In today’s fast-paced and ever-evolving workplace, what does it really mean to be a leader? For many, the traditional view of leadership is tied to a job title, authority, and management responsibilities. But what if we told you that being a leader is less about titles and more about how you make others feel, how you inspire them, and the impact you leave on those around you? This is the essence of being leaderful, a concept that shifts leadership from authority to experience.
In this episode of Sticky From The Inside, I sit down with leadership expert Sammy Burt to dig into what it truly means to be a "leaderful" leader. Together, we explore why so many of us are still stuck in outdated ideas about leadership, and how rethinking these ideas could drastically improve not only our workplaces but also our personal fulfilment at work.
What Is Leaderful Leadership?
Is leadership something we automatically understand once we reach a certain level in our careers? Or are many of us just "accidental leaders"—promoted into leadership positions without the necessary support, leaving us overwhelmed and unsure of how to effectively lead? Sammy believes that true leadership isn’t about a title, it’s about the experience people have when they work with you. She introduces the idea that being "leaderful" is about showing up authentically, being in tune with your team, and continuously focusing on the human connection that leadership requires.
Are You Really Leading or Just Managing?
How many times have we seen someone promoted because they excel at their job, only to struggle in a leadership role? Is it fair to expect that those who are technically proficient can automatically manage people effectively? Sammy challenges this notion, discussing the differences between management and leadership, and why the two are often mistakenly seen as the same thing. The truth is, you can manage tasks, but you lead people.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re truly leading or simply managing, this conversation will resonate deeply.
Why Is Self-Awareness So Crucial in Leadership?
Sammy and I delve into the idea that self-awareness is a fundamental trait of effective leaders. How often do you stop and think about the impact your mood, behaviour, and decisions have on those around you? We explore how, in leadership, the first person you need to lead is yourself. Being aware of your strengths, weaknesses, and emotional state can change the way you interact with your team and help create a more empathetic, leaderful environment.
Post-COVID Leadership: Did We Miss an Opportunity for Change?
The COVID-19 pandemic brought a tidal wave of empathy into the workplace, as leaders were suddenly required to focus more on the well-being of their employees than ever before. But as we move further away from the pandemic, are we seeing a regression back to more rigid, less human-centred leadership practices? In this episode, we discuss how leadership expectations shifted during the pandemic and whether businesses are holding onto those crucial lessons about empathy and support—or letting them slip away.
Curiosity: The Underrated Leadership Skill
Asking questions, rather than having all the answers, might be the key to unlocking a new level of leadership effectiveness. We explore why curiosity is essential in leadership development and how it can open doors to better communication, deeper connections, and more innovative problem-solving. Are you asking your team the right questions? Are you staying open to learning from them, rather than assuming you need to be the expert in everything?
In this episode, we take a deep dive into these questions and more, unpacking how leadership is evolving and why now is the time to rethink traditional models. Whether you’re in a leadership position or aspiring to be, this episode will inspire you to look at your leadership approach from a fresh perspective.
Listen to the Full Episode
Want to go deeper into the concept of being leaderful and learn how you can transform your leadership style to be more human-centred, empathetic, and impactful? Click below to listen to the full episode of Sticky From The Inside or follow along with the full transcript below.
Read The Episode Transcript
What Does It Mean to Be Leaderful?
00:00:10 - Andy Goram
Hello and welcome to Sticky from the Inside, the employee engagement podcast that looks at how to build stickier, competition-smashing consistently successful organisations from the inside out. I'm your host, Andy Goram, and I'm on a mission to help more businesses turn the lights on behind the eyes of their employees, light the fires within them, and create tons more success for everyone. This podcast is for all those who believe that's something worth going after and would like a little help and guidance in achieving that.
Each episode, we dive into the topics that can help create what I call stickier businesses. The sort of businesses where people thrive and love to work, and where more customers stay with you and recommend you to others because they love what you do and why you do it. So if you want to take the tricky out of being sticky, listen on.
Okay then. Today we are diving into a topic that I think challenges the traditional concepts of leadership. We're going to explore what it means to be leaderful, a term that might be new to some of you, but one that could quite possibly revolutionize how you think about leading, regardless of your job title or the tasks you perform.
So joining me today is Sammy Burt, someone who's driven by a real passionate desire for more people to experience more joy in their lives. And seeing as we spend so much time at work, either being led by our leaders or being that leader trying to lead others, our joy is impacted on both sides of the coin at work. And Sammy also believes that leadership today is pretty ill defined, which can often lead to more harm than good in our workplaces for all concerned. In fact, she's concerned that a lot of language surrounding leadership can be weaponised, creating divisions rather than the unity we're after.
It could also be argued at this point in history that we need effective leadership more than ever. Plenty of organizations are still trying to sort out issues where the gap between what leaders and employees want and need can still seem wider than ever. So how do we face into the frustrations that persist and the errors that still happen and take a sure footed move forward? And whose responsibility is that anyway? Is it the organization or is it the leaders themselves? And what role do the employees play in all that? So, so many questions and so little time.
So grab your notepad and get ready to explore what it truly means to live a leaderful life. An approach which maybe will help you transcend titles and focus on the impact and being a really human centred leader. Welcome to the show, Sammy.
