Leveraging Leadership
Leadership is messy. Most advice isn't built for the reality of competing priorities, difficult stakeholders, limited time, and imperfect information.
Leveraging Leadership is a practical leadership podcast for Chiefs of Staff, executives, founders, and senior operators who want to lead more effectively and navigate complexity with confidence.
Hosted by Emily Sander, former Chief of Staff and executive advisor, each episode delivers real-world lessons, practical frameworks, and candid conversations with leaders across business and beyond.
Topics include executive communication, leadership presence, decision-making, delegation, organizational influence, operating rhythms, team effectiveness, and the often-unspoken challenges leaders face behind the scenes.
If you're looking for thoughtful conversations, practical takeaways, and leadership advice you can actually use on Monday morning, you're in the right place.
Leveraging Leadership
Optimizing Knowledge Management: Ensuring Information Flows Freely Through Your Organization
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Knowledge management is explained as making sure important information flows up, down, and across an organization, using direct examples like leadership decisions being shared with teams, or customer feedback reaching the right people. The episode covers how the Chief of Staff can spot communication breakdowns and keep everyone in the loop, including situations where leaders fail to pass on updates or overreact to minor issues. Tips are offered for testing if messages actually reach people and are understood as intended.
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Want help improving communication flow across your organization? 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.
Time Stamps:
00:25 Why Knowledge Management
01:45 Top Down Communication
02:37 Bottom Up Feedback Loops
03:54 Cross Org Information Flow
06:11 Leadership Message Breakdowns
08:09 Accuracy Checks Upward
09:39 Transparency Sharing Philosophy
13:48 Build Systems Stress Test Wrap
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.
Why Knowledge Management
One element for a chief of staff to think about is knowledge management. So how is knowledge and information passed through your organization? How is it distributed across your teams? How does it get from, "Okay, we've made this decision over here, and now these stakeholders need to know about it," or, "Hey, there was a company update, and it's like an all-hands type of thing. Do we have channels to distribute that to our teams?" So knowledge management, I would say this sits under rhythm of business, or at least next to it. So rhythm of business, that's hallmark chief of staff stuff, right? So establishing the touchpoints with leadership team and then maybe a larger director or management group. Um, again, all hands. It's the board governance. It's the rhythm of business. Maybe it's a steering committee for product. Maybe it's a compliance thing if regulations are big in your industry. But what's that rhythm of business, these ongoing touchpoints that are kinda like the heartbeat, ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump, of a business, of an organization, of a team? So establishing rhythm of business and making sure that rhythm of business fits with your company and your company stage, and your team members and the team's personality are all things that go under the auspices of a chief of staff. Now, within that, I would say, is knowledge management.
Top Down Communication
So I think of it kind of like establishing these communication channels, these conduits across the company, and there's one way to think about that is top-down. So hey, leadership has made a decision, and that affects these three groups directly. So we wanna message that to these three groups in one way. It indirectly affects everyone else, and it's kinda something that they should be aware of, so we do a comms out to everyone. But m- it might be different than the direct c- communication to the three teams. And so do you have a mechanism through which to convey that information? So you're managing the knowledge. There's knowledge of this decision up here, and that's gotta get to the three teams directly and then to the rest of the org as just a context piece of information. So there's- Top down.
Bottom Up Feedback Loops
Then there's bottom up, right? So hey, there's information with this, uh, with this entry-level role, but they're front and center with the customer, and so do we reliably get information from our customers directly to the leadership team? And depending on the organization, that could be like two layers or that could be like 12 layers. So do you have the mechanism? Do you have the people or the system or the method or the way or the instruction to give to people of like, "If you hear about this when you're speaking with customers, we wanna know about that. And if you're hearing about it over and over and over again, we wanna know about that. And if the entire customer service team is hearing about this one issue directly from our customers over and over and over again, we certainly need to know about that." But a lot of times, that information gets plugged. Like the s- the CS team might be screaming their head off about this thing, but for some reason it doesn't get to the people who could actually make a change. So you wanna make sure that these conduits are built in, that, okay, the knowledge of this thing happening with the customers is top of mind for them, it's front or center make or break for them, but it's not being managed well. It's not getting to the people who need it. All right, up-down,
Cross Org Information Flow
bottom-up. It could be laterally, horizontally across the organization, it could be diagonally, all these different directions. So it's this living, breathing, robust thing that you always need to be thinking about, "Hey, is information getting to where it needs to be?" there might be examples where you're like, "Oh, that did not happen," and it's glaringly obvious that right hand didn't know what left hand was doing and like this team didn't know what that team was doing, or there's redundancy or there was a big drop, something got dropped, something got missed. Um, maybe someone wasn't on email thread or there wasn't, uh, a call, internal call about something to tee it up. Whatever it is, but something got missed. Okay. So maybe that's like a one-off thing, one-off fluke thing, and that just happens. I mean, those cases do come up, but on a bell curve you're gonna get those extreme cases. But if this is a regular ongoing thing, we're like, "No, this is our bread-and-butter process and people keep dropping it. I don't know why. Something is not getting through." So you wanna assess that and you wanna diagnose that and go, "Okay, what's happening? Where can we pick this up? Is this a people thing?" People have the information, they just don't know what to do with it, or they're not actioning it, or they don't know the severity or priority of it, or they just don't know what to do with it. Is it a process thing, where, like, the process is broken? Sometimes it gets to these people, and sometimes it doesn't. It's unreliable. Okay? Is it a tool thing, where it's like, "Hey, uh, we don't have the tools to go and mine this data that we need." So is it a tool thing where, hey, people are manually scraping this, and for the ones they find, they throw it into a process, and it gets to the people, and it works, but because it's a manual thing and we don't have the tools to go automate that, we're not gonna catch all of them. So anyway, you can kind of diagnose it at those levels and other levels and lenses and perspectives you can look at it through. But as a chief of staff, Are there the conduits up and down and across and diagonal throughout, throughout your organization? And is, is that a reliable heartbeat? Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump. Does information freely flow through all the different conduits that it needs to?
