A (6:21)

You cite Daniel Goleman in the book and say Goleman found something similar. When I compare star performers with average ones in senior leadership positions, nearly 90% of the difference in their profiles was attributable to emotional intelligence factors rather than the cognitive ones. And again, lots of different ways to call it soft skills, interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence. But the message is the same, that so much of this comes down to the people stuff, doesn't it?

B (6:48)

Absolutely, yes. And what was interesting too is I, in researching all of this, I found a study, I think it was from 1918, and they studied engineers and they came to the same conclusion that it was not their engineering skills that made them really successful in their career, it was their interpersonal skills.

A (7:11)

And just such a. It's such an important checkpoint for us of why it comes down to in leadership, especially how we're leading ourselves well, how we're managing ourselves well and also understanding ourselves. And we're going to get into some details on how to do that a little better. But before we do, what is it about this interpersonal piece and understanding ourselves well that's so critical to be able to lead effectively?

B (7:44)

Yeah. You know, if you understand yourself, you understand that you are different from other people and that very oftentimes our differences are our features and not our flaws. Right. And that these are things to capitalize on. And so the other is, is that once we understand ourselves, we can manage ourselves toward the leader we want to become, because at each level of our career needs a new level of us. So we're. This is a constant thing. It's not a one and done so understanding ourselves to manage ourselves. But the other part of it is, is that if we don't understand ourselves, it makes it very difficult to understand other people and to understand that they are different from others. And if we can't manage ourselves, we don't usually have the ability to ask other people to develop. So the, the idea of understanding ourself is absolutely threaded through everything in Leadership, everything from developing other people to making decisions to bouncing back from setbacks. So once you understand yourself, and we change over time, but it helps us with every aspect of leadership, that we are grounded, we're not buffeted by every single wind that blows, that we know who we are and we know what's important to us.

A (9:03)

And I don't think it's any accident that some of the best leadership books I've ever read, often chapter one or chapter two or chapter three, early in the book, is about understanding yourself or personal leadership. Because to your point, like starting there does then give you the window, the perspective to be able to see a whole lot more and understanding others and leading others. And it's why I love chapter three of the book and really thinking about, all right, how do we actually get better at understanding ourselves? And you and your work have surfaced six questions that are a starting point for really getting into this and understanding it. I thought maybe we'd look at each one and what's significant about each one and how do we start with it? Because these are really big questions and they're not the kinds of questions that I think we can sit down and answer in a minute or two. Right. I mean, it really does take some more thinking.

B (10:04)

Yeah, yeah. So each of the questions, what I, what I usually do when I'm running a program is, you know, I have the six questions, I don't actually pass them out. Right. Because people read ahead and skip around, et cetera.

A (10:16)

Yeah.

B (10:16)

So I go through each one and I give people five to 10 minutes to just, as I say, just freehand it, just go, don't edit yourself. Whatever comes through your mind, let it run down your arm and into your pen and on paper. And then I say, leave yourself a bunch of room and you go back tonight, tomorrow morning, edit, not edit, but add to it, look at it a little differently, and then go back in a week, in a month, and perhaps once a year, twice a year, which a lot of people do, because it is one of those things that you can't do it in one sitting. It's just overwhelming. In particular, the first question. The first question is a huge question, takes a lot of time to do, but. But answering that first question, well, oftentimes helps you answer the others more effectively. And I will say that for myself, the answer to that first question is six pages of single spaced type. So it's not short.

A (11:13)

Yeah, indeed. And to your point, thinking about like this and what we're going to look at with the six questions, I don't think either of us would suggest or recommend anyone as you're listening to this being trying to answer the questions. Rather, our hope is that we would use this as an introduction to the six questions and starting to think about how you might approach these questions. Then that you might go back and spend some time, get into the book, really spend some time thinking about this in some detail. Maybe come back to this conversation and stop or pause as a starting point for that. Does that feel right to you, Margaret? If we approach it that way?