00:03:05 - Sammy Burt
Hi, Andy. Hey, thanks for having me.
00:03:07 - Andy Goram
Hey, great to have you here. I can't whack a conversation about leadership, and especially when someone comes in from a. From a slightly different perspective. So I'm really looking forward to chatting to you today.
00:03:19 - Sammy Burt
Yes, me, too.
Introduction to Sammy Burt
00:03:21 - Andy Goram
Just so that everybody gets to know you and we can kind of move from that point. Just do us a quick favour, Sammy, will you just do us a little bit of a background into who you are, what you've been doing, and what you're focused on today?
00:03:33 - Sammy Burt
Okay. I always get nervous with the idea of background and where to start. You know, I was born in, and also, I think because my background's really meandering and I kind of dropped out of college. I've got one shiny half an a level in fine art, but I just tended to follow my nose. And so from part time jobs into the next thing and the next thing, and I was in hospitality for a while and finance and eventually brought me into marketing, and I realized that I think the thing that I was always following was a greater connection with people, or perhaps a greater proximity to more people. And that took me through lots of places, and luckily, it led me to encounter lots of different types of people and leaders. And my business is called backpack. And I strongly feel that I've kind of meandered that way, throwing things in my backpack over my shoulder that I'm sure will be useful to me in time and already are. And that obsession with people really then led me to working in what's often referred to as culture, as we know, but mostly feels like having the important conversations with people or smashing the silence was a phrase that I started playing with last week, you know, spotting the elephants in the room and just going, should we talk about that for a bit? And so now I work with organizations on culture, on leadership development, drifting into purpose sometimes that even with. With really people centred organizations drifts into the business strategy as a whole. And I feel incredibly lucky and privileged to do so.
00:05:20 - Andy Goram
Well, I'm with you on that. I think where you get to focus your entire time consciously on trying to have a positive impact on others and help them really fulfil their full potential. I mean, that is a rewarding place to be, and yet that is the job of most leaders, and it just flies over their head a lot of the time, because I'm in the job, I'm in the do. I'm in the tasks. So I think we're in a privileged position, right?
00:05:50 - Sammy Burt
I think so. Absolutely. And I think, I mean, part of that privilege is that you can't do this kind of work without it changing you. So I'm always on a developmental journey and, you know, a new client comes through the door and there is a new challenge in there and there will be something new to notice about myself in that mix. And what of that is useful and what of it isn't? So it can be quite sometimes feel quite self-indulgent, actually, because I'm constantly in conversation with myself about me and what it is that I'm bringing to the party.
00:06:23 - Andy Goram
You are a very interesting person, Sammy. Why wouldn't we be interested?
00:06:28 - Sammy Burt
Yeah, but no, yeah. I think it is the job of all leaders, so I'm sure we'll come into that.
00:06:33 - Andy Goram
I'm absolutely confident we will. As a fellow marketer, I do love a link between a company name, a way of life, and actually the job we're trying to do. So the whole kind of backpack meandering journey stuff, I love. I absolutely love that. I know you're also kind of, you're, I guess, mid book writing at the moment.
00:06:55 - Sammy Burt
Yeah, I'm going to optimistically say post mid.
00:07:00 - Andy Goram
Wow, that's good. That says progress.
00:07:03 - Sammy Burt
That is progress. I'm sort of three-ish years into the research and I'm pretty close now to finishing the words that will summarise that research. And it's a book. Trying to answer the question, what is a grown up?
00:07:18 - Andy Goram
Oh my God.
00:07:20 - Sammy Burt
A question that I think a lot of people hold and is akin to kind of imposter syndrome and that space. But I certainly noticed it, noticed myself not feeling like a grown up yet at every age that I've been and wondering, why is that? And then it sort of dawned on me one day. I was like, well, I don't actually know what one is in order to know if I am one or not. So I set out on this journey to try and work out, so what is it? And then we can work out how we're doing against that. And as you can imagine, that too has been a journey for me.
00:07:54 - Andy Goram
Wow. I mean, that is something I would love to hear about when it gets there. And perhaps you can answer some questions for all of us. I want us to have a good old look today at this leadership thing. I get to see, I guess I'm very lucky. I get to see a whole host of people at the moment around the world who want to come onto podcasts and want to talk about stuff. And let's be honest, and actually, we've had this conversation before. When we talk about leadership, you could be rowing out the same old stuff. It's a very busy space of lots of people saying lots of common sense things, but trying to find a different perspective and cut through can be tough. Right? Can be difficult. And that wasn't a problem with you. When I saw your information and then I saw a few of your videos and bits and pieces. This whole concept of leaderful I thought was really interesting to look into. You know, I've heard all the kind of leadership, not leadershit things.
00:09:00 - Sammy Burt
Oh, nice. I like that one.
00:09:01 - Andy Goram
There's one for you. But I liked the idea of leaderful. You know, it, to me, it really played to my own purpose of, like, trying to help people have more fulfilling work lives. Your thing about trying to have people experience more joy, I just felt that's a nice connection that'd be worthwhile talking about, but just help me get out of my rose tinted world. When you think about leader full, there must be some kind of problem that you were trying to sort of, like, view in leadership and take a different position on to come up with something like that. What was that thing?
