The secret to unlocking success for women in leadership with Brian Kavicky

Brian Kavicky [00:00:00]:

When your people aren't performing and they're giving you your excuses and you're allowing it and it's eating you up, it's because they're making excuses. So when you go, no, I'm going to hold a standard and I'm going to hold a standard of excellence and I'm going to hold you to what I have seen to be reasonable people step up and into that or opt out. But you get what you want by holding a higher standard.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:00:26]:

I'm a small town kid, born with a big city spirit. I choose to play a lot of awesome roles in life. Mom, wife, entrepreneur, CEO, board member, investor and mentor. Seventeen years ago, I founded a marketing consultancy and ever since, my husband JR and I have been building our careers and our family on the exact same timeline. Yep, that means four kids, three businesses, two careers, all building towards one life we love. When I discovered I could purposefully embrace all of these ands in my life, it unlocked my world. And I want that for you too. I'm Tiffany Sauder and this is Scared Confident.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:01:09]:

Welcome back to another episode of Scared Confident. I am excited that today we are diving into another topic with our partnership with Brian Kavicky and Lushin. And really I brought Brian on to talk about leadership, particularly what does it look like for senior and executive women in the business world and what are the things that you see as you're working with so many female leaders, like two thirds of the people that you are working with and coaching closely are women. And so you just have this rich data set of, you know, how we think, how we act, this balance between our gut and our head, which we're going to dive into today. And so excited to dive into this topic with you, Brian. Okay, so I called this episode the secret ingredient to women in leadership. So let's start by maybe saying of all the I think problem areas or opportunity areas that we're going to dig into, the antidote to those. We'll maybe start with the solution and then we'll dig into what are the ways that ignoring this one thing shows up for women in leadership.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:02:13]:

And we get really tired when we don't pay attention to this. I get very tired when I don't pay attention to this.

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Brian Kavicky [00:02:20]:

I believe that the one thing is that your strength and your natural gifts are aligned with your gut and your intuition. And when you ignore those things, either by external or internal forces, you're missing out on the good things that would happen if you just rolled with that guy.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:02:41]:

So let's talk about all of the different ways that we create problems for ourselves as leaders, when we don't trust our gut, when we say, hey look, this is an academic exercise. This is an academic job that I've picked. There's leadership books and organizational health and culture and all of these X's and O's quote unquote of business to lean on. What happens? Let's talk about some of these areas. We said, like there's three major groups, decision making. We bog ourselves down and make things complicated when we ignore our intuition. Decision making. Another group that we'll dig into is this, like I feel tired that my job is to support everybody else and I don't feel supported.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:03:22]:

And then the third that we talked about is just not always trusting our gut with our team. Is that fair? Kind of those three areas. So let's. Where do you want to start? Let's dig in.

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Brian Kavicky [00:03:33]:

Let's start with decision making. Because as a leader, your major priority is making decisions. And when you aren't making decisions, you're stagnating things for yourself and your company. But typically that problem of getting stuck is either I'm over reliant on others, which means I feel like I have to ask them what they would do, I have to get their input, I have to get buy in from my team, I have to ask my spouse. You think about this and they're not even in the world every day. Or I have to ask peers and other people in CEO groups and stuff. What do you think when you sort of already know this is what I'm supposed to do or this is how I'm supposed to do it. And then you start second guessing that.

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Brian Kavicky [00:04:19]:

And that usually leads to either somebody else's decision being made the way that they want it to or no decision at all being made or waiting to.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:04:28]:

Yeah. Or the right decision months too late. Yes, I remember you pulling that out of me. Where you'd be like, what do you think you're supposed to do? And I would be like, what am I just supposed to guess? You're like, no, you're in it. You have a gut about this thing. Like, what's your read? Do that. Because doing nothing is in fact deciding something.

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Brian Kavicky [00:04:49]:

Right.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:04:49]:

And so just sitting in it and like, yeah, over indexing on like, well, what in my head. And how do I prove to myself that that's the right decision? And the chance that I'm asked to defend it. It feels silly and stupid and a little bit JV to say out loud to somebody, like my gut just says that that's what I'm supposed to do.