B (11:52)

Yeah. No, that sounds good because I know a lot of people listen to podcasts as they're driving, so we definitely don't want you writing things down.

A (11:58)

Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. Indeed. Well, let's look at the first question. And you, you do say this first question is the biggest. And it's the, and it's probably the most important one. And the question is, who and whose thinking has shaped you as an individual? What is it that's so significant about this question?

B (12:21)

This one? The thing is, is that we have been influenced by so many people in our lives and of course, our parents and our siblings and our community and our teachers, for example. You know, one of the things that often comes up is that someone will say, my goodness, in third grade my teacher told me I was good in this or not good in that. And I've taken that with me. Right. And people have told me, 40 years later, I'm realizing that wasn't true or it's no longer true. So a lot of times we're, when we're younger, we're sort of told who we are or what we're good at or what we're not good at. So these things shape us. But, you know, it's also our friends growing up, they had a lot of influence on us. I was also our, our friends and our enemies. We, we take from that our co workers. These are, I say, people that have helped us and, and people that have hurt us because they, both of those types of people have influenced us. They have oftentimes shaped us as an individual, the way we think about things. But it's also not just people. It's ideas. It can be ideas from books that we've read, classes we've taken, movies we've watched, talks we've heard, I would say those dorm room conversations, things like that, things that sometimes change your mind or the way you thought about things. So lots of, as I say, this is a big question. And I also will tell people that there are times when somebody in your life can be on both sides of the ledger as somebody that helped you, but maybe also hurt you, too, or potentially told you ideas about yourself that perhaps weren't true or are no longer true.

A (14:09)

When you see people really get into this question in depth, what helps them to decide what they include and what maybe they don't hear?

B (14:21)

Yeah. In truth, I leave that up to the individual. Some people really do like going into depth. I oftentimes will tell people, listen, there may be parts people in your life or situations that you aren't comfortable talking about. And I said, that's totally fine. These are absolutely for your eyes only. That said, I say, you know, sometimes if you're not sure if you're looking at. At this correctly, you can talk about it with somebody that knows you well, somebody you know, whether it's your family or a friend or spouse or partner or something like that, and just say, you know, this is the way I'm looking at this. And they may give you a slightly different perspective. And that can be helpful, too.

A (15:00)

I love the invitation here, too, to not just think about people, but movies and books and classes and things that have had a significant impact on us for whatever reason, as you point out, good or bad. Right. And those often help us to illuminate something that has shaped us in some way.

B (15:20)

Yeah. I oftentimes think, you know, one of the things I have in that question is it can even include favorite childhood stories. Right. We all had certain books that we read or were read to us as children, and sometimes we go back, we buy them for our own children. Right. Because we like them so much. But a lot of times you learn something from those. You know, I always think of back to that book, Harold and the Purple Crayon. I don't know if you read that one. Yeah. But it was about him taking things into his own hands. He decides he wants to go for a walk. So he paints this. He goes out as he draws a window in his room and goes out the window, walks around town. Then he realizes, oh, I think I want to go back. So he redraws the window and climbs back in. So, you know, I always thought. I think that probably stayed with me because I thought we all have a lot of agency for how we do things. And of course, my kids now all like it, too.

A (16:11)

Yeah. Well, in thinking about agency, a lot of what's behind this question is we are getting to a understanding and appreciation of who we are, our preferences, our history, what's important to us. And in the spirit, as you mentioned earlier, of if I can do that better for myself if I see those things in myself, if I recognize those things in myself, then hopefully I can do a better job at being able to recognize that in others, too. And understanding our own uniqueness and our own agency helps us to then have the capacity to extend that dignity to others.

B (16:52)

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because different people that we work with, they were raised differently, they studied at different places or different topics. They had different families than we do, so they were shaped differently than we are. And that is. That may be helpful as opposed to trying to make everybody or think that everybody is really the same.