The Challenges of Traditional Leadership Roles
00:09:40 - Sammy Burt
Yeah. Well, if I. Let's go. Let's go to the word leadership, if I may. Then I think I see people in positions of leadership all the time. And a bit like idea of being a grown up. It is a suit of armour that we wear, or it's the, you know, the thing on our. On our business cards or our email signatures or whatever. It's. It feels very much like a thing. It is a named thing that can be fairly surface level. Right. You are. You are now, Andy, in a position of leadership. Well done, you.
00:10:16 - Andy Goram
Thank you very much.
00:10:16 - Sammy Burt
Right, there we go. And now you can wear that and you can, you know, and everyone around you will see that. And I think, actually, what we often find and what I encounter a lot in organizations is accidental leaders.
00:10:32 - Andy Goram
Yeah.
00:10:33 - Sammy Burt
People who have been promoted. You know, there's the old. I don't like the Peter principle, you know, the Peter principle. Being promoted to your highest level of incompetence, which I think is desperately unfair, actually. But there's something that, you know, they're cousins, if you like, in this thinking, this idea that being an accidental leader is to be promoted out of the thing you were really great at. And because of the way that we perceive progression, particularly in the UK and the western world, going up the hierarchy or the ladder, and we can do a whole other podcast on that one, means I move out of things that I'm good at, and I move into people management.
00:11:16 - Andy Goram
Yeah.
00:11:17 - Sammy Burt
So the higher up the organization that I go, I have more and more people to lead until I get really close to the top and then they slim down again. But very few people are given the support or guidance that they need as they move from being an individual contributor, an expert, or whatever it might be into a leader. There's this assumption, a bit like being a grown up, where we're kind of born with leadership skills and you will now know how to go on and prioritize and delegate and manage time and have difficult conversations and motivate and all of these things which in themselves are, you know, that's a whole personality right there, 100%. So I feel like this idea of moving people into leadership and then kind of dropping them there and seeing what happens is really unfair on both the individual who is doing what we've all been trained to do and just go up the ladder, the people that they are leading. And of course, the organization isn't getting the best performance from those as well. So I started to think about what would be more helpful in its framing. And I like this idea of to be leaderful as more of an adjective.
00:12:37 - Andy Goram
Yeah.
00:12:39 - Sammy Burt
A bit like delightful or beautiful. Right. Not many people would say I am beautiful. Somebody else describes you as that, or I am delightful. As you know, that's a word that other people use when they experience you. I experience you, Andy, to be delightful. I experience you to be leaderful. So it's something that is experienced by the people around you as well as you, rather than it being this thing that we put on. And so if we are looking for something that is in the eye of the beholder, let's say, well, then we're going to have to go a little bit deeper than job titles and business cards, and we're going to have to go inward. And so I feel like leaderful asks something that is more action orientated of us because we have to try to be. We have to enact beautifulness.
Leadership Is More Than a Title: It's About Impact
00:13:28 - Andy Goram
I love that position of experience of somebody else's experience of your. Of your leadership. I really. I really. I really, really like that because, well, we use the word impact probably too many times at the start of today's episode. And that perspective of what did it feel like being led by you? That's something I think everybody can kind of really relate to. Right. I think that is something we've all seen.
00:13:57 - Sammy Burt
Yeah. Yeah. What does it feel like to work with me? Like, it's such a. An open question and a non threatening question. It's not, how's my leadership? It's just, what is this? What is this feeling like? How's this relationship going for you?
00:14:11 - Andy Goram
It's a brave question for many people to ask, right. I mean, because they might not want to hear what comes, comes back. It might be a surprising question for people to be asked because how many people are asked that, that question that sets up a whole bunch of stuff because I'm with you 100%. The transition from I'm good at what I do to oh, right now I'm going to do people. There is huge assumption that every wants that every can do that. In my experience, largely people are pretty unprepared for what it's really like. The person you sat next to one day is now the person you've got to critique the work and say, hmm, actually I need a little bit more from you. Yeah, that's a tough transition for a lot of people.
00:15:00 - Sammy Burt
It is. And I think there's a whole mindset shift because you're literally being asked to go on one day from we will deem your value by your productivity, but tomorrow if you could come in and then we're going to deem your value by the productivity of others. I mean, I'm speaking fairly bluntly, but I think that's a massive mindset shift to go from I have to be the person to do things to I have to be the person that gets things done is huge. And one that I see a lot of people battling with and questioning their own value. Well, hold on, if I am not busy all the time doing, then why am I valuable? Why would you keep me? Does that put me at risk? It really starts to speak to these fears of kind of conditional relationships in the organization. And I see people all the time trying to fit in their leadership around the thing that they used to do. And instead of going, actually, if I were to upskill the ten people that I now lead, they could do all of this. The performance, the output, the impact, etcetera, would be much higher. But we're really stuck in this. My value is the thing that I do.
The Impact of Poorly Defined Leadership in Organizations
00:16:12 - Andy Goram
So is this, I mean, I mentioned it in the intro, but is this why you have this feeling position, if I'm going to be grandiose about it, that you feel that leadership's ill-defined in a lot of cases today?
00:16:26 - Sammy Burt
Yeah.
00:16:27 - Andy Goram
Is this why?