Leadership Message Breakdowns
Um, the other aspect of this is, this is something that I would run into as chief of staff, is we would discuss something at the leadership team, and it would be crystal clear. Like, in the leadership team, it would be crystal clear, and it was like, "Okay, go inform your teams, and, come back with how things are going and updates about how people are feeling," et cetera, et cetera. And let's just say six out of the seven executives would do that swimmingly, and they would have the communications, and they would have the conversations with their direct reports, with the VPs, and then their VPs would reliably have conversations with the directors and managers, et cetera. And then there was, like, always this one, this one wild card where it's like, "Did you... Did we convey that to your team? Did your team get that message?" And like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah." Like, "Yeah, totally. Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll, I'll do that next time." Or, um, "Yeah, I think they kind of understand from the all-company email," but there wasn't a specific conversation that was had. And it was like, no, no, no. They need the conversation. They need you to explain the relevant and helpful pieces from our discussion in the leadership team. We need you to have that conversation specific to your functional group. And sometimes that wasn't getting through to that team. And there were pieces where we started getting questions that were very odd-sounding to us, or to me, where it's like, wait, no. Like, wait, you n- you can't not know that if someone told you about this main update. And so I was like, "Is the main update getting through to you?" And the answer was no. As I kind of had more and more skip-level conversations, I was like, oh, wait, these people are totally in the dark. They never got the update. And so we had to go and correct that. So check for folks. Sometimes leaders are great about that. Sometimes leaders Are, um, they don't feel as comfortable doing that, not that they don't want to do that, but maybe they just don't know how or what they can say. So check for that. Make sure that the information that you discuss and are crystal clear on in one conversation, in one group, is getting to the downstream stakeholders.
Accuracy Checks Upward
Same thing from the bottom up, by the way. If, if you are counting on your leaders to provide accurate information from their group, like, "Hey, we just rolled out this big company change. How are the teams doing? What are you hearing from your teams?" I've had cases where executives will be like, "Oh my gosh, this is a problem. Like, this is a huge problem. Everyone is talking about it. and no one can get their work done because they, they have to have this resolved, and they have to have someone talk to them about it." It's like, whoa, like, really? Like, all of your team is derailed because of this thing? "Yes. This is like the biggest deal of the world. everyone hates this. Everyone hates this. It's change, and people don't like change, Emily. Everyone hates this." Okay, let me go talk to them. When you talk to them, they're like, "No, that's not a problem. Like, yeah, I mean, it was kind of annoying, but, like, we made the change and, and now it's done. What do you... Like, do you think we're worried?" And the individual leader was very worried about this thing, and it, and it impacted them individually, and so they were making a big to-do out of it, but it wasn't actually that big a deal. It was eh, that was annoying. It wasn't great, but, like, we're totally over it, and we're totally done with it. Oh, okay. So you wanna make sure in your conduit, in this conduit analogy, what would be, like, the little, uh, like, pivot points or dam points or, like, we have to open something for the conduit to flow or whatever I wanna work in there, making sure that those points are working well and information is flowing freely and accurately up and down, diagonal, side to side, all across your organization.
