The extra-Ordinary Leader with Dolly Waddell

S3 13: The Cost of Avoidance: Why Real Leadership Means Facing The Hard Stuff With Tanya Gallagher

• Dolly Waddell • Season 3 • Episode 13

Share episode

This week I’m joined by Tanya Gallagher, MD and founder of Limitless Leadership, an award-winning leadership development consultancy. Tanya brings a wealth of wisdom to the space of leadership development, and what stood out to me most in our conversation is just how practical and human her definition of extra-Ordinary leadership is.

We dig into the difference between good, bad, and terrible leadership, and what it really means to take ownership. It’s a conversation that will shift how you see your role as a leader. We discuss psychological safety, promotion dynamics, and the underrated power of what Tanya calls “contracting conversations”—those small yet powerful exchanges that can transform working relationships.

If you've ever avoided a conversation because it felt awkward, if you’ve ever felt resentment building under the surface, or if you're leading people without ever asking what they need from you, this episode is for you.

🔗 Connect with Tanya: https://www.limitless-ltd.com/


Inside The Episode:

  • What it really means to “go beyond” as an extra-Ordinary leader
  • How to spot bad and even terrible leadership (in yourself too)
  • Why avoidance is the silent killer of team culture
  • How to lead when you’ve been promoted within your peer group
  • The art of the “contracting conversation”—and why it’s essential
  • Why leadership is often hidden, unglamorous, and deeply human
  • Coaching advice for leaders who’ve never had difficult conversations
  • Creating urgency around what’s truly important in leadership
  • How to rewire your mindset around responsibility, communication and growth


If this episode sparked something in you—if you’re realising there’s a new standard of leadership you want to step into—get in touch. I partner with leaders to help them go again and again. New mindset. New behaviours. Real results.

Start your journey here: https://www.dollywaddell.com

Don’t forget to grab a copy of my book extra-Ordinary Leaders, for more practical insight into becoming the kind of leader people want to follow.

Dolly:

Tanya, it is such a pleasure to have you on the Extraordinary Leader Podcast. How are you today?

Tanya:

I am really well, thank you, Dolly, and thank you so much for, uh, inviting me to be part of this. Um, super excited and can't wait to, have the next hour together.

Dolly:

Oh a hundred percent. Now for you. Listen, anyone listening, I've had a few chats with Tanya, especially yesterday. We had a nice, long conversation and something Tanya that I love about your leadership and your space is you are so yourself, and you are such a human. You're so dynamic and I love how you marry the two together. So there's my just little whoop at the beginning. and I would love to know Tanya, what your definition would be of an extraordinary leader.

Tanya:

great question. I think leadership, or leaders in general have many different guises. I think what makes people

Dolly:

I.

Tanya:

is going beyond, I think it's very much around encouraging, influencing. Supporting, but also empowering your team. leadership comes under many different guise, as we all know, but do you get the best out of people? An extra ordinary leader goes that extra step to ensure that their team are fully performing to what their full potential is. Always acting with integrity, and ensuring that everything that they do, but being inspiring to their team to help them reach their goals. How do you make the right decisions? How do you pivot quickly when, things change? And in our world, we both know, Dolly, that our world changes very quickly and what the client comes to us with versus what we end up with, is usually very different. how do we morph that very, very quickly? All of the above, coupled with supporting everybody's mental wellbeing. creating that safe psychological environment that people can grow, they can develop, they can be who they can be in the real world, in the workplace, whilst doing amazing jobs.

Dolly:

Now, Tanya, you have been in business for a while. you've got some amazing experience and I just came to my mind, what is different about your answer today than it would've been 15, 20 years ago.

Tanya:

fantastic question. I think as we grow, We learn things and we learn things about ourselves. We learn things from different people. we observe what good looks like. observe what great looks like, but then we also see what bad and then terrible looks like. and we've all been there, right? I think my answer today is very much based upon, I've been so fortunate to work with some of the best leaders, facilitators, trainers in the world,

Dolly:

Mm.

Tanya:

and I've been a bit like a sponge to absorb what they've given me knowledgeably. Personally, and I'm able to say actually 15, 20 years ago, that would've meant something very different to me. Now it means something. I wanna be that person that changes the next person.

