaboration. We I think we talked about again. We talked about this in our earlier chat where, you know, people forget that the huge there's a fabulous YouTube video about this recently where it was talking about the grossly overweighted competition in understanding of our evolutionary strength compared to collaboration. Course, competition plays a role, but that's grossly sort of mythologized compared to the actual role. It's far more collaboration was our strength as an early human species, how we survived and thrived, how we worked out the Neanderthal how we overcame that obstacle. They were more stronger and had bigger brains, but it was through our collaboration, and that's how we could teach a little and learn, and that's how we could thrive. So it makes sense that that should be coming back finally in the modern world.

David Hatch 17:00
Yeah. I mean, if you think about it logically in terms of the survival of the species, like if it had always been about the individual first and competition over collaboration, we, we wouldn't have survived, would we? There would have been one, one being maybe did survive and everyone else died. And then, yeah, take it as the extreme, exactly. It's a funny one.

Al McBride 17:24
And talking about funny you mentioned the last one, which is might be a little bit surprised for a lot of people, is enjoyment. Because I couldn't agree more. Like, if work at the end of it isn't either massively fulfilling, it needs to be a lot of fun, and if it's neither, then you're in for a world of hurt.

David Hatch 17:45
Yeah? I mean, I kind of think it needs to be both now, doesn't it? But, yeah, I think I came at this one really, from two angles. One is, as you've just described, like, the work itself, the day to day, it's got to be it's got to be fun, it's got to be fulfilling. And then from the leadership side of it as well, like, I'm sure everyone has worked for that kind of manager, that kind of boss who just takes themselves and everything around them and everything work related, just hyper seriously, and there's no room for laughter, and you've got to tuck your shirt in and tug your forelock and everything every time you see them, that sort of nonsense. And it is nonsense, in my opinion, and there's just no room for that fun, that sense of humor, that silliness, even such depressing places to work, they really

Al McBride 18:32
are. Yeah, they usually have terrible stuff turnover rates, yeah, and it's not that again, that there aren't times where everything has to be fun every day. It's not what we're saying, obviously, but there needs to be an element of the human, an element of enjoyment, as you say, yeah, absolutely.

David Hatch 18:46
And then the final aspect of it, of course, is the, I mean, there's a few studies around now that link happiness to productivity outcomes and financial performance, even in one I saw last year. So again,

Al McBride 19:01
it's going that extra yard, that extra mile when you don't have to that adds that, creates that extra value that we keep talking about. So what would be your number one insider principle on how to negotiate, build rapport, connection with your team as a leader?

David Hatch 19:21
Yeah. I mean, this sounds obvious again, but, I mean, it's an answer in three steps, I guess, and those are curiosity, listening and then follow through. I've, I've learned this about about leadership and about building rapport and trust and respect with the people you're leading. And I think it applies in any context. I mean, negotiation is another key example, I guess. But what it comes down to, for me, I think, is that people want to feel like they're being seen, that they're being heard, and that their leader is interested in their opinions, perspectives, expertise, and so how do you achieve that? Well, for me, it's you asked genuine questions. That you're honestly curious to know the answers to you actually properly listen when they give you those answers, and then whatever the answer is, you follow through on it. So I mean the classic context, I guess, in a workplace, in a leadership environment, is a feedback meeting, or somebody raising a problem with you, so you ask questions to get the root of what that problem is. You actually listen when they give you the answer. You maybe take notes, but you show that you're listening and understanding what they're saying. And then the crucial third bit that too many of us forget is you actually do something with that information. You might not be able to solve it tomorrow. And you should say that as well, by the way, but you do something to show that you're making progress towards solving it, to take what they've said seriously and do something about it.

Al McBride 20:53
Absolutely fantastic stuff. And it's also, of course, having them make suggestions to solve it so that they feel agency involved in the solution. That's not always appropriate, but you know, the point is that same idea of being heard and then involved, excellent stuff. So, David, where can people learn more about you? Well,

David Hatch 21:16
the best place is my newish website. It's newish because it launched at the beginning of the year, and we're in March now. Don't know where time's going, but the address is www dot leading with integrity.co.uk.

Al McBride 21:31
Very good. Leading with integrity.co.uk. And we'll have a look. What's the quiz, if that's

David Hatch 21:37
slash. So you'll find that on the website there's a bar at the menu, at the top drop down menu for resources. And then quiz is on the list. Yeah, I think slash, quiz will probably work as well.

Al McBride 21:49
We'll have a link to it below this. I'll send you a link. Yeah, we'll have a link below this. And yeah, and I see you're on LinkedIn quite a lot as well. So do reach out to David there on LinkedIn. David, thank you for your time today, and thank you for the great insights for all those budding leaders out there. Well. Al,

David Hatch 22:09
thank you again for having me. It's been lovely talking again. Cheers. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai