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
Taking Time to Value the People Around You at Work
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Emily Sander talks about appreciating the people you work with during each season of your career - like learning from Jamie, being challenged to grow by a boss like Rohit, or having fun working with someone like Matt. She also encourages listeners to recognize and value work friendships, even if they change over time, and reminds us not to take good team dynamics for granted.
Get in touch with Emily:
Want to build stronger work relationships? Book a clarity call w/ Emily here.
Who Am I?
If we haven’t met 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.
Timestamps:
00:46 Flip the Script to Appreciation
01:07 Learning from a Teammate
01:40 Grateful for a Challenging Boss
02:43 The Coworker Who Makes It Fun
03:24 When Mentoring Seasons End
05:16 How to Express Appreciation
08:11 Work Friends and Lifelong Bonds
11:53 Step Back and Reflect
Welcome back to Leveraging Leadership, where we unpack the art of business leadership. I'm your host, Emily Sander, chief of staff to an executive leadership coach. This show is all about finding your points of greatest influence and leveraging them to better serve those around you. As chief of staff, we're dealing with the staff and with people all day long, and we've had many episodes on how to resolve conflict and how to mediate personnel issues and how to manage a strong personality and how to navigate and communicate things with your principal and all these different things. And those are good and worthwhile. We all know they happen today. I wanna flip the script a little bit and the call to action today is to. Appreciate the season that you're in and appreciate the people in the season you're in. So in other words, taking just a half second, even if it's a, even if it's just a split second in your mind, where you go. Huh? Okay. You know what I, I learn a lot from Jamie. I mean, we've worked together for a while, and every time that I talk to her, I learn a lot. Just the knowledge she has about product and about how to run a product organization, and how product owners communicate through different stakeholders and translate different ideas, et cetera, et cetera. I always learn a tremendous amount from Jamie. Maybe you say something to Jamie, maybe you don't. Depends on the dynamic. It depends on your inclination. But even if it's just like, no, I, I really appreciate learning a lot from her. It could be, holy cow, Rohit has been my boss for a while. Uh, at the beginning it was a little rough. We kind of had to find our footing. But now he challenges me. He pushes me in a, in a good way, in a healthy way. He pushes me out of my comfort zone again and again, and again and again. And this is uncomfortable again, but I have become. A better leader because of him. It's not always been pleasant, but I know why he is doing it. He sees potential in me and he takes the time and he puts the investment into me and I really appreciate that. maybe pick your moments when you wanna express your appreciation so it's not through gritted teeth, like, thank you so much for making me uncomfortable. But you know, if you have a boss like that, and even if they're challenging in a good way, that's something to stand back and say, huh. Let me acknowledge that. Let me just acknowledge that to myself in this moment of calm and clarity and then perhaps if it's appropriate or if you feel so inclined, you can say something. Um, it might be. You know, you know, working with Matt is so fun. Like, we have so much fun. I smile, I laugh every time I have a call with Matt. Every time I have a project with him, I really look forward to it. And even if the world's kind of fallen down around us and oh my gosh, like we're in hot water. There's a fire over here. Um, we just have a way about each other. And Matt just has a way about him of like. Making it fun and keeping it breezy and keeping it light. And I smile just thinking about Matt, that could be something where you just acknowledge it to yourself. Maybe you say something, maybe it's not something formal per se, to Matt, but it's just like, oh my gosh, Matt, you know, I love how we have fun with his stuff. Even when, when stuff is on fire. I love how we can have fun with it and that's it. And he can hear that and he can take that and do it with, uh, with it what he will. It might be, you know, there's, there's, there's times where I've mentored someone else or I've been able to provide guidance or advice to someone. And, um, then that season was over and I didn't, I didn't have the, the connection with that person that they moved roles or I moved companies or whatnot. And I'm like, huh. Like, that was really cool. That was really fun. That was really meaningful and fulfilling to me and, um, I should have appreciated it more. In, in, in that moment, at that time. And I think the, the backdrop sentiment to this episode is everything has its season and things will change. I mean, that famous quote about the only constant is change. And also if you think about it, one year from today, one year from when you're listening to this, things will not be like they are today. we know this to be true. If you're, if you're over a certain age, you've lived enough to know there are seasons to these things. You might have a great group of people you work with now and you might assume like, we should be good. We, we should have this same setup for a few years. it's gonna be a great, that's not guaranteed. A year from now, something's gonna change. It could be quote unquote good. It could be quote unquote bad. It could be new additions to the team that you didn't expect. It could be departures from the team you didn't expect. It could be different roles you're playing. It could be different dynamics you have. It could be stuff in the industry, in the market, in the world that's different. Uh, my goodness, you know, geopolitical events going on. Uh, global pandemics like I, the more I live, the less I take for granted. Um, but know the season that you're in. And appreciate the people that are in this season of your life. And even if you express it or acknowledge it to yourself, I think that's worthwhile. Do a mental kind of run through during this episode that you're listening to this. If you wanna take a walk with it, that's great. You know, drink some tea journal about it if that's your thing. And then tell people if if that's your thing as well. Uh, very, like I was gonna say, very rarely, never, never have I. Express, appreciation for someone in that manner and they go, oh my God. Like, what? Please stop. Like, why did you tell me that? Never, never have I heard that Some people are a little bit uncomfortable with the compliment, but that's about it. Most of the time they're like very, very appreciative and it. Lights up their face and it makes their day and it makes them sit up straighter and walk differently. And you know, that means a lot to people that other people are seeing the difference that they are making in someone's life. So I would encourage that if it's appropriate, if it makes it super awkward or it's like, Hey Emily, I've kind of appreciated this person from afar. And I've said, huh, I really like her leadership style and I've tried to. Take some of that on myself and make it on my own. Like with my team, I try to incorporate some of what she does with my team leadership, and certainly as I grow my career and maybe have a larger team or larger scope of work, I definitely wanna remember, I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of that. I know how it feels to be working with someone and be in the same room with someone like that. And I wanna do that when I get to, um, bigger roles. So it could be like, it would be like a. Tiny bit awkward and outta the blue.'cause I don't know if they know who I am to say like this whole long thing to them, which is totally fine. You can say a short thing to them. You can say nothing at all, but it's just that kind of one click in your head like, oh yeah. Hmm. Lemme just take a second to acknowledge that and capture that for myself and even just articulate that to myself, you know, just in my head. Or like out loud or just, yeah, like that, that one part of her leadership, how she listens. And makes everyone feel heard, but also moves things along. Like she's not a pushover and she moves things along and she knows what she's about. She knows who she is and what she's about. And that's something that I wanna make sure I take on board into any leadership role I am. And that'll evolve and change over time. But do I know who I am and what I'm about and can I sit into that? I think that's a great leadership tool. So it could just be articulating something like that to yourself. Seasons change, teams change. It could be, oh, I have such a great team right now. Don't take that for granted. On the flip side, it could be, you know, I, I have some folks who I like being around and other folks who it's like, it's a real challenge. The struggle is real, and like, you know what? That can change too. And just being aware that a year from today. Things are not gonna be like they are right now. And you just know that. And so you take the time to appreciate the people around you. Obviously this goes for people outside of work as well. So I would encourage you to think about your community or your household, family, friends, things like this. and I think there's, you know, when I talk about seasons, I think through. There are certain people at every job where I just kind of hit it off with like, we're just on the same wavelength. We have rapport, like we get each other from right away. We have fun with it. And um, and they're your work buddy and they're your go-to person for projects. All things being equal. I'm gonna, I'm gonna work with Patty'cause she's awesome and she's cool and I love working with her and I can just be myself and kind of not be too amped up on how things are being perceived and how I'm saying things and, uh, maybe, maybe some of these relationships are. Work relationships and outside of work, you don't interact with this person and that's fine. Within work, you're pleasant and you're kind, and you're funny and you're friendly and you appreciate each other and that's fine. Maybe it's contained there. Um, it could be that it becomes a, I don't wanna say real friend, but a friend outside of work where it's like, now this relationship and this friendship has expanded beyond the office walls and things like this. And maybe it's. For the time that we're each in our respective roles at this company. Maybe once we move roles, the dynamic changes a little bit, and that's okay. Appreciate the season you're in. It could be, hey, when, uh, when he leaves the company, you know, we, we had our time and we really appreciated working with each other, and we, we'll always remember that. And if he ever calls on me, I'll certainly pick up the phone if I ever need him, I'll know he'll pick up the phone from me, but he's off to his next chapter. And I'm staying here. And so our time is done. and then there's folks where it's, you know, you have that deep, deep connection in a business sense where it's like. We're looking at each other and we're like, we're gonna work together again. In some capacity, it might be at a different company. Maybe you're gonna build a team. Maybe I'm gonna build a team, maybe we're gonna partner with, you know something, you have different vendors that move around and like, I'll find you at my next gig. It could be, Hey. You know, are we done with corporate? Are you done with corporate? I'm kind of done with corporate. I'm, I'm kind of ready to, like, do you wanna do the founder thing? Do you wanna do the co-founder thing? And you have that trust and that, work relationship and history where it's like, do you wanna do this? Do you wanna go? Let's go, let's go, let's go. Here we go. And you have that type of partner built in. It could be. I've been very fortunate to have, you know, one or two people from each place I've worked who. Have become lifelong friends and who have become friends outside of work and someone that I confide in, that they confide in me, that we bounce ideas around, that we get excited about. most of these people, like don't, are states away, so keep in contact, uh, phone, email, zoom, all these different things. But, uh, it's just really, really, um, what is the word? Like fun is too frivolous. Uh, meaningful might be too deep, but it's just, it's beautiful. It's just like, ugh. I have a new friend and like, we've developed this working relationship. Sometimes it was like in the, in the fires of mortar where like, oh my gosh, like seven executives left and everything was falling down, and we looked around and we were like, the only two people left and we like did this hard thing together. We will always have that. Like we will always just like that movie, we'll always have Paris. Like we will always have the fires of mortar, like we're forged. Our friendship is forged and something very real and deep. Uh, and so you can like look back on, on that and stuff and laugh and also just know like you know what the other person is made of and they know what you're made of and so you can build this thing over time. lots of people who. If I'm in their city or if they're in mine, we, we get together and just have dinner or have, uh, you know, have lunch or whatever it is. Or there was one where we were passing in the airport and we had like, uh, a layover at the same time. We were like, I'll meet you at the Alaska Lounge, and we just make time to do those things. so yeah, I would just, I would just really say there's lots of. Uh, problems. There's lots of personnel issues and that's not a bad thing. It's a normal thing. Humans are gonna be humans. And we talk about those things and we talk about how to resolve that. And we talk about the politics of the office and, you know, figuring out how to be, um, prudent and, uh, careful, but also strategic and all those things. And those are all good things to be thoughtful of. But there is this sense of like, Hey, let's cut through some of this here. Just step back and look at the season of life you're in. And look at the people in your life and who can you appreciate for different things. And I think that's, I think that's worthwhile. And even if, even if you don't say a word to another person out loud after this episode, if you just think through and can acknowledge and go, yeah, okay. Oh my gosh, that one's so cool. And yeah, okay. She's kind of cool. She's kind of fun and like, oh man, she, she is an up and comer. I will say I knew her win. Like, give her, give her 10 years, give her 15 years. I will say I knew her when, and I just like, just have that bring a smile to your face. so hopefully this has, been food for thought for you, and I would encourage you to, think through this as you go through your, your day, as you go through your week, your month. Just pay attention to people in a little bit different way, even in the back of your head. Okay. Okay. I got that. Ooh, didn't, Ooh. Yeah, it didn't. Didn't remember that one before. But yeah, no, that's definitely someone that I wanna acknowledge, so, all right. Hopefully that's been helpful and I'll catch you next week on leveraging leadership. This episode is brought to you by Next Level Coaching. If you or anyone you know would like to learn more about executive leadership coaching, please visit www.next level Coach.