00:16:28 - Sammy Burt
Yeah, I think so. I think. I think it's ill-defined and it's. And it's. And no one is attempting to define it in many organizations. I think that's the other thing. I kind of wouldn't mind if no one had a clear, certain definition of it. If we were all just talking about it all the time because we would be developing our own ones and we'd be more curious as to what it might be. But actually, most organisations are just putting people in positions of leadership and then walking away. You know, that's that done. And so this lack of a greater definition just sets people up for failure or for a mediocre sense of what leadership could be.
00:17:09 - Andy Goram
And I think that's what I wanted to find out from you in the work that you've done and you continue to do, what's the fallout of this poorly defined role? Is that even right? And then the support or lack of it that's given to someone to make that transition? I mean, I think we've all experienced that either in ourselves, being put in a situation that we just can't cope with or aren't sure what to deliver. But also having experienced, I guess, not great leadership from others through either, perhaps no fault of their own, perhaps they have been dropped in the deep and with no experience or guide, or they're just terrible at it. And what have you seen as the fallout in a lot of the work? Are there any sort of commonalities that this ill definition is bringing forth?
00:18:02 - Sammy Burt
Well, I think where there's gaps, people will fill those gaps. Right. So the lack of, in my view, a useful, helpful definition of leadership is then filled by often a sense that, oh, as a leader, I need to have all the answers. That's what being a leader is. Or I need to set the direction alone. You know, I need to be at the front of this. And these are, you know, common tropes that I'm sure most, most people listening to this will have experienced or seen or, you know, you've got the meme on LinkedIn of that sort of leadership where this is a dictatorship rather than an involvement. And that's not necessarily. Well, I very rarely actually meet people who do that and want to do that, but they don't realize there's another way.
You know, very often meet leaders who are telling people what to do very clearly and how to do it. But then you talk to them about their private life and they're coaching football teams on Saturday mornings or they're, you know, they're in choirs and stuff and. And they're doing things outside of it where they haven't noticed that they are. They can be leaders and so they're much more collaborative. They just haven't made that sort of connection into the workplace. So an individual level, I always think, I always. My first place to go, I suppose is empathy for that individual who is trying to be something that they're not sure what that looks like and what success would look like in that role. And so a personal level, I see lots of leaders burning out because they're trying to be productive and do the people management bit. I see them not having the joy they had before. You know, I'd got into this to be an engineer and now I'm managing engineers well, that's the last thing I ever want. You know, that's not, that's not what lights me up or feels purposeful and a sense of inadequacy often.
So because they haven't been equipped or supported to be at their best, they aren't at their best and then they feel like that's their fault because there is this kind of unwritten thing that, oh, well, everyone can do leadership. You don't need guidance to do leadership. So then if you're sat there feeling like, oh, well, I don't think I'm doing it very well, of course, then you're going to feel like a failure and you're going to feel kind of impotent in your ability to change that situation because no one else is asking for leadership support. So I feel like there's this kind of a really negative effect on the individual that is very, very sad. And then, of course, there's the ripples out from that to the teams that they are leading, or even just one individual that they're leading, who then, as you say, you know, we've, most of us, or many people will have experienced leaders that we don't deem to be very good, but we're colluding with it.
00:20:50 - Andy Goram
Because we judge competence in different ways as well, right?
00:20:53 - Sammy Burt
Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Really good point. We do. And so if you're in an organisation that, that massively values productivity and you see someone trying to be a leader through connection and relationship, well, then you may be deciding that now they're in a position of leadership, they're not doing enough, right. So we're harsh on them in one way, but we're colluding with the whole thing because someone is moved into a position of leadership and then we look to them for all of the answers and. And we are not also saying,
“Hey, Leader, I can help you with that. How is this going for you now?”
How many times have people been promoted around us? And instead of going to them and saying, how's the new role going? We're sort of just looking at them, waiting for them to either succeed or fail. We're not seeing them as another human being who has also just had a massive change in their career, who might need to talk about that or explore that a little.
00:21:47 - Andy Goram
We seem to get caught in that. It's always down to a two by two, isn't it, when you talk about business? But it always seems to come down to ease and speed on a two by two. And I think one of the biggest challenges is just like you've sort of said stuff we're graded on throughout our careers, early careers, on how good we are with the amount of stuff in general that we get through, like, oh, you. He's a hard worker. Look how much he's done.
00:22:17 - Sammy Burt
Yeah.
00:22:18 - Andy Goram
And when you're thinking about leadership and trying to grow and encourage and inspire and motivate a team, that takes time. And if we're still being graded on getting a load of shit done today, then, well, it's easier for me to give you the answer and tell you what to do rather than encourage you to think about it or go and try and try something and make a mistake. And what are you going to learn from it? We seem to be sort of like caught between this kind of short term, medium term pressures all over business, whether it's the numbers we're going after today or the way we're trying to grow people.
00:22:52 - Sammy Burt
Absolutely.
00:22:53 - Andy Goram
It's almost. You're almost undermining leadership from the start if you don't have this definition. But even the definition in an organization could be very, very narrow. Right? We want leaders like this.
