Leveraging Leadership
Are you ready to up your leadership game? Tune in to Leveraging Leadership, where Chiefs of Staff, executives, and business professionals find the tools, strategies, and insights they need to excel. Hosted by Emily Sander, a C-suite executive turned leadership coach, this podcast delivers practical and tactical takeaways every week.
Whether you're tackling tough conversations, fine-tuning your KPIs, or mastering delegation, this show offers new perspectives and actionable advice to help you feel confident and thrive in your role.
Each Monday, enjoy interviews with leaders from diverse fields—primarily business, but also from military, politics, and higher education. Every Wednesday, catch a solo episode where Emily shares concise, actionable insights on a specific topic you can apply immediately.
If you appreciate relatable, informal conversations that pack a punch with no fluff, you’re in the right place. While especially valuable for Chiefs of Staff and their Principals, the insights are useful for any leader aiming to grow.
Don’t miss your chance to advance as a leader.
Leveraging Leadership
From Zero to Sixty Percent: Leadership Lessons in Iteration
Emily shares a story about a Chief of Staff facing resistance from their boss who prioritizes efficiency and speed over detailed planning. The Chief of Staff is encouraged to roll out initiatives that may feel only 60% complete to get things started, with the idea that they can be improved over time. The central lesson is about meeting people halfway and making incremental progress in leadership strategies.
Links Mentioned:
Free Resources:
- Strategic Planning Checklist
- Chief of Staff Skills Assessment Checklist
- A Day in the Life of a Chief of Staff
- Chief of Staff Toolkit
Get in Touch With Emily:
- Connect on LinkedIn
- Follow on YouTube
- Learn more about coaching
- Sign up for the newsletter
- Clarity Call with Emily
Who Am I?
If we haven’t yet before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want.
Time Stamps:
00:52 The Push for Efficiency
01:27 Implementing Change Gradually
I was just talking to a chief of staff and he was, he had a, a background in program management and you could tell because he was very methodical and thoughtful and we were talking about objectives and goals and performance reviews and um, all these different things. And he was like, Emily, to me, like someone's individual goal and objective should roll up to their team goal should roll up to the company-wide goal and. My boss is like, no way. Like we need to move efficiently. That's his buzzword. Like efficiency is the name of the game. I know I'm successful, I know the company's successful, but how efficiently we do things and I want stuff done fast. If you do it fast, I want it faster. And that's what I prize above all else. And the chief of staff was trying to, trying to talk him into, you know, this is what we have to do going forward to professionalize the business. And hey, you know, you're really good at that stuff and so let me deal with the day-to-day operations and get this, get this stuff in place. and this chief of staff was saying, I'm getting massive pushback from my boss and I keep trying to have this conversation in a whole bunch of different ways. And we got to this point in the conversation where I said, look, you might, you might have to roll this program out in a way that feels like 60% to you. It's like half done. but it's, but it's getting the ball rolling. and he wanted things in Salesforce and said, people need to take five minutes at each hour to document how they're spending their time. And these fields in Salesforce need to be filled out in this format. And I'm like, look, that might not be on the table right now. You might need to get this item and get this initiative on the table and going at all, and then iterate over time. So even if it feels like you're flopping this 60% thing out there and like, this is not the way that I would do it, this is not the way that it should be done. But is it 60% more than 0%? Yes. And that's a huge step in the right direction. Right? And then once it's there and people get. Comfortable and familiar with. Oh, like, okay, we do this sort of thing now. Yeah, we do this sort of thing now and we have like meetings and touch bases on this every week. Okay. And we talk about, we go through the dashboard on, okay, got it. Okay. I'm kind of getting into the rhythm of this thing. And then you can iterate on that over time. But the big step of getting it on the table and getting it into existence at all is huge. And so If you have the opportunity to get a thin slice version of something on the table or going at all, take it. In the majority of cases, take that opportunity and then build it over time. Even if it's like, this is like, we should be doing this differently. We could be doing it better. I've done it better in previous companies. I know we could do it better if we just did this, this, and this. Sometimes you gotta meet people halfway and you gotta meet people where they are. So I just wanted to share that story with you in case it helps you with something this week And with that, we'll call it a wrap and I'll catch you next time on leveraging leadership.