Season 4 Ep. 11- Leadership Isn’t Complicated, So Why Is It So Hard?

If leadership is built on simple principles, clear communication, trust, consistency, and connection...why does it feel so difficult to practice, especially under pressure?

In this insightful Season 4 episode of the Transformation Station Leadership Podcast, I’m joined by Kathy Eastwood to unpack the real reason leadership often feels harder than it should. We explore how stress, constant demands, and burnout can quietly derail even the most capable leaders, pulling them away from the very fundamentals that make leadership effective.

Kathy shares practical wisdom on how leaders can cut through the noise, return to what truly matters, and lead with clarity and confidence, even in high-pressure environments.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed in your leadership or wondered how to simplify your approach while strengthening your impact, this conversation is for you.

Learn more about Kathy:
Website: https://www.eequalswhy.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathyeastwood/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@eequalswhyleaderssucceed5313

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Until next time, stand tall, step bold, and own your transformation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Leadership today is often described as complex, overwhelming, and constantly changing. But what if great leadership is not actually complicated? What if the real challenge is not learning more strategies, but it's you and I returning to the simple principles that truly build trust and clarity and results? I can't wait to get into this conversation. Let's go ahead and get started. That's right, four C's. Today I'm so excited because Kathy Eastwich, who is a leader who believes that while leadership may feel complex, the core practices that make leaders successful are often simple. Kathy brings insight into how leaders like you and I can cut through the noise, focus on what truly matters, and lead with greater confidence and purpose. And before I tell you just a little bit more about her, and before you actually meet her, I want to remind you of a few things. Number one, listen, you cannot afford to miss one episode of Transformation Station Leadership Podcast. Every Wednesday, we are live every Monday. We have sessions with amazing guests who are dropping serious gems, leadership principles that you and I can use today. I also want to remind you, yes, you can still go on Amazon and get your copy of A Greater Force Than Failure, a wonderful four-step process, a book that shows you how you can overcome the failures, the mistakes, those occurrences that have happened in your life. So go to Amazon today and grab your copy. Now let me tell you a little bit about Kathy. Kathy is the CEO and creator of the Human First E3 Leadership Code and a leadership strategist who believes high performance should not require burnout, fear, or command and control leadership. With over more than 30 years as an operator inside complex organizations, Kathy has served in senior leadership executive roles, including Chief of Staff and Chief People Officer and Chief Operating Officer. I'm loving this. Her book, E3 Leadership Code, A Human Approach to High Performance, blends real-world executive stories with practical guidance for leaders who want predictable results without sacrificing culture. Kathy, it is my honor to welcome you here to Transformation Station today. Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

I love your energy. This is fantastic. Absolutely. Well, I've been looking forward to this. And you know, Kathy, as I was thinking about the conversation that we're gonna have right now, I was thinking about this: that when when leaders, when we return to foundational practices, like, I don't know, listening well, setting clear expectations, following through consistently, we create stability and trust. So I want to start out by asking you this question. If the fundamentals of leadership are relatively simple, why is it that so many capable leaders struggle to apply them consistently, especially when we're under pressure?

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Yeah, it's a great question. Um, you know, it really comes down to our emotions get come into play, right? So when everything is calm and going according to plan, it's easy to show up, you know, according to how you should. But as soon as you get that pressure, that stress starts to boil up, that's when our emotions take hold. And we do really the opposite of what we intend to do. Right. So if you think about someone that I have a lot of red energy, right? I run to the fire, I get things done. But when I'm under stress, that really shows up as my need for control, and I can become very domineering and telling people what has to happen. And that's my stress coming out. You know, someone else that might have a lot of green energy that kind of goes with the flow and they're they're comfortable under stress, they might become stubborn and stuck in their ways and nervous about even moving forward. So the stress really causes us to pick up a different tempo, a different um way of leading that we don't intend to, but comes out. And so it's really important that we have to understand what happens under stress so that we can really lead the way we want to and show up the way we want to.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

I love that. So, you know, here at Transformation Station, we always like to give our viewers and listeners an opportunity to stop and listen and assess. And so, viewers and listeners, I think right here, Kathy has already begun to give us a masterclass, helping us to really see practically what's real. And so, Kathy, you know, I'm I'm gonna ask you, take us a little bit deeper just in terms of like the fund the fundamentals. How do we move it from theory to practical? We're talking about struggling, why we struggle to apply um when we're under pressure.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