Dolly:

Eve. I love the, I often talk about going, you know, Jim Collins, good to great and, but I love that you've mentioned bad and terrible. and I don't normally talk in the negative, but actually I love to define that a little bit because I don't think any of us are just brilliant leaders or good leaders or terrible leaders. I think we can play around the spectrum and have terrible moments and have bad moments and great moments and good moments. But can we just define. Play around with this. What is a bad lead? What is bad leadership? What is terrible leadership? Not picking anyone out in particular. I will have, you know, hands up, I'll have done it myself, but what are these things so that we can spot them in ourselves and go, oh yeah, I'll try not to do that.

Tanya:

for me, bad leadership is, um, not taking ownership, burying one's head in the sand when, team dynamic may not be working as it should. not addressing poor performance, and just not really tackling head on some of the things that good leadership looks like. terrible leadership is when you don't do any of the above and don't even acknowledge that it's going on.

Dolly:

so actually a definition you're giving there. You said in your opinion, so it implies that maybe sometimes it's subjective as well, what we think is bad leadership, but I mean, I would really agree with you. You might have heard me go. Mm-hmm. When you said about not taking ownership, that's what you know. Let's just stay there for a minute. What, what is it? What is ownership and what, what does it mean if you're not taking ownership?

Tanya:

great question. Thank you. for me, and like I say, I've, I've had the blessing to have worked in so many different spheres with so many different wonderful leaders. Not taking ownership is just about not addressing things. why are you not dealing with it? Do you not have the capability as a leader to do so? Do you not have the support as a leader? because just because you're a leader doesn't mean that you have all of the answers. Do you not have the infrastructure that helps you? I say, actually, I've got this thing going on. How can we unpick it? And how do I deal with it? For me addressing what is going on is what bad looks like.

Dolly:

it's so interesting these days I think, I dunno What your experience would be on this, Tanya, but it crosses over so much with human psychology, doesn't it? Learning and development, because it's essentially how we function in our psyche and in, psychotherapeutic spaces. There's this concept of attachment theory, I think I've mentioned at one of my other pods, but there's an attachment theory, how you attach to your carers in your early years and that can then play out in your adult life. And if you don't have emotional awareness or Have learned this stuff. you just might live ignorantly in not knowing, but one of them is avoidance and you've learned as a child that if you are, you know, you'll know this, but I'll just share it for our listeners. if you've been brought up with parents that are either too busy'cause of valid reasons, or they could also just be highly negligent. It doesn't really matter as a child, you learn that. Your pain isn't met with a need, so you just learn to avoid the pain. You just learn to shut down, and that becomes a coping strategy as an adult, like commitment, phobes, all of those kind of like sentences we hear come from avoidance and. What you've just said there though, is that bad leadership. What I'm hearing is, is it's highly avoidant and actually it's avoiding responsibility. It's shutting down, it's withdrawing communication. It's assuming everyone knows, but no one does. It's burying your head in the sand, as you say, and so actually it becomes a bit of a psychotherapeutic journey for a leader who functions like that to actually go and have some therapy, I would suggest to deal with their avoidance.

Tanya:

Absolutely.

Dolly:

What are your thoughts on that?

Tanya:

So I think you're right. I think, when you don't tackle something head on, regardless

Dolly:

Mm.

Tanya:

how. Uncomfortable that may be, or

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

or don't really want to have that conversation. all you are doing is pushing the problem further down the line. You know, you're just pushing it out to another day or saying, oh, actually right now, you know, I'm, if I don't deal with that, that might go away. But all you are doing is escalating it.

Dolly:

It just, it will, the compound effect. It gets worse, doesn't it?

Tanya:

it's not gonna get better unless you address it. You know, it's a bit like that scab, if you keep picking it right, it's never gonna heal.

Dolly:

mm-hmm.

Tanya:

then you're gonna, reab again, so.

Dolly:

Yeah. You can't just plaster over it. But that takes this quite nicely into a direction that I did really wanna ask you about, which is when you are in a role and you are excelling in that role or whatever, and you get a positional, Promotion into a different space of leadership, but you are with the same team. Now. I've seen this happen quite a lot where people do avoid the switch of dynamic. And you talk about like, you know, we talk about that compound effect down the road. That's gonna be a problem. But this is an area I'd love to get your practical thoughts on and the mindsets needed. How do people manage being promoted? Within a team, but then having to lead their team when they've been one of their peers.