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Brian Kavicky [00:05:09]:

But even in how you said that, your posture is to defend it. Why do you have to defend your decisions? Why can't your decision just stand on its own? This is what I've decided. Why would you have to defend yourself? You're the leader. Your decisions, you own the right to make those decisions.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:05:26]:

Is that fairly distinctly female too? This idea of like, I'm going to need to defend myself.

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Brian Kavicky [00:05:31]:

Yeah. I need to show how I'm right. I need to have evidence that I'm correct. And that's why the gut is such a big deal, is because you can't look at people and go, because my gut says, because people look at you funny. Like, that's the way it is. But you have to be fine, final in your decision of, nope, this is what we're gonna do. It's a declaration. You don't have to justify a declaration.

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Brian Kavicky [00:05:51]:

This is what we're gonna do. Why? Cause that's what I said we're gonna do.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:05:56]:

That's right. Okay.

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Brian Kavicky [00:05:58]:

So I think if the way to fix it for that, you can either use your gut feel as a double check against your logic or logic against the double check, but go with my gut is usually right when you're evaluating those things so that you're tilted at a minimum in that direction.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:06:17]:

Yeah. I can think of every major call I made where there was going to be a significant pivot as a result of the business. I never had real empirical evidence and I don't know that it exists actually. Isn't everything at some level made up?

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Brian Kavicky [00:06:33]:

Yeah, it's all. Everything is made up. So you're going to find the evidence you want. It may not even correlate, but everything's made up anyway. So make up your own story. And this is what I think will happen.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:06:44]:

Okay, so trust or gut and decision making.

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Brian Kavicky [00:06:46]:

Yes. The second area is, I think you said the support side. Support is this feeling. Sometimes it's, I'm running the company, I'm the captain of the ship, but the ship needs me, which is fairly ego driven, but it needs me to facilitate. So I have to be the captain and the rudder. Things won't operate without me. That's one way that shows up. Another way is I feel like I have to cheer everyone on.

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Brian Kavicky [00:07:12]:

I have to motivate, I have to guide, I have to be the one. But who's doing that for me? And what will happen is you get this feeling where you get just negative about everything because you're going, what about me? Where's my attention. How do I get my needs met? Who's supporting me? Who's paying attention to me? Well, it's your ego driving that. But it shows up in I'm a victim as a mindset. All of those things are your choosing to do that. You know, something inside said, I have to be the one. I have to be the pivot point. I have to be the linchpin.

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Brian Kavicky [00:07:49]:

I have to show people. I have to guide people. No, you don't have to. You have the right to say, my team needs to solve this problem on their own. My team needs to bring a solution to me. My team needs to figure it out. You have that right. But you're choosing to say, no, I am needed.

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Brian Kavicky [00:08:06]:

I'm needed to clean the kitchen. It's the same at home stuff. It's this just feeling like you have to and you don't have to. But nobody's telling you different because if you're taking care of everybody, nobody raises their hand and said, oh, no, I could do this myself. They love being taken care of. And you're a natural caregiver. That's going to fit your picture.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:08:26]:

So before we pushed record, you were talking about this idea. I think that's adjacent to this, of not having clearly defined priorities. Is that inside of this thing too? Or do you see that differently? Because I found in my own journey I was a much more ready, yes. Monster when I did not have a, like, passionate articulation of this is what I'm going to get out of my life, my time, my money, my year. And it took claiming that at like a whisper and then a little bit louder and then being like, no, These are deep pylons in my life and in my time and in my day that I finally believe makes me better for the people around me. But serving, being present, being prepared, being gracious, being a hostess, being welcoming, being flexible, being accommodating, bringing gifts, making sure there was food and snacks and it was all like, ready. That. That sped my time for a long time because it made me feel like, yeah, I was serving somebody and that.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:09:38]:

That as a result they would like me instead of being like, no. So to me, this priorities conversation is very adjacent to this. Like, my job is to support everyone. Do you see it the same way or am I mixing it?

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Brian Kavicky [00:09:49]:

No, it's the same way. So you've talked about leading the life of. And what people think is that living on the edges of the poles. So the poles would be north, south, like think polar opposites. The extreme that Those things mean it's one or the other. So if I think that I can either spend time with my family in all the ways that I could, or I could spend time at work building the business, people think that it's a trade off, I have to do one or the other. And you have two different things pulling your directions. So work saying, we need you here, we need you in this meeting.