00:23:04 - Sammy Burt
Yeah. Yeah, it could be. And in some weird way, if that works, then. Then that's cool, too. It's something about setting an expectation and being measured against that expectation and being in constant conversation about that. I think what we could accidentally do, even in this conversation, is put these failings with a lowercase f, if you like, at the feet of the organization or the institution. And of course, the reality is organizations don't exist. They are lots of people organized in a certain pattern. And so as soon as we start to say it's them or it's they or whatever, we move away from them being human, too, and us colluding in the problem. So if an organisation hasn't well defined leadership, then there's no reason why anyone in that organisation can't start to ask the question. But again, we look up this ladder that we've created and say, well, surely it should come from the top. And that kind of undermines the idea of. Of leadership and dispersed leadership as well. Sorry, I'm going a bit off track.
00:24:14 - Andy Goram
No, you're not.
00:24:14 - Sammy Burt
I'm just getting excited.
00:24:16 - Andy Goram
No, because this is what happens in this. I think what happens in good conversations is you think about stuff and someone's talking, you know, I'm listening to you going, yeah, I mean, this could be simple or incredibly complex. And that's a thing my brain doesn't handle right very well going backwards and forwards between those sorts of things. But I, you know, there's the added, I guess, complexity on that is that we, we will encourage people to find your own style of leadership. Well, okay, that's great, but I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to do. I'm just gonna be me. Yeah, but doing. Doing what? And how effective can that, can that be? So here's a thing I'm not quite sure about, but I've got to put my own stamp on it. I mean, that's an interesting question for someone to get their head around.
00:25:02 - Sammy Burt
Well, and it's fixed. It says, this is your style of leadership. You are now green. That's your style of leadership. That's the box we're going to put you in. And that's how we are always going to see you, rather than recognizing that both you as the leader will have many different styles depending on the day and what you have for breakfast. Right. So there's that side of it, and there is the other side. And this goes back to some really, you know, this is probably 60 years old now as a theory, but something called situational leadership, which is about thinking about the individual that you're leading, but also the thing that they are doing. So, Andy, if, you know, for you and I were working together, there might be one thing that you do that you've been doing for ten years and you're smashing it. Right. And so the leadership you need from me around that thing is very hands off.
00:25:50 - Andy Goram
Yeah.
00:25:51 - Sammy Burt
But there is a new thing that you've just picked up that you've never done before. And so the leadership you need from me around that thing is much closer. You know, I'm going to bring that proximity and I'm going to coach a lot closer. And while I think the world is more complex than that, I still think that that is a useful way of thinking, not about what's my leadership style, but what is needed of me in this moment.
00:26:11 - Andy Goram
Yeah. And within that, just to further complicate it, again, there's, I guess, the nuances between managing someone and then leading somebody. Even in the situational awareness stuff.
00:26:27 - Sammy Burt
Yeah.
00:26:27 - Andy Goram
Even the different hats that we wear.
00:26:29 - Sammy Burt
Absolutely.
00:26:30 - Andy Goram
And I think this is where, again, without clear definition, without clear support, without the right equipping of tools and confidence to kind of get this stuff right, we see more mistakes. Obviously the wrong approach taken, or perhaps not the most effective approach, as opposed to wrong.
Leadership vs Management: Why Managing People Is a Myth
00:26:49 - Sammy Burt
Yeah. And I think. Yes, and I was grinning when you said the difference between management and leadership, because I... there's not many things that I'm super firm about. Right.
00:26:58 - Andy Goram
Oh this is going to be good.
00:26:59 - Sammy Burt
I can tell you. But this is for. I don't think you can manage people. That is a really inconvenient truth. I'm sorry, but I don't think you can manage people. You can manage tasks, you can manage projects, you can manage systems, you can't manage people. You can lead people, and you can encourage people to do what needs to get done, and you can do that in different ways. But unless you go right into kind of coercive control style situations, we can't be managed. And I think that's one of the myths that has us tangled up a lot of the time, is we think that moving from being an individual contributor where I do a thing, and I'm going to stay with engineers for a moment. Right. So I come in and I manage the system around x now, you've given me a load of people to manage. I can manage them in the same way that I do a system, which is that I tell them a brief, I tell them how to do it. They go and do it. They come back, I check, it works. We go around the loop again. And that's not how we work as humans. We are desperate constantly for connection and relationship. And so I think that's one of the things that would be really helpful. You know, even if organizations just sort of shifted, one tiny thing would be to stop talking about people management or the idea that we ever can and start to lean into that mindset that says, I can only ever create an environment in which you might succeed. As someone in my team, that's the realms of my control.
Building Human-Centred Leadership Practices
00:28:26 - Andy Goram
Listen, I think that's great for me, that leadership thing is all about that it create the environment where people can flourish. If I look back at my career normally through, well, from behind the sofa, through sort of like fingers across my eyes, that there were good things I did, there were terrible things that I did, and hopefully I learned from them. But at the end of the day, that was my realization was my job at this point is to create the environment. It's not to do the stuff it's not to pick up the sharpies and design everything. It was to kind of encourage and empower everybody else around me to kind of like, go get it. And there were lots of different things that involved in building that environment. It could have been shielding them. It could have been supporting them, it could have been challenging them. It could have been breaking down barriers as it could have been all sorts of things. That was my job. I am very keen to move into thinking about this leaderful piece and what it looks like, perhaps. Where are some of the things it's run into? But I do just want to pick up on something that you mentioned when I first met you and we had our first chat because you said something that stuck with me for a long time about the language associated around leadership and it being weaponized. And I've never, I'd never thought of that concept before.