It really starts with awareness, Adrian, like to know ourselves, right? Before we can show up for others, we have to know how we react in good times and in bad times. Yes, and start to build trust with our team so they understand it and that they can, you know, my team knows that when I'm under stress, they know how I'm gonna show up. Yeah, so now I give them permission like, hey, if this comes across the wrong way, I give you permission to um push back on me, you know, to show me what I need to do. So that's where it's really important to know yourself first. How do you show up in good times? How do you show up under stress? How do you intend to? Right? So also being able to tell people how you intend to show up, help people then go, okay, that's not normal. Something else is going on.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

I like that. Telling people how you intend to show up. That takes us to communication that takes us to being being willing to, as a leader, to be vulnerable, right? And to be authentic. Wow, I like that.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Good words. Those are some of my favorite words, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Yeah. You know, I saw this leadership principle that that I absolutely love. And it says, pressure doesn't create poor leadership, it exposes gaps in leadership discipline. As you were talking, I was thinking to myself, you know, I I heard my mom one time uh tell me this, and she said, How do you know when um a tea kettle, how let me back up? She said, When does a tea kettle sing? The tea kettle sings when it's hot. And she said, when people are under pressure, that's when you really get to see their character. That's when you really get to see what's on the inside in their heart and what's really there. And as you were saying that just now, I thought about that. I said, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love the fact that your team knows who you are, not just when everything is good, but they know what to expect. And I think that's one of the challenges that many of us as leaders face because our teams don't know what to expect, then they don't have that psychological safety. I want to ask you this question. What shaped your understanding of good leadership versus bad management? Talk to us.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

It comes unfortunately, it comes from experiencing both, right? So I have been blessed with having some amazing leaders in my life that have set the example. You know, it starts with my dad. You know, my dad started in the mail room, worked his way up to be the president of a company, and he taught us day in and day out treat everyone with dignity and respect. That's all you need to do if you remember nothing else. Um, my coaches, you know, my volleyball coach taught me what it's like to be a leader on the on the courts. So, and then once I get into the business world, same thing. I had leaders that cared for me, that helped me grow, that challenged me, that gave me honest feedback. And then I had that negative one that that we referred to him as Voldemort, he who shall not be named. Um, but that was a real turning point for me, Adrian, when I left corporate because of him. Um, I knew what good leadership looked like, I knew what was needed, I knew that people needed purpose, they needed to know the why, they needed to have more than just results. And he kept saying to it to us, don't worry about it, just do it. I because I told you, that's enough. You don't need anything more. And I kept trying to protect my team. But then one day when I turned around and they're like, Kath, why do we need to do this? And I'm like, I don't know why, just do it. It had impacted me so negatively. And I'm like, I this is not the environment that I want to be in. And that's when I left corporate and really stopped to think about what is good. Now I the question you're asking me, this was my catalyst of what is good leadership, what is bad management, and how do we set people up to for success to always show up as their best version of themselves?

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Hmm. And leaders, that's a really great question that I think that we all should reflect on, right? How do we set our teams up for success to be the best version of themselves? I absolutely love that. And you know, one of the best practices that I was thinking of as you were talking is this one regularly connect daily tasks to broader goals and mission. You know, sometimes our teams, we can fall into that cycle of just get this task done. And it doesn't really make sense in how it aligns with the bigger picture, the broader perspective. But when we understand how things connect, then we can really give authentically to what it is that's being done, not just for the moment, but for the long term. I absolutely love that. So, Kathy, let me ask you this. What is the biggest lie we tell ourselves about leadership?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

You know, it's interesting. It depends on who's asking, but I would say in general, I think there is this perception that you have to choose between performance or your people. That either you gotta drive results at all costs, or you can care about your people. I often have people say, Oh, yeah, I know I know need to do this for my people, but I'll get to it when I get the results or when I get this task done. But in reality, it's not a choice between the two. Good performance, high performance results are driven by taking care of your people. And that's the the key for people to understand is when you take care of your people, then they will take care of the results. And that's the job of a leader, right? Like the job of a team is you have to deliver results. And I often I'm very results-oriented, right? So this is where I come from is we gotta get results, but how you get them really dictates how quickly you will have them and how sustainable those results are because you can absolutely use fear to as a mechanism, and it works in in certain situations, by the way, but it is not a long-term lever, and that's where you really have to think about how am I going to long-term set up my team and make sure that we are delivering those results?

