The Leadership Match with Martin Rowinski
The Leadership Match with Martin Rowinski is a quick, high-impact leadership podcast for executives, founders, CEOs, board members, advisors, entrepreneurs, and rising leaders who want practical conversations that lead to better ideas, better people, and better action.
Hosted by Martin Rowinski, co-founder and CEO of Boardsi and author of The Corporate Matchmaker and Beyond the Title, each episode delivers focused 10 to 15 minute conversations with leaders, experts, founders, and executives who share real lessons on leadership, business growth, board readiness, company culture, personal branding, accountability, resilience, performance, and decision-making.
This podcast is built for leaders who do not want theory without action. Martin brings a direct, relationship-centered approach to every conversation, helping listeners connect the dots between values, vision, mission, people, and execution. From building stronger teams to finding the right advisors, from leading through uncertainty to creating a lasting legacy, The Leadership Match gives busy professionals insight they can use immediately.
If you are looking for a leadership podcast that is short, practical, motivational, and designed for executives who are ready to grow, subscribe to The Leadership Match with Martin Rowinski.
Quick conversations that connect leaders with better ideas, better people, and better action.
The Leadership Match with Martin Rowinski
Stop Being the Bottleneck: How Leaders Build Teams That Grow | Neal Goyal
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Everyone is being asked to do more.
In this episode of The Leadership Match with Martin Rowinski, I sit down with Neal Goyal, GTM Advisor for Ecommerce and DTC & Ecom Whiz, for Part 2 of our quick leadership conversation. We talk about one of the biggest challenges leaders are facing right now: expectations keep rising while teams are getting leaner, timelines are getting shorter, and patience is disappearing.
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Welcome back to the Leadership Match. In the next few minutes, we're going to uncover one idea, one lesson, and one action that can help leaders grow. Real conversations, practical insight, and action you can use. Today I'm joined by Neil Goyle. Neil, when you look at uh leadership today, where do you see the biggest mismatch between people, roles, and expectations?
SPEAKER_01I think when you think of expectations, the expectation of every human being that's on a team has gone up exponentially just in the past 12 to 18 months, right? So the uh junior marketing manager is being asked to be do the work of two. The uh average seller or closer or account executive is being asked to carry a higher number or higher quota. Um each individual leader or manager of a team is being asked to manage more people as opposed to have another director or leader support them. So, like at every single part of the organization, everyone is being asked to do more. And in that process, it's the question is like, okay, how do you effectively manage and lead through all of this change through this shift that's taking place where everyone's being asked to do more? Ultimately, it comes down to what can you do to best understand your team? And what can you do to demonstrate patience in a world where patience doesn't exist? Right? The answer is always now. When do you need this? Now. When does this outcome have to happen? Now. When are when are things changing? Now. When is our competitor coming? Now, right? So we have become so programmed to have less patience over time, but at the same time, the pace of change that's happening around us is happening so quickly. So the key is like, who are the leaders that can demonstrate the patience to continue to invest in their team, to show that they care, to show that they're they're willing to wait for the outcome if the right actions are taken? And ultimately, what are what are what are we doing to actually invest in each individual team member to make them feel valued, despite everything else around them telling them them uh otherwise?
SPEAKER_00What behavior separates leaders who create momentum from the ones who slow teams down?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a great question because uh, you know, it goes back to several years ago when I was transitioning from an individual seller myself and moving into leadership. And I found that as I was a new leader, I was my own bottleneck. Right. Like I often took the mentality, yes, I can do, I can achieve, I can uh make this outcome happen. And that was the mindset of an IC. Like very successful ICs have that mindset, but I need to divorce myself from that mindset, right? So um uh at the end of the day, that's that was like a real um like moment where I had to like look in the mirror. I think one of the things that leaders need to do, and what I continue to do, is truly maintain a level of humility in the form of self-reflection. Self-reflection, yeah, I think ultimately requires every single person looking in the mirror and seeing what are the flaws, what are the areas in my life, in my strategy, in my ability to coach, ability to lead a team, uh leading to an outcome. We can see on paper these like great revenue numbers or great performance, or we hit our KPIs, but at the end of the day, there's other factors that genuinely matter that are often can ultimately become a challenge in an organization. And ultimately the leaders that are able to, despite things going really well, be self-reflective in that moment, really try to uncover flaws in their existing process, which we all have them, um, and no matter how seasoned, um, are the ones that are ultimately gonna be able to weather what is a you know continually changing environment and landscape.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So this might be close to the last answer, but maybe there maybe it isn't. What is a mistake or hard lesson that made you a better leader?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think um the the hard lesson was the just because revenue outcomes and KPIs are being achieved doesn't mean that that's the full picture. It doesn't mean that that's the only thing that matters. Um and I myself am a very outcome-driven individual, and I have uh uh had a tendency in the past to hyper focus just on those outcomes and not take in the full picture. Like call it like almost like a tunnel vision, right? And a tunnel vision on an outcome, those are things that have negatively impacted me in the past, but at the same time, the awareness that that is a an internal flaw is equally what combats that too.