A (17:15)

The second question is what situations and events have helped shape your perspective? I was thinking about that question and wondering, what are the ones that we should pay attention to, the situation and events, when we think about that question and exploring that further.

B (17:34)

Yeah. I think sometimes there are, I would all say, pivotal moments, and sometimes these may come as, what I'll say, lucky and unlucky accidents. You know, unlucky accident might be that you got into a car accident or there was a death in the family or something that maybe was or was not out of your control, but it wasn't. Wasn't what you wanted. Right. And those. Those impact us. But there are also lucky accidents. And that. The one I hear the most often is that somebody will say, I really did not want to go to that party that night, but my friend made me go, and that's where I met my spouse. Right. So lucky accident. But a lot of these things can. Can shape the way that we think about things.

A (18:20)

Thinking about what you said on thinking about things as kind of those lucky and unlucky accidents, and thinking about that first question where we have agency, like, in a way, like often we don't like with things that have shaped or just happened to us. What's the value of thinking about things from the standpoint of just like, okay, this is just what happened to me in my life, and how does that help us illuminate who we are and how it shapes us?

B (18:47)

Yeah. And there are those things that we don't have control over. Maybe you were sickly when you were younger, you got in a car accident, or you had a really very challenging family situation or something like that. I think very often of the quote by British author C.S. lewis when he says, you can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. And I love that because it does talk about agency, but it also, in my mind, talks about understanding where you are. Because sometimes in classes, I Will talk about different signs of somebody that has low self understanding and self management and I'll read off a list of those. And, and I ask people, or I say to people that hey, listen, if you checked a few of those boxes and are feeling uncomfortable about how many of them you checked, I said, congratulations. And then I pause and everybody looks at me like, what do you mean? And I said, because now you know where you're starting from, that once you know where you're starting from and where you want to go, there's a much clearer path. But know if you think you know where you want to go, but you are really not clear on where you are, how would you know how to get there? Do you go up or down or right or left? So I, I think these can be very helpful. Even though it takes some courage to do this, to shine a light inside and, and, and see these things.

A (20:17)

Yeah, it's, it's almost like putting directions in a gps. If you want to get somewhere, you have to know where you are. Like, it's, it's completely, it's completely pointless to just have a destination and to not have a starting point. And so if you're going to map the path, which of course you and I are both trying to help leaders to do, you have to know where you're starting from. So like, what a, what a wonderful way to get there as far as just illuminating like where that beginning place is. And. Okay, that takes us to the third question. What does success look like for you? And I've been thinking about this question and I know you said that the first one was the biggest and maybe the hardest and, and yet for me, almost this one struck me as harder, like thinking about how to answer it. Because that first one where you, you invited us think about people and situations and movies and books, I was like, oh, wow. Like I, there's so many things to come to mind and this one is like so existential in a way. Right. Like everyone has like a different feeling about success. What helps people get started with this one?

B (21:19)

Yeah. So I ask them to think about this in both their personal life and their professional life. And very oftentimes people will say things like, I want to retire with X dollars in the bank or I want to start a company or I want to reach a certain level in an organization. And so my question then is why that, why that amount of money? Why that title? Why start a business? Because that is oftentimes pointing to something else. You know, is it that you want that title so that people will think you're smart or that you're successful. Is success actually maybe what you're looking at or is it recognition from others? So looking at what you think about success can help you put yourself on the path that way and also not be tempted by other definitions of success. Because a lot of times I think society's definition of success is more. More money, bigger title, bigger house, those kinds of things. But for loads of people, that's really not what success looks like for them. They may want good family relationships. They may want to be able to have more balance in their personal and professional life. So understanding what success looks like for us helps us to peel off those things that aren't serving us. Maybe that's not our definition of success. Maybe that's somebody else's. Maybe it's our parents, maybe it's societies, but maybe it's not ours. And it's helpful to know, again, where, where do you want to go?