SPEAKER_00 13:13

I love that 1000%. I know you're watching and you're listening right now, and you're like, oh yeah, I resonate with this. Tell us in the chat what is resonating with you right now, even share maybe one of your own leadership experiences as you're listening to Kathy and I continue this conversation. So, Kathy, let me ask you this: how does stress and constant demands change the way leaders think, communicate, and make decisions, often without us even realizing it?

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Yeah, it comes down to we forget the basics, right? So when we think about who we need to be and how we need to show up, we know we talked about it earlier. We know what good looks like, but under that stress, we forget and cancel the one-on-ones, right? We forget to say thank you. I appreciate you. Um, we assume people know everything that they need to do. So our goal needs to be to remember those basics when the stress hits, um, because those are the right behaviors, the right habits that we have to continuously do in the workplace.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

I love that. That word remember. Don't forget, let it come back to your cognizance. I love that. That reminds me of awareness. This leadership principle that I found was this awareness protects leadership effectiveness under pressure. You know, we're having this conversation because literally, I mean, we live right now in a pressure-filled world, right? There's always this um the goal of getting things done quickly, right? Many times we I don't know if it's right or wrong, but sometimes we equate this rapid pace with being effective, but it's unsustainable. If you go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Many times you just you can start to get tunnel vision. So, leaders, we want to invite you to be aware, know that that awareness, that stop, that pause, that reflection, asking questions, it protects it protects the effectiveness for you and your team as you move forward, especially when you're under pressure. I saw this.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Well, and let if I can, just for there's a phrase that I like to use. Sometimes you need to go slow to go fast. So when you slow down and you reconnect, you reground everyone, and then you can go faster.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Go slow in order to go fast. I gotta give you snaps for that one. I love it, I love it. So, Kathy, when leaders, when we feel overwhelmed, talk to us. What practical steps can we take to return to the simple leadership behaviors that will build trust and stability for our teams?

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Yeah, and this is where the you mentioned the E3 leadership code earlier. This is a a system for leaders to follow repeatedly. And it comes down to first three questions that you always need to be able to answer. And if you can't answer these questions, you kind of need to go back and check in with yourself. But where are we going? You know, express the envision. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? What does it look like when we get there? So often we don't have that clarity of where we're going and why we're going there. So that's the first piece. Second, how do you make sure everyone's on board with you? How do you make sure that they're engaged and they're bought in? Because each one of us need to show up in a different way, right? And we need to engage people the way they want to be engaged, not the way we want to show up. Yes. And then the third stool to this is execute, and that's making sure that you have some kind of rhythm that will allow you to deliver the results over and over again. And so I call that the E3 is the three legs of the stool. The top piece, and this is really the differentiation, is making sure you show what you up with emotional qualities. And you mentioned a lot of them already authenticity, awareness. You need to be curious, um, courageous, right? Inspiring and enabling. So this is how you get everyone realigned. This is how you refocus yourself. Because when you get overwhelmed, come back to these basic questions. Where are we going and why? Is everyone on board? And how do we execute?

SPEAKER_00 18:13

I love that. Can you say those three questions one more time? Where are we?

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Where are we going and why? And why is everyone on board?

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Is everyone on board?

SPEAKER_01 18:23

And are we executing? Do we have the structures in place to ensure that we're making progress?

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Why is it important that we ask these three questions?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Because when we miss our goals, one of those things is missing, right? So you've probably worked with leaders that are great visionaries, right? They're out there, they're like, I have this great idea. And you're like, Yeah, you're inspired, you're motivated. And then they forget to bring people along with them on the mission, right? Or you might have that leader who is excellent at getting everyone excited and motivated, but then they don't deliver any results, right? And then I've had the leader who is very good at we're gonna do this now, and it's just very commanding and operationally astute, but forgets why people want to get engaged, forgets to put the purpose out there. So these legs, you need all three of them to be able to build your chair, and that's how I think of it. Because all I don't know if you know the stat, but and there's a lot of different ones, but less than 30% of individuals, teams, and organizations succeed at meeting their goals. And that's a lot of the research that I've been doing to figure out what is that 30% doing differently? And they have the balance, they're doing all of that, they're expressing the envision, engaging their team, and executing with rhythm while um powering it all through emotional intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Talk to us a little bit more about E3 Edge. What is this? Talk to us about it.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