Tanya:

Another great question. Thank you. deal with this quite a lot in my experience there are a lot of organizations that the don't support that transition, that don't help people in that role. There's so many things that you need to think about when people move from sort of here to here firstly, the biggest thing is communication, between you. Your boss and the rest of the team, Let's just have some open conversations around. Dynamics just changed a little bit. the landscape just shifted and it's a really good thing, but we have to navigate that together you know, having contracting conversations, as the new manager. With your team. Okay, so this is slightly different. Um, how are we gonna deal with that? What do you need from me? Okay, I'm gonna listen to that. What do I need from you? Okay, and those conversations are ongoing. It's not a one-off conversation. It's not the, we are just going to have that conversation and then suddenly, you know, the meadow looks rosy. It doesn't, you know, those are things that are

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

It's, let's work this through together because we are still a team. Although my role has changed and our dynamic has changed, our relationship hasn't.

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

we have to talking about stuff. Am I doing something that is

Dolly:

Mm-hmm.

Tanya:

you? Great. Am I doing something that's not working for you? That's also great. Tell me.

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

know. I'm learning

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

are learning. I'm learning.

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

talk about expectations, you know, early on when you are having that contracting conversation, you know? What do you need from me? What are your expectations of me? How do I make sure that I'm doing everything right for you and vice

Dolly:

Mm-hmm.

Tanya:

You know, it's no different in my

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

on if you set up a client project, you go into scoping, you go into roles and responsibilities, you talk about who does what and why, and whatever else. This is the same thing. It's on a much more personal level of course, but those conversations are key to success for the team and also the new manager.

Dolly:

Mm-hmm.

Tanya:

ensure that your team are doing everything that they want to be doing within the realms of the corporate structure, how can you support that.

Dolly:

Something that I know this. What I'm about to say is probably any indicative of rather toxic teams or toxic environments. But when I say toxic, I mean like, so for example, there's a team that I know quite well that's got a lot of bravado and banter. And it's got a certain demographic type person there and it's, you know, it's all banter. And when you get promoted within a subculture like that, which I wouldn't say is indicative of the whole organization, to be show assertiveness, which is essentially what you need to do when you are stepping into a positional role, is to be assertive with that contracting conversation. With even being able to say to the team, Hey guys, the rules have changed. You know, let's, let's figure this out. What do you need from me? What do I need from you? Even stepping into that assertiveness can sometimes be very difficult when you are in a culture that's bravado and even just showing any sense of assertiveness is like, Ooh, look at you. Ooh, check you out. Trying to change. Do you see what I mean? How would you coach or help someone in that situation?

Tanya:

Um, I am just gonna answer for myself. call it out. I would just

Dolly:

Nice. How would you call it out?

Tanya:

I, I, I would just be really up, up, up and say, I'm sensing whatever from you. talk to me about it. What's going on? And I would just be really upfront I would say. Okay. I'm sensing that something's very different for you. I wouldn't use the word attitude. I hate it. but I'm sensing

Dolly:

Ooh.

Tanya:

I'm sensing some resistance. Talk to me about what's going on. and face it front on,'cause if you do that, in my view and my opinion and my experience, if you do that from the get go, you open a different channel to be able to be free with each other.

Dolly:

I love it. And actually, If you are someone who's avoidant, which we've talked about is bad leadership, you're going to be making bad decisions by not doing it. And so it's putting on your big pants and just doing it. For some people it's dead easy, but for some people it's not, changing the rules of how you behave. but it is great leadership. Absolutely. Yeah. I love that.

Tanya:

thing in a lot of ways.

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

Even the best leaders in the world don't want to do it, but you do. Because if you don't just tackle it head on and to your point, pop your big girl pants on, and say, right, okay, what's going on here? You are gonna be in that cycle for a long time. If you deal with it at the

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

before you get to the jump, before you, get to that, then you've got a decision at that point. Is this gonna work? Is it not gonna work? How do I support you? How do you support me? Um, or you are just

Dolly:

Mm-hmm.