A (23:04)

Yeah, yeah. And, and even if it is something that seems, on its face, more transactional, like someone wants to have a certain net worth dollar amount in their retirement account at a certain age, which, you know, a lot of us have a goal like that. Right. Is, okay, well, what's behind that? Like, getting to that. Great. Like, it's good to have that tactically. But what I really hear you saying is like, let's explore the why, like the question after that. What's the why behind that? How does that, how does that really feel like success for you? What does that mean? If you have those resources, like, what are you going to do with it? How do you support your family, other organizations, charity? Like, there's so many interesting places to go with that that I, I find that oftentimes there is something that's there. And sometimes people haven't really thought of that. And so it's an opportunity to also start thinking about, like, oh, what does that really look like for me?

B (23:53)

Yeah. And, you know, and the money part of it, I think is very interesting because if you ask people what's behind it, sometimes they say, well, you know, for example, I want to buy a beach house or something. And I say, well, that might be dependent upon where you live. You know, if you really, really want to live on the beach, you might be able to do that now, or you might be able to do that for a whole lot less money than you think. So is that what it is, that you want to be living on the beach, or is it what else might be behind that?

A (24:25)

Which is a good transition to the fourth Question. What are your core values? And how have these values changed throughout your life? I have seen so many different exercises over the years. I've produced some in my work, my work at Carnegie, Cards, lists of values books. This is such a critical question. And when people come to this for the first time, where do you invite people to just start with this and start thinking about, what are my values?

B (24:55)

Yeah. And, you know, I think a lot of people think this is the hardest question. And the reason is because we're not really asked this question very often. And. And maybe we're told that our parents have values for us, society does as well. So thinking about, I show people what I think are two ways into understanding some of your values. And the first one is, what would we think if we looked at your calendar? What you value versus what you say you value? And as an example of this, I'll say that if you talk to my husband and. And I, we would both say that we value health and fitness. If you were to look at his calendar, it would become very clear that that is what he values. So my husband is an ultra marathon runner, and we've been married now for 37 years. Oh, wow. And no matter what is going on in his life or in the world, he works out six days a week, he runs, he does whatever he needs to do, and he makes time for it. So if something is really crazy at work, he get up earlier or stay up later or something like that. For me, you would see that I value work a lot. So oftentimes that my work will crowd out my workout time. I'm not saying that in a proud way. I'm saying that that actually does reveal some of my values. So that's one thing is, where do you spend your time? Is one part of it. The other way is I ask people to say, you know what? When you read about something or witness something that makes you angry, what is it that makes you angry? Whether you're reading a news story about it, et cetera. And the reason for that is because a lot of times what makes us angry is that one of our values has been stepped on. And so you can say, okay, wait, what are these things? And what are they all pointing to? So those are two ways. I mean, I know there's many, many ways into values, but I have found these to be pretty helpful and pretty quick to help people get into them.

A (27:11)

Ooh. And I love both of those perspectives. I'm already thinking of things like, what would I. What. What might I surface on my values list? I Haven't thought of just thinking through the anger lens.

B (27:20)

Yeah, the anger ones. A lot of people say, oh, that was helpful. Right? They said. When I thought about it, I. They said, oh, my goodness, there really was a common core there of what makes me angry. So they. They found that very helpful.

A (27:33)

Yeah. And sometimes you coming to something from the other side of it is, like, so much more illuminating. Like, a lot of times we think about values, we think, oh, what brings me joy? When am I my happy place? Which is all good, right? Like, it's good to think of that too. But coming at it from the other way of, like, what really makes me angry? And then using that to reflect back of, like, okay, what's the value that's maybe being violated or not showing up there. Ooh, ooh. So cool. Okay, the fifth question. To what extent are you aware of and allow yourself to feel your emotions? And I was thinking about this question and thinking, of course, all we know is our own experience, Right. How can you get to a place where you can calibrate whether you are aware of your own emotions or not?