00:29:48 - Sammy Burt
Yeah, I think there's a, there's a lot of judgment that goes alongside it. And I, and I hope that anyone listening to this isn't hearing judgment in you and I, but it's probably there under the skin. Right. Because we have views and we have perspectives. But I think a lot like saying to someone, grow up. Man up. Grow up, be a grown up. You know, what's your shoe size? All those, all those things we used to say. I feel like there's a similar thing in leadership. And I hear it when people say, but they're in a position of leadership, they shouldn't be doing that. Okay, well, did anybody help them know that? Did anybody guide them on that? I think there's certain words now that have really negative connotations.
So accountability for me is a fabulous word, but it is so often used as, like a cover up for blame. Right. I want to say blame, but I can't say blame. Passive aggressive. It's passive aggressive. And it is something I demand of you. I demand leadership. I demand accountability. I demand responsibility. All these words that are themselves beautiful words when you really sit and think about it. I want to be accountable because that says that I've got ownership over this thing and I've got some autonomy around it and I'm going to be proud of it and I'm going to. Lovely stuff. But, they've been used in negative ways that has then made them become very unhelpful. And I think where you and I went with this conversation last week was then this sense of, how can I ask accountability of people without sounding like, I want you to commit to something that I'm going to hit over your head with next week, you know, I want you to sign up to something so that I can. I can hold it against you. And that shared sense of responsibility then, that we ask of is, for me, is diminishing.
00:31:44 - Andy Goram
Yeah.
00:31:45 - Sammy Burt
So we're ending up with leaders who hold absolute responsibility for the people that they. That they work with rather than recognizing that they, too are grown-ups or whatever word we want to use, are adults navigating this world, and they can be, and for the most part, want to be responsible for themselves. But we've ended up in this parent child environment where leaders or managers or whatever we want to call them are the parents, and those that are reporting into them are the children. Or I'd probably say the adolescents.
00:32:20 - Andy Goram
Yeah.
00:32:21 - Sammy Burt
You know, there is a teenage thing there.
00:32:23 - Andy Goram
It's ennui in there. They won't do that.
00:32:28 - Sammy Burt
There's a real passivity going on in that way that's like, just tell me what you want and I'll do it. Or I won't do it if I don't want to do it and if I don't believe in it. Because you're the leader and the buck stops with you, and that's okay. And leaders collude with that by saying, here's what I want doing and here's how I want it done. So we are both in relationships that we don't really want to be in. The parent doesn't really want to be parenting all these grown ups around them. Most adults don't really want to be parented by someone at work. But what it does do when that relationship is in place is it counters this fear of I'm going to be held to blame for something, I'm going to be held accountable in a negative sense for something. So, actually, if I'm just a kid here, it's not really my fault.
Navigating the Post-COVID Shift in Leadership Expectations
00:33:11 - Andy Goram
So if we have that in the back of our minds, that relationship piece, and we go back to your, frankly, wonderful definition of leaderful being, the experience somebody else has of your leadership, and we think about perhaps this human connection piece, just the humanity of it all. And you have correctly, outside of this episode, cautioned me about my continued use of the c word. And just for the benefit of the tape, that's Covid, gang. That is not anything else. I have said many times that I wondered whether we have missed a trick in the last few years. Because a few years ago, when the c word was happening, there seemed to me to be this bowel wave of humanity that came back in to business. At least that's what I felt. I felt people were taking an interest in others. Good leaders were connected and in touch with their people. A greater level of understanding seemed to get, and therefore support from both sides seemed to be more equitable, more natural. But I'm getting the feeling like we're kind of moving away from that stuff at the moment and almost regressing.
00:34:33 - Sammy Burt
I think what happened was these really beautiful things where leaders took a lot of responsibility for their people's wellbeing and organizations took a lot of responsibility for their people's wellbeing. And that was welcomed and I think in many, many ways was exactly what needed to happen. You know, we needed organizations to just say, right, don't come in tomorrow, work from here. Do that. Here's a laptop. You know, whatever it might be, we needed someone to take charge of the situation. But what I am now noticing all these years on is that organizations are now looking to their employees or their colleagues to take some responsibility back. But we've got quite comfortable, actually, with people saying, no, no, no, I'll be responsible for your well being. I'll be responsible for how you're doing. And so there's this sort of tension going on between colleagues looking to organizations say, you're supposed to look after me. You're supposed to remove the barriers ahead of me and just let me succeed. Which sounds like a really great thing. Yeah, but they've got no skin in the game. No, they're not taking responsibility for their own development, their own journey, and their own wellbeing. To say, you know, actually, if I'm in a, if I'm in a shitty relationship with my boss, it is as much my responsibility as it is theirs. To say this doesn't feel like it's going very well.