Tanya:

going in circles for a long time.

Dolly:

A hundred percent. I mean, you've touched on something that's really big in the training room, and I love it. You will love it. This concept of the contracting conversation, and I want us to just camp around that for a moment because Whenever there's a shift or a new thing happening, like a new role or a new decision, a new strategy that's being released or a new project, new dynamics, it makes sense to have a conversation. You know, we love communication, but this is a way of communicating is to come into agreement as a group about how we are gonna tackle this. How do you, what is a contracting conversation for those that don't know? And how do you facilitate a really good contracting conversation?

Tanya:

Another very good question. Thank you. Um, a contracting conversation for me. Is very much around, how do we form this partnership? Who needs what and why? It's not just the what, it's the why. Why do you need that from me? Because people are and have very different requirements. So the contracting conversation for me is, what do you need? But more importantly, why, Because if you understand why they need certain things from you or you from them, that becomes deeper you can really understand.

Dolly:

when you say. What it is, why do you need it? I guess the sub-question is, when would you have a contracting conversation? In your opinion, when is the appropriate time to have it

Tanya:

soon as possible.

Dolly:

and is it a one hit wonder or is it

Tanya:

Oh God, no. No. This is the, you start off with, here's where we are. And then in your weekly check-ins, in your informal water cooler conversations, in any conversation, should feel enabled say, actually this isn't working for me, or this is working for me. Or, um, you know, this is not a, let's just schedule stuff. And talk about it. This is, you should feel able to approach me as I should you. So that initial conversation is, that's where you set the safe environment. Whenever, whatever come to me, and it could be pop out for a sandwich together. And you have that conversation that says, do you know what, this isn't working, or that's not, or you did this or you did that, or, I'm not happy with this, or I'm not, you shouldn't have a set stage for these conversations.

Dolly:

so giving it legs, my branding manager. came to me the other day and said, Dolly, we keep getting bottlenecked, with your approval on things and you're too busy to approve everything. Um, however, I. What I approve, I, you know, I feel like I really need to approve to, to be overseeing that. Um, so that my voice is represented. I'm a small business, and she said, I've got an idea. Um, and so she came with the problem, came with an idea. Her idea, I actually didn't think did sit quite right, but I, I love that she came with it and I love the problem. And so we together thrashed out a solution. Re-contracted how we were gonna deal with the approval process within our business. And it's, it wasn't like a big formal thing, it was just quite light. But we had, we've got quite clear guardrails of like what it is and what it isn't moving forward. So that's what you're talking about, isn't it? rather than her, what we talked about before, avoiding it, burying it, me burying it, getting more and more passively aggressive about this problem and then it becoming a social problem between the two of us. And then it becoming something that the business isn't growing in because, because we just can't actually hit it head on in direct conversations about how to change things.

Tanya:

Okay, it's for me, if you can have those conversations informally and just say, do you know what this kind of needs addressing? You are winning at something because the lines of communication are open. And that probably wasn't an easy conversation.

Dolly:

Mm-hmm.

Tanya:

equally it's like, well, actually it needs to be had, so let's,

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

Let's find a solution. And you clearly have that's winning.

Dolly:

Mic drop. A hundred percent. But my second question, I'm changing it. I was going, I had asked you, how do we facilitate a good contracting conversation. Let me shift it to what If you've never had one, I. What if you've never had one? You've been a leader for years, and you're like, mm. That would look a bit weird with me suddenly wanting to do a conversation like that. how would you help a leader do that, even if they've been leading people for a long time?

Tanya:

It's a little mean, but I'll answer. Um.

Dolly:

a bit of a challenge.

Tanya:

It is a bit of a challenge because if you are in a leadership position and you've never had one of these conversations, my first thought is quite negative, which would be, how on earth are you in a leadership position? I'm then

Dolly:

Wow.

Tanya:

to what do I then need to do as this said leader who's never had one of these. To help me start having these conversations. So for me it would be around, let's help the leader who's never done this, to maybe have some coaching, maybe have a little bit of a brainstorm with peers, to help me get into the space that. I would need to be in because every leader should be and should have the ability, in my view, to have these. If you've never done it and you've been a leader for years, actually the development is on you. not on your team.