That's really what I just was talking about. Is this 30% of people that are following this discipline over and over and over again? Right? So they are expressing the envision, engaging their people and executing while showing up with emotional intelligence. And you know, you we talked a lot about pressure and what happens, these are the basics. You have to keep coming back to the basics to make sure that you're delivering on the results, and so that small minority that do the basics over and over again are the ones that are part of that E3 edge and that consistently deliver results.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Okay, so talk to us. If you could unteach one thing, or maybe two, right? Well, we we still got a few minutes. If you could unteach anything that leaders believe about performance, what would you unteach that the command and control style doesn't work, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:09

And it might work in a very um specific environment, it works at times, um, but it is not something that is sustainable because what you get is people showing up out of fear, um, they're doing what they're told to do, they do the bare minimum. Because if you look at the um engagement scores, only 21% of employees are actively engaged in their job.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

That means 79% are not giving 100%. That means we're not driving things forward. So we think, oh, I'm just gonna push harder and I'm just gonna tell them what to do. But in reality, what you really want to tap into is people's personal connections, their heart, their emotions to want to do more. And so I have a saying that logic doesn't move people, emotions do. And so that's what I want people to be comfortable with putting a heart on a slide. You know, this is personal, this is emotional, and we're all people.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yes, absolutely. Do you find with with what you just described about what you would unteach, do you find that many of the people that you coach are struggling with this in particular?

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Typically, what I find is those that figure out that they need coaching understand the premise. They need the reminders and the accountability and the support to remember to go back to the basics.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

I think my biggest challenge. Is not everyone sees how they're not really getting the long-term results. Because so many of the roles we're in are short term. But will people follow you, right? So if you take Voldemort, no one would go work for him again. No one would suggest that you should go work for him. So once you're able to get out of that environment, you wouldn't work for that leader again. And those things impact your credibility, your capabilities. Because if you can't hire and you can't get references for people to come work with you and follow you, that has an impact long term.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Absolutely. 1000%. So, Kathy, listen, this has been an amazing conversation. As we turn the corner right here, I'm gonna ask you this question because I know that we have leaders that have been vibing and following us and resonating. So, so how can leaders, how can we create personal habits and team cultures that reduce unnecessary complexity and make leadership more sustainable? How can we create personal habits and team culture that make leadership more sustainable? How can we do this?

SPEAKER_01 24:03

I think it first starts with clear priorities, right? It's it's simplifying what we're asking people to do and making sure that everyone understands it. I think we assume way too much. Um, you know, I I've got leaders, if we're doing performance management, someone will say, you know, I'll ask them, did they meet their ex your expectations? They're like, no. I go, okay, what were your expectations? Well, they should know. All right. Well, what should they know? Well, they should do their job. That's not good enough, right? As leaders, we're making too many assumptions. And if we just work towards getting clarity, getting ownership, building relationships, all of this gets a lot easier. It's a lot easier to have a difficult conversation when someone's not meeting expectations if you've clearly articulated what your expectations are and what does that look like? When do you need something by? What does success look like? Um, how do you know when something is done, right? How am I going to accept it? That level of transparency and clarity makes so much easier. And that's where we need to simplify by just having that clarity up front.

unknown 25:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Listen, you gave us a masterclass today on how leadership can be simplified and how we can't, we shouldn't overcomplicate it. Thank you so much. Now, Kathy, I know Beganashadavada, there are leaders who are listening and watching that want to learn more about E3, that want to tap into your resources. What's the best way for us to do that?

SPEAKER_01 25:40

They can reach us at our website, and I think you have it up there, www.equalsy.com, or they can look for me on LinkedIn, Kathy Eastwood.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

I love this. So listen, viewers and listeners, you know we'd love to support our guests. I'm going to invite you. You see the link there on the screen. It's also in the description box. Please go ahead and reach out, tap into the resources, the gems that Kathy has, and most importantly, reach out to her. Let her know that you saw that you heard this episode. Let her know what resonates with you because we believe the community that learns together grows together. Kathy, thank you so much for helping us to learn today and to become better leaders. It's been wonderful to have you with us.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

It's my pleasure. Thank you for all you're doing. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Thank you. Well, listen, today's conversation reminds us that leadership impact does not come from doing more. No, it comes from doing what matters most with consistency and purpose. We thank Kathy for helping us to see that leadership doesn't have to be complicated to be powerful. When we as leaders simplify our focus and strengthen our fundamentals, we create environments where people on our teams can thrive and results can follow. If this episode resonated with you, be sure to subscribe to Transformation Station Leadership Podcast and share this particular episode with a leader you know who could benefit from simplifying their leadership and strengthening their impact. So until next time, stay clear, stay consistent, and keep on leading with purpose.