00:35:54 - Andy Goram
I think there feels like an imbalance in the force right now. There just feels like it's gone from one extreme to the other in some cases. I am absolutely, desperately not preaching this is everywhere, because it isn't. But it just feels that there's more of a common thread here, that it's imbalanced. I think your point about where's the responsibility or accountability here. Is it the organization? Is it the leader? Is it the employee? Something's got to change in the majority of organizations right now to get back to a more even keel, where people do feel seen, heard and valued, but they also understand we've got stuff, we got to do stuff.
00:36:36 - Sammy Burt
Yeah. And I think there's a real fear in talking about that. So I was away with some clients last year, and we were having a drink after sort of working together for a day. And the cooze and I were chatting, and he sort of leant in close like he was going to tell me a secret or something. And he said, do you think people should be a little more resilient at times? And it was really interesting because it looked like it was coming from a place of fear. Like, I can't ask for resilience of people. And funnily enough, just last week I was in a conversation with a client, and. And his fear was around mental health. And I don't for a second want to dilute or talk down at all about people with genuine mental health issues, but I do feel like there's a lot of people who are starting to talk about my mental health. And what they mean is, I would like you to create an environment around me in which everything works the way that I want it to. And I really want to bang on the drum of. I'm not saying that everyone with mental health is saying that, but, like, by any means.
00:37:45 - Andy Goram
No one thinks that, Sammy. No one in their right minds thinks that.
00:37:47 - Sammy Burt
But it's a watch out, I think. And even actually, me feeling the need to repeat it is probably a really good symptom of the fear that we have in society right now of talking about mental health and talking about when there is a responsibility of the individual to consider themselves as well and the environment that they are in and the choices they have to make. And so I think part of being. Part of being a grown up, actually, is knowing what choices do I have available to me, and what might those choices lead to? You know, what. What's within my control and what's not.
00:38:27 - Andy Goram
I think that's such an important question. I love the covey spheres of control, influence and concern model because I think that is so applicable not just in the way that he designed it, but just in getting people to understand where it's really effective in moving themselves forward and sort of starting to live their potential. And then the two words, conscious and intentional, you know, being aware of what you do and having a reason for doing it. I think you combine those three things in this concept of leadership. I think that's not a bad platform to kind of go forward with, right?
00:39:01 - Sammy Burt
Yeah.
What does being leaderful look like?
00:39:02 - Andy Goram
And if we take that platform, Sammy, and we come back to your lovely positioning around leaderful, how do we deal with some of the things that we've talked about today? What do you think leaderfulness looks like? What's the picture in your mind, and how do we move towards that?
00:39:23 - Sammy Burt
The picture in my so I don't think we could have had this conversation without a Venn diagram. We need to sneak a ven in somewhere. And while this isn't something I've drawn out, I think, and I am terrible for knowing who to credit on these things, but the original kind of me, us in it diagram. So imagining a ven and you have one of those circles, has it in it, and it is there to represent the context that we're in. So it might be the task that we're working on, it might be the environment we're in, but it is essentially the things that humans are interacting with as opposed to the human element. Then there is the me part of this. And I think this is where leaders often fall down, is their attention is outward far more than it is inward. What's going on for me right now? What am I bringing to this? If I walk into a meeting and I'm frustrated with something external, and I walk into a meeting and I'm carrying that frustration, well, that, of course, is going to have an impact on what's going on around me. So really tuning in with how you are, I think, is, is a key component.
And then if you look at where those, then those circles start to overlap, and how do I feel about this thing that we're starting to do or we're trying to do? How does the me interact with the it? And then if we bring in that third one of us, that starts to bring in the relational side of this. You know, this isn't individualistic. We cannot lead on our own. We can't sit in a white room unimpacted by the world around us and be leaders. We are in relationship constantly. So looking inward to me, understanding myself, where I'm at, my relationship with the thing that it is we're working on, and my relationship with the team around me, the people that I'm interacting with, that might be one person, that could be a thousand people. But I think when people are truly leaderful, they are moving seamlessly between those three circles and giving attention, really conscious and deliberate attention to all of those spaces, but particularly the human ones. If you like, the it comes later. The it come. The it actually may come from the US much more than it does for me. I just might need to know the vision around it. And actually giving my attention to the relationships that I'm in is, is the most key thing here. So in terms of how you do that, I mean, I think the first thing is to be really open and curious. And if that were the only thing I think that would be still hugely impactful in most. Most people and most organizations.
The Importance of Curiosity in Leadership Development
00:42:00 - Andy Goram
Yeah. Taking a genuine interest in the people that you're working with.
00:42:04 - Sammy Burt
Absolutely. And in myself, you know, what's really going on for me right now? Why do I feel this way about this person or this thing or this timeline or whatever it might be? Being really curious about the assumptions that I make, being really curious about the tensions. I think we often, when we notice a tension in something, you know, there's two opposing views, we convince ourselves that we have to decide upon one of them. But actually, sometimes there are tensions, and both are right. You just have to notice them and be curious about them. So I really feel like if leaders could stay in discovery more, be curious more about the me, the us, and the it, that would go a huge way to shifting the. The impact or the experience that others have of us if that were the starting point.
00:42:57 - Andy Goram
Wow. It's so much more than a starting point, isn't it?
00:43:00 - Sammy Burt
Yeah, it's so much more. I suppose I say that's the starting point because what comes after probably looks. I'm staring at, like, a multi-coloured blanket here. It's probably a rainbow, right?