Dolly:

I just wanna pause you there because I think there's something really sobering about that, and it's when we're talking about if you've never had a conversation like this, I just wanna really spell it out if you haven't been able with it. Someone that works for you to say, what do you need from me and why do you need it? If you haven't been able to be in that place and ask that question and listen and adapt and work with the answer. In a conversation regularly. What, what, Tanya, correct me if I'm wrong, what Tanya was saying is like, wow, that's not a great sign of great. That's not a sign of great leadership. That's almost a sign of avoidant leadership, which we earlier said is bad leadership. So even though you may be charismatic, even though you may be very strong in strategy, if you haven't done this, actually. Your metric in this space is not great. And I just wanna spell that out because it's not a criticism for people, but it is a push that you can't avoid these areas of leadership. They are, what are metrics of great leadership, right, Tanya?

Tanya:

A hundred percent and.

Dolly:

So we are just, we are like coming out now, like, naughty, naughty, but we're gonna help, we're gonna help. They, are they anyone listening who hasn't done this to do it? So let's go there. Then You said you'd brainstorm, you would have coaching with them. and explore. What can you do to start having these, you know, conversations like this? You'd, get peers with them to brainstorm with them how they could do it. Is that, that was a suggestion

Tanya:

There's a number of different things and it really does depend on the, individual, and what's gonna work for them because everybody is different. but initially I

Dolly:

I.

Tanya:

suggest, some one-on-one coaching. with somebody that fully understands their role, understands what they're doing, and try to un unpick and really get to the nitty gritty why this person can't have those conversations. I'm gonna extend that to say can't stroke won't have these conversations.

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

Um, so I think that would be the first protocol. I would also strongly recommend some assessment to see what's sort of going on for this individual, so that the coach can look at, um, you know, psychologically what's going on and sitting there. Um, and after the initial. Um, you know, coaching, which is not a one off thing. something that, you would be working with an individual for a while, then say, here's what else, here's what's next. but unpicking initially, what is going through for that person and understanding why would absolutely be the first step.

Dolly:

Well. Just touching on the assessment, what assessments would you recommend? Because there's so many and it's quite exhausting to know which one and some quite damaging, where would you guide people to go?

Tanya:

another great question. Thank you. Um, so it really depends. one size fits

Dolly:

Yeah,

Tanya:

for anything. Um,

Dolly:

no.

Tanya:

What's the challenge? What's the issue? Where are the barriers? What's happening? and what is likely to give us the best insight upfront? we use a number of them. not gonna call out names, but, you know, all of the, you know,

Dolly:

Sure.

Tanya:

the big ones that people would recognize. 360 for us is always a good starting point because you get to see what, you get to see what peers and reports saying and then you can recommend,

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

maybe we need to do. X, Y, and Z. do we need to think about strengths? Do we need to think about derailers? do we need to think about personalities? all of those things because everything

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

relation to this is so individual. You need

Dolly:

Mm-hmm.

Tanya:

dig deep in order to

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

what would work best.

Dolly:

Do you know as, I had, a gentleman on the show recently? I hope I've got his name right. Daniel, I think it was Daniel Hume, AI specialist who was sharing that you can get, I mean, you might know this Tanya, I didn't know that. AI is now able through l and d to show you patterns of behavior through communication online. And that's fascinating, like to actually get metrics on that as well as our verbal communication. But like what kind of emails are avoided for the longest? What kind of, responses are given? What responses are given back, how quickly, so how effective their comms are in that space, which is another dynamic, isn't it? Within 360 of how you are, how you're communicating and being seen. There's so many resources coming in this space.

Tanya:

I actually had heard that a couple of weeks ago, like literally a few weeks ago, and I was

Dolly:

Yeah. Yeah. It's quite new. I know, I know. And I, I was, I said to da, I said to Daniel, it's only like, only your digital footprint feedback, you know, what about body language? And obviously, you know what's coming. He was like, yep, that'll be coming. you know, with cameras and stuff, which will weed our body language. In a scientific way, and it'll be 90% probably on the mark. So, watch this space. We're not there yet. so can I just, just before we, we sort of pull, pull things together, if going back to this contracting conversation, you would, this coaching, you'd have this assessment or whatever bespoke assessments done to give you some data to know how to help, how. I can imagine people listening, thinking, oh golly, the time, you know, the time that I need to do this. Similarly, your answer to extra ordinary at the beginning was going the extra, and sometimes I think people think extra, doing extra things is synonymous with spending more time on.