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Brian Kavicky [00:10:29]:

We need you to do this home. Saying, well, you got to be at the game. And you go, see, I can't do it all. I have to choose. And I have to pick one. And you allow one to suffer. And it people choose whatever is where the most pressure is. But if you actually set the priorities based on the extreme, which is, I'm going to do both, that is an and and an all instead.

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Brian Kavicky [00:10:52]:

Those are not either ors. They're and boths when you go that direction. And that takes our mind a little bit to think through, like really the total polar opposites are actually additive. We can have both. Yes, you can. You can have love and you can have hate. You can have sorrow and joy at the same time. Those aren't as far off as people think they are.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:11:16]:

So I have my own practical applications of that. But what have either in your own life or other women that you've coached, where you have seen people settle into saying, I can have both. It doesn't have to be so.

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Brian Kavicky [00:11:28]:

It is about priorities. So the question is, if I was to prioritize my life not by what I think is possible today, but what I want it to be, what would be all of the things that I would have as my priorities? In other words, if I had to craft a sandbox, and I was that little kid that said, but I want all my little toys in the sandbox, what toys have to be in that sandbox with you? And make that list, put it all out. And just looking at that, you can figure out very quickly how you can have all of those things in there just by sitting down and thinking. Because. Because the problem isn't you have the wrong priorities. The issue is, is that you don't have any priorities and you haven't set a single one.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:12:12]:

So is priority setting a head exercise or a gut exercise?

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Brian Kavicky [00:12:17]:

It's a gut exercise because that is going to tell you what those priorities need to be. As you write each thing down, your gut is going to tell you, is that okay or not okay?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:12:28]:

I think that's another place women get really tripped up, because I will tell people, you are way over your skis. Because you don't have priorities. And then they make it this intellectual like algebra problem. And it's like I say, go to what you're pissed about, go to what you want and go to what you hate. Like follow the emotion. That's where you're violating. What do you want that you don't have time for? Oftentimes like time to work out or whatever it looks like. And what is what pisses you off that your family's not supporting or you don't have enough time for whatever it looks like.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:12:59]:

That's how I oftentimes it's like I want to dream towards this stuff and I don't have time for it. And that makes me mad. And beginning to be able to solve with the imperative that these things all have to fit. But I think it also means that they have to sometimes be scaled to a intensity level where they can coexist. Fair or no?

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Brian Kavicky [00:13:19]:

No, I don't think so.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:20]:

Okay, tell me.

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Brian Kavicky [00:13:21]:

I don't think it's about the intensity level. I think it's about choosing the priorities and saying these are the areas that I want to have high intensity in and choosing those wisely.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:32]:

Yes, but not every area can necessarily be a max intensity, true or false.

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Brian Kavicky [00:13:37]:

So it's more important that those are balanced than they're maxed. Because you know, you can have the volume turned to two on everything. You're balanced. If one is a 10 and the others are two, that's where you're gonna feel weird. But it's how do I balance these? And that I'm working towards maximizing my capability and capacity to take more and more on. So how do I turn these all to a three? How do I turn all to a four?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:14:03]:

Yeah, I'm there. Cause I, I look at simple things. This is like such on the ground level, but working out is in the morning is really important to me. Or I just like lose my mind to do that a couple mornings a week. The gym I've chosen to go to, I not back in time to get one of my daughters out of bed. She prefers me to wake her up because moms are soft and I rub her back. And all the things, you know, the like Instagram reels were like dads throw a. Dad's.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:14:29]:

Throw a bucket of cold water on them and tell them to get on the bus. It's not quite that bad, but you know, it's just different. And so there was a time where I kind of felt guilty that because I'd chosen this workout thing that I really Like, I couldn't get her up for bed every day. So it's true. I can't get her up for bed every day. But I do get her up three times a week. And I'm just like, that's okay. She doesn't have to be perfect at that.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:14:51]:

Like, I don't need to be perfect for her in that way. And that doesn't mean that I'm not meeting her expectation.

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Brian Kavicky [00:14:56]:

But doesn't three times a week, as opposed to every day make it more special for her?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:15:01]:

Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

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Brian Kavicky [00:15:02]:

It's. It's all in how you define it.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:15:04]:

Yeah. And I, yeah, we worked together the night before on, when I'm not waking her up to make sure her clothes are laid out. Because that was one of the things that annoyed her is dad doesn't know. I'm like, oh, we can fix that. That's no problem. But I didn't have to get tripped up by this issue of she wants me to wake her up every single morning. Or then I had to clear some of my priorities off of my plate to make that happen because I wasn't in a different season, I would have stopped going to wake her up every morning.