Transparency Sharing Philosophy
There is a conversation to be had about what information to share, so what information to send through the conduits, and that can be a philosophical conversation, "Hey, we wanna be as transparent as possible. So we might give folks more information than they typically get or is typically thought to be needed. So our philosophy is just share everything that's on the table. Here's all the options we're thinking about. Here's all the puts and takes. Here's all the pros and cons, everything." And it's a little bit of, you know, one option is gonna happen, but we're gonna give you 12. Like, here's the 12 things we're thinking about, and that might be a philosophical, this is what we wanna be about when we're talking to our people. Some people might go, "No, I don't wanna distract folks. I don't want to alarm folks unnecessarily, so our philosophy is generally something's gotta be official until we make an all-hands, all-company announcement." So that could be a different philosophy you work under. There's pros and cons to each of these, but just figuring out what that is and maybe even having a discussion around that. It could also be situational So in this situation, we wanna be totally transparent, but in that situation, we actually wanna hold our cards pretty close to our chest here and not get out in front of our skis, 'cause that could get us in trouble, and that could actually hurt some team members if we kinda get out of this thing too early. So it could be situational. It could be a philosophical, hey, umbrella statement. We generally wanna do this, but situationally, we wanna adapt and be able to have conversations around that. So I would have open conversations around those types of things. Maybe in, take the example of the leadership team, so, "Hey, we have this update. This part of the information is for us to know about and to think about and come back next week to discuss after we've thought about it. This part of the announcement and part of the update is for public consumption and can, and it can and should be shared with your teams now." So that type of thing. It could be giving someone just something directional like, "Hey, you know, um, Rob, we wanna let people know this is coming. It's gonna come in some form. We're not quite sure which one yet. We're kinda looking at this one or that one. But we're not quite sure, and another update will come, we anticipate, in the next two months. So just let them know it's coming, and we've got these two options, main options on the table, and we'll let them know as soon as we know something along those lines in the next two months." And that's the level of information that you want to be shared, or you want Rob to share. And then there's a whole bunch of other, like, you know, you know the vendor for option one, and you know the candidate for option two or whatever it is, and you know the particulars and nuances and all the different fine-tuned factors and details that are gonna go into that decision. But Rob's team doesn't need to know that level of detail. It would just be distraction and kind of irrele- irrelevant for them. So figuring out maybe giving Rob some direction on, like, here's generally what the message should be and what the level of information of your messaging should be. Okay. So knowledge management is knowledge being managed throughout your organization in some sort of predictable, consistent, relevant, helpful way. So that should just be like, just living, breathing. I think of a heartbeat. I think of, like, are your lungs clear? I don't know if that works, but it's just like, no, you have this free-flowing information. Fresh air, okay. Fresh information, okay. It's we're trusting the leadership. Okay, we are trusting our teams to pass along information, and it's getting through to the right people, and then it's coming back to the teams with a policy update or a product update or a talk track or whatever it is. It's this free-flowing, constantly rejuvenating and reviving and oxygen in and oxygen out and CO2 out, all, this stuff to just pump life and air and blood into the system. And so knowledge management is a huge one, and a lot of people Skip that, or maybe don't skip that's the wrong word. Maybe they don't give that its own attention. Maybe it's like, "Oh, yeah, we gotta get that announcement out," blah, blah, blah. But are you thinking about how information is being distributed and conveyed and what the conduits are? So something to think about.
Build Systems Stress Test Wrap
It kind of goes along with rhythm of business, so sometimes it's okay, we have these leadership meetings, we have our monthly business reviews with the directors and managers, we have our all-hands every quarter, we have our board meeting every quarter, we have maybe a steering committee, maybe a product pipeline thing every other month. So we have these touch points. Maybe I can incorporate some of this knowledge transfer into those already established touch points. Maybe it needs to be an additional step. Maybe things need to be consolidated. Maybe things need to be removed, where like, hey, people are scattershot all over Slack and all over text and all over, Salesforce notes and all over CRM stuff over here, but this team uses this other CRM, and Steve uses his napkin by his desk. And so maybe it's stop doing all that, and we're going to do this instead. So whatever it is, I would go through and think, okay, is knowledge being transferred and managed throughout the team and company? Do people have the information they need to make a good decision when they need it? are people being unnecessarily blindsided by things? Are people being informed of, of decisions made that affect them? Are people being brought into the decision-making process when they should be part of the decision-making process? All these different things to think about. But generally speaking, is knowledge being managed at all? And is it flowing freely and accurately throughout your organization in a whole bunch of different directions and different ways that can go? All right. So as chief of staff, definitely have a think about that. Part of the scope of rhythm of business, and those two things can work together in tandem, but have a think about that. And maybe if you don't know, ask people, and maybe if there's a situation where the announcement is gonna go out, you can test it and go, "Huh, my theory is this gets to everyone. Let me send out the announcement with our current mode of communication, and then let me verify that and have some different conversations throughout the organization and see, one, did that message get through, and two, Is the information accurate? Did they receive the information accurately?" Might be a good stress test or just kind of little test bubble to, to run. All right. You can use that or have someone on your team use that in this next upcoming week or the next time you have a major announcement, and we'll call this one a wrap, and I will 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.