Tanya:

Mm-hmm.

Dolly:

And we are also time poor, which is why this space you and I are in can sometimes feel like a nice to have rather than a smart thing to have. How, how would you aggravate or inflame the need to do this for a leader?

Tanya:

it's essential

Dolly:

Hmm.

Tanya:

because if you don't do it, the repercussions are far worse than if you do. And so for me it becomes what's urgent versus important, and. Everything that you have in your diary, your calendar, your to-do list always important. The urgent stuff is how are we gonna do it better? How are we gonna do it well? And so for me, this is critical. So if somebody says, I don't have the time to do that, well actually, then you need to reassess what's going on. Because if you don't do this. a week, two weeks, a month, you are gonna be seeing it hit the fan in ways that if you'd invested here,

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

you could have avoided that.

Dolly:

Yeah. And that actually we had, a gentleman called Oleg Can on the show, and he talked about. Leadership and vision within leadership he said, vision is a space. It's not a fixed point. it's a space we inhabit with facets around it. which is, sounds really simple at first, but it's actually a really profound truth. And actually it's, when we are stepping into leadership, it is a space we move into. That has to be continually nurtured and grown, because if, if not then, then we see it as a fixed point leadership. Like, I'll have the conversation, we're done or become a leader. And I won't mention it, but that's fine. We will find all these roadblocks further along. So we want to journey in our leadership, don't we, in this kind of space of just continually walking through these conversations, these, little bumps along the way. Otherwise they will become a massive block in it. In months to come. Yeah. Do you, um, to what, yeah. To what extent do you, do you relate to that? Actually, I'd be interested to know about the space leadership being a space, vision. Being a space.

Tanya:

I think it's an honor to be a leader. I think it's

Dolly:

Mm-hmm.

Tanya:

and I think with anything, um, you. If you don't take that seriously and take those responsibilities what is the requirement of you? Seriously, you shouldn't be in that space. you know, you

Dolly:

Hmm.

Tanya:

I have a responsibility to everybody around you to take the time and to. Learn from what you will do wrong and you will do loads wrong, but that's okay. It's how you reflect. And then change and move. Nobody's perfect.

Dolly:

Do you know there's something quite hard hitting Tanya that's coming out of this conversation that I really. Feel is a really big challenge for people and I really want it to be. So we often talk about leadership, the extraordinary leader. Oh yeah, I am. I love all that. Yeah, me too, me too. Actually. It's, it's really easy to be a bad leader and it's in your blind spot that you can be, and, and just that there, what you've just said, it's actually a responsibility going back to the ownership. But if you, I know lots of leaders who are positional leaders who. Are quite apathetic. They're in that avoidance space. And I understand it. It's not judging, it's just actually that's, you shouldn't be a leader. You shouldn't be in that role. You should step down. If you aren't able to go and have these contracting conversations and discussions and hit things head on and make sure that you are asking, what do you need from me and why? And here's what I need from you and why, like if you are unable to do that, there is something quite, um, you know. I'm not normally black and white, but I think there is something quite, um, basic about that, that, that people need to be really challenged on. Um, because that apathy and that avoidance is really irresponsible and it's really negligent and it could almost be a terrible leader. I'm getting on my high horse now. Do you think it's fair? Am I being too black and white?

Tanya:

No, I don't. I, I, I do to an extent, like, like you, I don't think everything is black and white and I think there are areas that surround that, but I think there are certain things within leadership, that are a little bit black and white, I don't want to muddy the waters slightly, and I certainly don't want to condi, uh, contradict, what I've said. But there are some things that are not negotiable and that is

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

It is authenticity. is.

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

it is around ensuring that your team are in a safe, cultural, and psychologically safe environment. Um, is very much around having open communication. Not all of that step by step, If you can create the environment where people feel empowered and supported to be able to bring that to you or their peers and have that conversation, you're doing something right.