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Brian Kavicky [00:15:29]:

She would have thought it's selfish.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:15:30]:

Yes, I would have felt it was selfish. That's exactly right. I wasn't serving her to the extent that I was able to.

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Brian Kavicky [00:15:37]:

But think about that logic. I wouldn't serve her to the degree that I wanted to. The way to do that for a very long time is to keep yourself physically fit. Your reason for doing it is the same reason for not doing it. And that's what people miss is, well, if I want to serve my daughter for a very long time, I have to work out so that I can do this for a very long time. And yet most people throw on the towel and go, well, this is selfish.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:16:04]:

Totally. That's exactly right.

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Brian Kavicky [00:16:06]:

And it's not a selfish act. So I can do it for her longer.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:16:10]:

Hey there, podcast listeners. It is no exaggeration to say that the work my companies and I have done with Brian and his team at Lushin have been absolutely game changing. I would not be where I am today without their experience and guidance. If you're struggling to grow your business, your profits, or grow your people, or maybe your business is growing, but it just isn't getting you personally to where you want to be. You have got to schedule time. Give Brian one hour of your life, and I promise that you will see the way forward a little bit more clearly. If you're interested in Scheduling. There's a link in show notes.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:16:47]:

I promise it will help. Now back to the show. So let me give you another example where I have said no, not right now because I don't think I have the time for it. And I think this is also healthy is sometimes I don't have the time for it. I talk about minimums from a workout, like just lot in areas of like, hey, look, this is the minimum standard to do something like train for a triathlon or a marathon or do 75 hard or something that was like, hey, this is going to take an above average effort to get myself there. The scheduling, the time, like until my oldest has her license, the sheer hours that it takes to drive everybody around, I can't fit that in. That doesn't make it a. No, never that.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:17:30]:

I'd love to kind of like just challenge myself physically because it's been a long time since I've done something other than just like a one hour class, which is fine. I just look at it and say, hey, this season that would put undue stress on everything if I wasn't successful at the training. I don't know, I think the failure would be really hard for me to just sort of swallow right now because I just don't have the time. But I know once she can drive it's like 10 hours a week that I'll get back because she's all over the place, morning and after school. So that's a thing where I think it's just thoughtful to say I don't know that this can fit right now. What's your reactions to that?

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Brian Kavicky [00:18:07]:

I would argue. Well, let's, let's ask the question, what's your gut say?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:18:12]:

My gut says it would be too much.

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Brian Kavicky [00:18:14]:

So is there another way to do the driving around and the workout instead of looking either or is there another way?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:18:23]:

My second one is probably going to go to a volleyball club that's like 40 minutes from our house and she's going to have to go three days a week and that is going to be really hard. And so I've told Junior, like I really only want to drive twice a month.

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Brian Kavicky [00:18:38]:

What? Why don't you do all of them?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:18:40]:

Me?

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Brian Kavicky [00:18:40]:

Yeah. Because then. Because you have to sit and wait for practice to get over and there's all that time to work out.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:18:46]:

I know, but then my. Well, we don't need to take people through it. But then my little girls are with care for 3, 6, 9 more hours a week.

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Brian Kavicky [00:18:54]:

Okay, so you're facing the. So here's what's different. Even though everybody hears you saying, here's why I can't. What they're hearing is actually you going through going, I have worked every iteration to figure out how to and I'm out of options. So now I'm settling with this is the best that I can. Because what most people do is they go, oh, you can't do all that. At least you've challenged yourself. And go, well, could I? Or how who would that affect? Or any of those things before just tossing in the towel and going, oh, that's not okay.

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Brian Kavicky [00:19:26]:

That's selfish. I can't do that. I can't. And I think that's what's different, is most people start with no instead of going, there's gotta be a way for me to say yes. I just haven't figured it out.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:19:37]:

I actually think there is ways for me to say yes to the physical challenge, but I would need to say no to some other professional things that I really want to get momentum with. And so that's again, just a choice. Like, hey, this is a trade off choice.