B (28:20)

Yeah. So a lot of people, when I tell them this question, you can see almost the look of fear on their face because they think, oh, I don't know. And I think, well, if you don't know, I think we know what that answer is. Because really, in truth, part of our understanding ourselves is being aware of our internal world. And that is all about emotions. And very oftentimes, our emotions are what are driving our behavior. And so, you know, one way to look at this is if you're feeling angry, who's the first to know? Is it you or the person you're with? Because if you're aware of your own emotions as you're having them, you are the first one that is aware of that, or happy or jealous or think of any emotion. But it's not just, are you aware of your emotions, but are you aware of how you behave in these different emotions and how that behavior impacts other people? So a lot. I would say a lot of times people will say, I'm not really that aware of. I don't like to feel some of my emotions. I just try to work through them or whatever. But understanding how. What we're feeling and how that drives our behavior is a really important point of understanding yourself. Because if you don't understand your own emotions, you can't possibly manage them. Right. If I don't know that I'm jealous or frustrated or something like that, I can't get. I can't manage it, it's just going to come out and perhaps in a way that I don't want it to.

A (29:53)

Indeed. The final question, what feedback have you received over the years about how your actions and behaviors impact others? How do you decide when thinking about that question, what kind of feedback you'd pay attention to that's significant and which you wouldn't?

B (30:13)

Yeah, no, that's a great question. So in terms of feedback, very oftentimes we think that we're so, so different at home than we are at work. And it turns out that it's often not the case. And the most common one that I hear is that somebody will say, oh, I get feedback from my. My spouse or partner that I don't listen. Well, I say, does that show up at work? And they're like, oh, yeah, it does. So we, you know, but where's that? What's that saying? Wherever you go, there you are. Y so thinking about feedback, what did your teachers tell you? What do your friends tell you and what are on your performance reviews? So what's interesting is that very often the feedback that we get in this question relates to the question before it, about to what extent are you aware of your emotions and how they impact other people? Because a lot of times our feedback is about how we don't understand that, you know, that we can come across as. As brusque or abrupt or indecisive or whatever it is. And I also tell people, if you're one of the nerdy people like me, where I keep all of my old performance reviews, go back and look at them, pull out a highlighter, because very oftentimes you will see themes there, or maybe when you went from one level to another, the pattern shifted a little bit. But to just think about that, because what feedback is, is it's a bit of a gift of a perspective that you didn't have before and a lot sense to your question about which one, which feedback should we pay attention to? I say to on a certain level, all of it. Because I've heard people say I only take feedback from people I respect. And I think, well, you might be missing something important there by not listening to others. It doesn't mean that you have to take all of it in and do what they say, but it might be important for you to know. So the other thing I'll say is that very oftentimes when we get feedback, whether it's on a personal or professional level about, you know, you're really good at this, or we love that you do this very often, many of us will say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and just dismiss it. And I say, don't do that. Because we oftentimes dive right into all the feedback that says, here's where you need to improve or these kinds of things. But don't forget the good stuff. That's why you're invited to the party. You know, that is what you bring to the team. And that is important. Otherwise they wouldn't tell you that.

A (32:42)

Yeah, we're so quick to downplay our natural strengths. The things that, like, are really great that we do that we're like, well, doesn't everyone just do this well? And everyone's like, no, that's why you're here.

B (32:53)

We think it's easy. Because it's easy for me. I think it's easy for you. Right. And as we know now, it's not.

A (32:59)

Well, this is simple, but not easy. These six questions, and I am so grateful for you sharing them with us, and what I hope that folks might do hearing this conversation, is to use this as a bit of a starting point of. To go get the book look at. Because you go through a ton of detail in the book on these six questions. Prompts things to think about, things to avoid the details. Really helpful. And then maybe as you're going through the process of sitting down with yourself and, and thinking about these questions, maybe come back to this conversation once you've got a draft down, be thinking about this. And then what a lovely entry point to being able to understand yourself better. And as you mentioned right at the beginning, once you understand yourself better, then it gives you the opportunity to be able to do so much more for others. So I'm so glad that you've provided this perspective for us.