00:43:11 - Andy Goram
Yeah.
00:43:11 - Sammy Burt
You know, that starting point will kick off different things for all different people. Curiosity may make one leader actually realize their fallibility and recognize that they have the experts around them, and they are leading a group of experts so that the experts can do the great thing. They don't have to do it.
00:43:28 - Andy Goram
I think that's one of the most important things for leaders to get comfy with. Right. And I know another podcast episode about imposter syndrome, we'll get in the way of all that kind of stuff. But I think this definitely comes back to thinking more consciously about the impact of your leadership, which is where the leaderful thing really is beautiful in its phraseology. I really, really, really like that. And then I think just bringing that kind of human, the humanity into that impact as a conscious thing, and without wanting to sound all happy clappy, but that.
00:44:04 - Sammy Burt
We love a bit of woo woo.
00:44:05 - Andy Goram
Well, you know what? I'm on board the woo woo train when it comes to this stuff, right? Because it works. And I think this is what gets conflated in a lot of people's minds, is when they. They go from being a colleague to being, all of a sudden they're a. They're a leader. I've got a different badge. I've got a different thing to do. No, it's not a different thing. You're just looking at it from a different perspective. You've still got to bring the human to get the best out of somebody else. Like you said, I don't know too many adults who like being told how to behave or what to do, you've got to create an environment where they want to do the things that need to happen. And that's a skill.
00:44:43 - Sammy Burt
Yeah, absolutely.
How to Foster a Leaderful Culture in Your Organization
00:44:45 - Andy Goram
I cannot believe we're at this point already, but we're at the sticky notes point of this podcast, which is an attempt to drill down into three really simple takeaways from today that you could stick on. Three little post it notes. Samuel. Yeah, so when we think about this wonderful, leaderful position, if someone wants to start the journey and begin living a more leaderful life, what would you put on three sticky notes today?
00:45:18 - Sammy Burt
So I really honed in on the how do you write it on a post it, the sticky note. And I think the first one is talk to yourself about yourself more.
00:45:26 - Andy Goram
Love that.
00:45:27 - Sammy Burt
So to find time, even just a heartbeat, just before I say something, just before I open a door, just before whatever, and go, oh, what's going on for me right now? Talk to yourself about yourself more, I think is a key component, and all the research supports that in terms of great leaders, it's a key quality, is that self regulation, self awareness? I think the second one is noticing the connections. We coexist. We have to, and we want to, you know, we've evolved to want to. So notice those connections and notice the gap between us as well. You know, the space between you and I is our relationship.
00:46:10 - Andy Goram
Yeah.
00:46:10 - Sammy Burt
And let's give it attention. Let's not just look at me and look at you. Let's give attention to that connection, that space between us. And the third, you won't be surprised to hear, is probably curiosity is king, as far as I'm concerned. I used to have a boss who I love dearly, and he used to say, cash is king. And I think I've evolved that slightly, that curiosity is king. Actually, we need to spend much longer in discovery. We need to spend much longer wondering about things and wondering about them together. And I think that's a real key for successful leadership, is to come to your team with questions, not answers.
00:46:49 - Andy Goram
I think they are three incredibly practical, yet very humanistic sticky notes that I tell you what, if we all did a bit more of those, I think the world at work would be an easier place to stay. Sammy, thank you so much for coming into sticky studios today and just sharing your really honest thoughts about what leadership can be, not necessarily what it is really love listening to you.
00:47:17 - Sammy Burt
Thank you. And thank you for rolling with me on that as well. We went on a little journey together there.
00:47:23 - Andy Goram
I've loved our conversation. I'm very grateful for you coming and doing that before I let you go. If people want to find out more about you, if they want to join the queue to get the book when it eventually, where can people find out more? Sammy?
00:47:37 - Sammy Burt
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I am a LinkedIn addict, self-confessed, so you can find me on LinkedIn, Sammy, Burt and I'll pop up there and then my company website, which then has a page on it about the book, is yourbackpack.co.uk. So yourbackpack.co.uk and you'll see a page on there called the grown up book where you can register for updates.
00:48:00 - Andy Goram
Brilliant. Well, we'll make sure all of that goes in the show notes and so people can find out all the stuff and join that queue. Sammy, thanks so much, mate, for coming. And I absolutely loved our conversation and I hope it's not our last.
00:48:13 - Sammy Burt
Thank you. Me too. Cheers, Andy.
00:48:15 - Andy Goram
Take care.
00:48:15 - Sammy Burt
Take care.
00:48:16 - Andy Goram
Okay, everyone, that was Sammy Burt, and if you'd like to find out a bit more about Sammy or any of the things we've talked about today, please check out the show notes. So that concludes today's episode. I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting and heard something maybe that will help you become a sticky, more successful business from the inside going forwards. If you have, please like, comment and subscribe. It really helps. I'm Andy Goram and you've been listening to the sticky from the inside podcast. Until next time, thanks for listening.
Andy Goram is the owner of Bizjuicer, an employee engagement and workplace culture consultancy that's on a mission to help people have more fulfilling work lives. He's also the host of the Sticky From The Inside Podcast, which talks to experts on these topics from around the world.
Comentários