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Brian Kavicky [00:19:52]:

But it's a choice because you've set priorities towards the professional things to know what you're violating.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:19:57]:

That's exactly right. That's right. Okay, so we talked about this idea of it can feel selfish. What else is there around that? This like, my job is to support everyone else. I'm feeling like there's no oxygen for me.

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Brian Kavicky [00:20:13]:

So when you feel like you have to be the one to do everything for everyone else, you're going to have that there's no oxygen feeling. Because what you're not looking at is what could others do for me? What could the people I actually like. You're talking about your kids. What could my kids do to take some of that barrier of what they think they need me for to do some of that themselves? What could my coworkers, my team do to lift some things that I need them to get better at? You have to start looking through that lens of what could be. As opposed to settling in and going, well, I'm just needed. Cause that is your ego saying that or somebody telling you that.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:20:54]:

Okay, so I think this is a next data point on this, which is, is it okay for me to get something in return from my business, from the outside world, from my team, from the investment I'm making?

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Brian Kavicky [00:21:07]:

I feel like this is a trick question.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:21:08]:

No, it's not. I'm trying to lead you to the thing where you were saying earlier is like, women feel like they never make themselves a customer of their own story, of their own investment. Or am I saying this? Am I putting words in your mouth? This. I. We're talking earlier of like, hey, one of your male clients is like, I need my people to know I need to get a return from this. That's the game we're playing. And a female CEO likely would not announce to her leadership team. This is the game we're playing financially.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:21:36]:

And that's kind of what we're doing.

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Brian Kavicky [00:21:39]:

Well, it goes with the idea of what are your rights? So what rights are you saying? This is my right. I have the right to have a balanced life. I have the right to my business providing an income. I have the right to flexibility. Part of setting your priorities is saying, here are the rights that I'm deciding that are important, that I need for myself, and then executing off of that. There's a high percentage of women that enter entrepreneurship because they want flexibility in their life. You know, it usually starts with, I want to be able to take care of my kids and do kids stuff, and I want to also support the family income. And so they start going down this path and all of a sudden the business has success because they're putting a good amount of effort and time and focus time.

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Brian Kavicky [00:22:28]:

And then the priorities change. Where they go, well, now there's a lot of potential income and this could do a lot for our family and blah, blah, blah. And they don't shift. Like, this is what it has to do now. It's a different goal than I had before. It's not about lifestyle now, it's about income. And then they go all in on that. Instead of going, how could I have the income and keep the lifestyle that I have? And they never start with, how do I have both? Before they get moving in that direction.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:22:57]:

I want to, like, sit on what you said. These are the things I am claiming for myself. Flexibility, income level, whatever the things are. I waited so long for people to give those things to me.

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Brian Kavicky [00:23:09]:

They won't.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:23:10]:

I know, but you need to, like, say it louder for the people in the back. Because it is so against everything natural in my body to claim those things for myself. To say it to my leadership team that it is your job to help me get these things that I am declaring. I'm much more comfortable with it now, but I wanted to vomit the first few times that I said that. And I'm going to be rolling out of the seat off of the org chart at Element Three at the end of this year. On Wednesday, we're telling the company this will Published a couple weeks later. And a lot of it is because there are things that I want to go pursue outside of Element Three, continue to expand this life of and effort. See where my intuition and my gut and my like just hacking around out in the Amazon takes me and I want time for that.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:24:02]:

And it's their job to build a company that can allow for that. And they are so delighted to do that. And it was so hard to say. I'm just explaining.

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Brian Kavicky [00:24:12]:

Yeah, but you're choosing to be clear with everybody instead of holding it inside totally.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:24:18]:

Which took me probably nine months longer than it needed to because of my own head trash.

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Brian Kavicky [00:24:24]:

So the rule that we teach is you're either working your plan or you're working somebody else's. So if I don't share this is what my plan is or this is what my goals or this is what I vision for myself. Somebody is making you part of their plan. And that's why it's critical to say this is what my plan is. This is what I want for myself. This is what is important. Otherwise people just figure out how to make you useful and that includes your family and your employees. Just our natural way of being.

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Brian Kavicky [00:24:55]:

But when you tell them this is what I want to do, they say, cool, we'll figure out a way to have you do that because you're important to us.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:25:02]:

Yeah. Because now Kyler and I are working to define how do I continue to serve the organization inside of the constraints that I have.