SPEAKER_00Got it. I think a lot of people are guilty of that. When people look back at your leadership, why do you hope they say you helped create?
SPEAKER_01I look uh every single person I've worked with, I hope to equip them with everything they can to go anywhere they want in their career. I want to make them so successful and so confident that they can literally raise their hand and go anywhere they want. But then in that process, I want to give them every reason not to. Right? And so in that philosophy, I think one very key example is that I'm it's no secret that I'm like super obsessed and fixated on the impact that LinkedIn can have on someone's career. And so as a part of my go-to-market motion, um every single seller I uh uh and and go-to-market uh individual and contributor, I hope to help them develop a personal brand on LinkedIn that in the name of building pipeline, driving attention to the organization that we're uh looking to drive an outcome for, um representing the brand, um, building customer trust, building pipeline, like driving outcomes. Like that's the whole purpose why I'm helping every single one of our go-to-market team members invest in LinkedIn, right? At the same time, what are we also doing in that process is that we're investing in their own individual personal brand. Because at the end of the day, the personal brand, the audience, the reputation, that's something that will follow you wherever you go. And I recognize that by helping that individual build a presence on LinkedIn, yes, I'm helping the short-term goals of driving revenue and pipeline, but ultimately it's also equipping them to raise their hand and go anywhere they want, right? So for me, I hope every single person that has ever worked with me sees that everything I do is to invest in them. My intent is always in the right place. My care is is it comes from the deepest of my heart. I want to see everyone around me succeed. It really comes from a place of being so grateful on anybody that gets to give me the opportunity to work with them and support them. I want to exchange that back and give that right back. And the way I do that is by investing in them, showing them that I care. Listen, I am far from a perfect leader. There's plenty of flaws I think we can uh probably identify. But at the end of the day, if there's one thing that never goes away, is the care I have for the individual team members. And I think everyone that has ever worked with me would say that exact same thing.
SPEAKER_00I love it. Really do. And guess what? Even if they do go somewhere else, and maybe they do, maybe they don't make more money, if they're not treated the way they were treated by you, they'll be back. They will. Um, and I know that because I've had people that have done that and they came back. Uh, what is one book person habit or idea you would match with every leader listening?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um I absolutely love the book, The Challenger Sale. The Challenger Sale uh is a book that has multiple purposes. I think in its traditional sense, it's views as a sales and sales leadership book. Um, but the book can have so many different angles in which you can study it that it's not just reserved for the sales profession, but for really all leaders. And why that is, is the Challenger Sale identifies different personas of people on your team, right? Different types of uh ways that they operate, um, the behaviors that they have, performance, the way they go about achieving performance. And it kind of gives these different characters and personas for each one of them. And it really gives a good insight on like what are the actual like strengths of these personas that gives insight into the leader of what they should lean into and accelerate and double down on. At the same time, it gives a good great insight on like what are some of the drawbacks of those personas as well that you should uh uh uh you know coach coach towards, right? So um Challenger Sale, amazing book. It's an amazing book for individual sellers, it's an amazing book for sales leaders, it's an amazing book for all leaders that are running any sort of team because it just really gets it gives you the opportunity to understand the different personas that can exist on a team, which is really tough to often conceptualize and coach towards, uh, but this does a fantastic job in doing so.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. Thank you, Neil. Um, leadership is built one conversation, one connection, and one action at a time. Thanks for listening to the leadership match. I'm your host, Martin Ravinsky. And if this conversation gave you one idea to act on, subscribe and the action, share it with another leader. Don't be selfish, and I'll see you in the next match. Thanks, Neil. Thanks so much, Martin. Great being here. Awesome.