Dolly:

Yep. Yeah, agreed. Do you know? I mean, I just, just to land it, but I always think if it works at home, it can work at work. And this week I was, I've got, you know, four kids and I was doing the laundry and had a lot of work on, and I found myself whilst doing the laundry, I. Muttering negatively going, oh my gosh, more bloody laundry. All I did is laundry. It's so unfair. And I felt a bit of resentment. I did it on my own, you know, single, single parenting it. And then I just caught myself and thought, actually, I chose to be a parent. I chose to have four kids. So if I, yeah, I'm finding it hard and it is a lot, and that's fair enough. But I chose it, and this is part of the choice. The choice is there will be laundry with four children. There just will, you know? And, I actually had to own it and it shifted my paradigm to going and my narrative to going, wow, I'm really grateful I have a washing machine. I'm really grateful I've got a tumble dryer. The reason I say that is because if you are a leader and you have to have difficult conversations, if you've said yes to leadership, you've said yes to that. So it's like you have to get over it. Like, I've gotta get over the laundry. Right. Actually, that's part of it. Oh, I've got so much to do. I haven't got time for one-to-ones, you know. No, you said yes. It's like, I haven't got time to do my kid's bedtime story. No, you chose four children, Dolly, so therefore you have to nurture them. However, that is, it's, we have to be responsible for the choices of positions we're in. And if not, then we need to step back and go, can someone else do it? Hence, you know, I could say, okay, I'll get a nanny to cover that, or I'll ask my mom to do more of the this and that, but if you're not getting anyone to cover these gaps. And delegate that effectively, then really you maybe, maybe step down. Do you know what I mean?

Tanya:

Yeah, absolutely. It's like, going to the point that we made earlier, urgent versus important. you know, everything

Dolly:

Yes.

Tanya:

but the urgent stuff is actually, yeah, I do need to, sort the laundry. I do need to be there to do the kid type, the bedtime stories.'cause actually that is urgent, you know, as important as it

Dolly:

Yeah.

Tanya:

The kids can't go to bed. without me being there to be the nurture and, give them the hugs and, do the silly voices on the books and, make them giggle. and they go to bed really calmed and, and, and, and fulfilled, you know, that's, that's urgent.

Dolly:

Tanya, it's, it's such an interesting conversation. It's taken, well, a track I've taken is, it is quite a challenging conversation, but, and, um, you've shared it with such experience and gentleness, but I probably put an angle of challenge on it, but I, I do, I think, I think it's really exciting that people can see that there is an, there is, There are some hard lines actually around leadership and just defining them that this is what good is. And actually if we're not doing it, it might almost be called bad or terrible at times. And not because you're seeking to be a terrible leader, but because of the negligence or the avoidance. as we land, what is your household item that exemplifies extra ordinary leadership to you?

Tanya:

For me in my household, as you know, I have a beautiful German Shepherd, and she needs me as her human mommy, to do everything for her. She'd like to get her own food, but then she'd probably be even bigger than she is now. so my household thing is, providing for her,

Dolly:

What I love about that example, Tanya, is that actually leadership can be really unglamorous and hidden. it's not about the sexy big moments often it's about the ordinary day in, day out, the Tuesday mornings, the Thursday afternoons, which I talk about all the time as an extraordinary leader. Making sure everything's happening pragmatically, practically diligently, disciplined so that others actually might get all the fun parts, but it is quite unglamorous sometimes. That's what I'm hearing.

Tanya:

Very much so at two o'clock in the morning when

Dolly:

Mm

Tanya:

out for, a lady's visit the garden.

Dolly:

Ah. Yeah, I mean that's, that's, I find that with being a mother, it's hidden spaces, but leadership is hidden spaces. And I think on Instagram and leadership forums and podcasts, you know, we, we demonstrate all this extraordinary stuff, but it is about these ordinary things. so thank you for landing. It's so beautifully with your example. and Tony, it's been so lovely to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Tanya:

Thank you for inviting me to be a guest. It has been. An absolute pleasure and a delight.

Dolly:

Thanks Tanya.