B (33:55)

Oh, thank you so much. It's a pleasure.

A (33:57)

I've got one more question for you. I often ask people what they've changed their minds on. You have been in the midst of this work for years, by the way, I didn't mention this in the intro. Your Harvard course always has a wait list of people not being able to get in because it's so popular. So you've been in the midst of this for a lot of years. You've done the research, you've talked with so many leaders on helping them to manage themselves better. I'm curious, as you've done this, as you put together all the ideas in the book, what, if anything, have you changed your mind on?

B (34:29)

Oh, gosh, over the years, so many things. Right. I would say, I think if we think about leadership. What I've changed my mind about is when I was younger I thought the leader was the person that always had the answers, that they were very decisive, et cetera. And I think I've learned that that is not true. And I've changed my mind on that. That really some of the if we think back to our own best bosses, they didn't always have the right answer. Sometimes they turn to you for the right answer. And I've come to realize that leadership is just so much more about understanding that everyone is different and bring something different to the team. And that is a good thing. So most people, the way I look at it too is if you have children, if you have more than one, the likelihood that you treat all of your children the same way is probably pretty small. And therefore the same genetic material isn't the same. Why would we think that the random collection of strangers at work would be similar? And really the best way to get the most out of people is to treat them the way that they need to be treated to bring out the best in them.

A (35:44)

Margaret Andrews is the author of Manage Yourself to Lead. Why Great Leadership Begins with Self Understanding. Margaret, thank you so much for your work.

B (35:53)

Thank you so much, Dave. It was a real pleasure being here with you.

A (35:56)

Me as well. Three related episodes if this was helpful for you. One of them is episode 353, enhance your self Awareness. Daniel Goldman was my guest on that episode. Daniel, of course put emotional intelligence on the map for so many of us. We talked in that conversation as to why self awareness is so central and foundational for the emotional intelligence model and of course how we can get a bit better at it. Episode 353 also recommended episode 442, the Way to be More self Aware. Tasha Urich was my guest on that episode and we talked about her work and what we can do practically to reflect back on ourselves just a bit more. It complements so well with these conversations today. I love her energy and humor and helping us to do that in some real practical ways. Again, episode 442 for that. And then finally I'd also Recommend Recommend Episode 459, Discover who youo Are. Hortense il Gentil was my guest on that episode and we talked about some of the wonderful analogies and just simple questions, the everyday language questions that we can ask both ourselves and others to do a bit better self discovery. And one of the insights that came out of that conversation for me is oftentimes the indirect question is the one that's most illuminating episode 459 for several examples on how to do that. All of those episodes you can find on the coaching4leaders.com website. I'm inviting you today, if you haven't already, to set up your free membership@coachingforleaders.com because it's going to give you access to a whole bunch of resources, the entire episode library, my weekly guides, and also my book and interview notes. Just about every interview that I air here on the show, I have taken pretty careful notes to prepare in advance. I've pulled passages out of the book and in Margaret's case, I've detailed out the six questions. I've also placed under each of those six questions, bit of a paragraph or so of her writing so you really get a sense of the details. Some of the things we talked about this conversation, also some of the things we didn't have a chance to talk about. You can download those interview notes right from the episode page on the website and you can get access to it by setting up your free membership. Once you do, you can just go over to the sidebar as well and just click on Book and Interview Notes. You can see all the interview notes for all the books I've been reading and airing here on the episode episodes for years. Coaching4leaders.com the homepage is where to set that up and you'll be off and running. Coaching for Leaders is edited by Andrew Kroger. Production support is provided by Sierra Priest. Next week I'm glad to welcome Neil Ghosh to the show. We are going to be talking about leadership through our common humanity. Join me for an inspiring conversation with Neil next week and I'll see you back on Monday.