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Brian Kavicky [00:25:11]:

Right.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:25:11]:

From a time perspective. Availability and just. Yeah, like the other things competing for my. Not even competing for my time. The other priorities that I have is a more proactive way to say that it's just very unnatural for me. I, I don't know if it's being a woman or if it's just my first reaction is how do I serve it. But if you do that over and over and over again and you don't figure out how it serves the bigger picture of where you want to be and where you want to end up, you can make some really short sighted transactions that aren't getting you into your own quadrant of balance and achievement for sure. Okay, the third area did we cover it that we want to talk about is how I feel about my team, interact with my team.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:25:55]:

How does this idea of intuition and your own leadership and interaction with your people.

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Brian Kavicky [00:26:00]:

So the biggest thing I see is leaders who question the standards that they have in their head for their team. So I hear things like I'm asking too much of them. I have too high of an expectation. Maybe there's just. This is kind of the best there is in people that I could get by saying those things. You're opting into mediocrity. You're saying, it's okay if my people aren't going to solve the problems that I have to solve everything. That's still feeding your ego.

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Brian Kavicky [00:26:33]:

It feels good to say, well, I'm more skilled than everybody else. I do it better than anybody else. Because when you're. If you're not getting a lot of positive feedback or you don't have anybody cheering you on, it feels good when you're in that spot. But the reality is your expectations are reasonable. Your gut feels about performance and what's wrong and all the challenges you're going to have with a new hire are real. When your people aren't performing and they're giving you your excuses, you're hearing those excuses as they are excuses, and you're allowing it and it's eating you up. It's because they're making excuses.

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Brian Kavicky [00:27:09]:

So when you go, no, I'm going to hold a standard and I'm going to hold a standard of excellence and I'm going to hold you to what I have seen to be reasonable people step up and into that or opt out, but you get what you want by holding a higher standard.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:27:26]:

I feel like I have echoes of all these, like, long word documents on my desktop about. On some key people that I would be like, how have I not been clear enough? I must not be listening very well. Why am I confused about the progress that we're making? My gut tells me this stuff should be moving faster. My gut tells me that they've made a couple of weak hires. My gut tells me that they're not a culture fit. My gut tells me that the way they're showing up in front of clients, I wouldn't love every second. Like, it was literally just my gut tells me. And I would have these long word documents where I would be proving to myself that that was true.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:28:10]:

Of like, okay, this project kind of went sideways. This email correspondents that I saw wasn't pumped about some of the vocabulary. The side chat that I had at the water cooler with one of your direct reports seemed like some of that coaching's going pretty rough. And I would prove to myself for months that my gut was right. And some of that is maybe okay, maybe not, but. And literally 100% of the time that I started one of those long bibliographies that the relationship at some point would be terminated because I was like, just proving it to myself for months and months and months. What my gut picked up on really quickly. So just, I just need to trust my gut.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:28:55]:

People need to trust their gut.

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Brian Kavicky [00:28:56]:

Just trust your gut. Because think about it. What if you had the feeling and you walked out of your office and you walked by your executive team in the hallway and you're like, tough cultural fit. I don't see it, guys. And just walked on your way to the bathroom and just left them there with that. Now they're forced to process what you said and they're going to do all that work of, maybe she's right. She's telling that for a reason. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

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Brian Kavicky [00:29:18]:

It's a very little here. I'm going to just drop a little drip here. Here's what I'm seeing, guys. I could be wrong. I reserve the right to be wrong, but that's what I'm seeing. But now you're getting them to think about it instead of you just sitting there going, I have to be right. I have to figure out how I'm right. You just go with your gut.

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Brian Kavicky [00:29:35]:

You don't have to even act on it. You didn't walk out of your office and say, fire them. You put it on somebody else and goes, I think that was a rough hire. Sounds like that's not going well. See ya.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:29:47]:

I actually, that made me think. We run on eos, and so we take quarterly rocks. And there was an entire year that I took a rock every quarter. And it was to ship my instinct to my leadership team so that I got in the habit of saying the thing out loud the first time I saw it, because I was finding, yeah, I'm right more than I'm wrong. And so, yeah, when I meet with all new hires for 30 minutes, I'll generally message their direct report and just be like, here was my quick assessment against our core values and how I'm seeing them show up in the short time that we spent together. And yeah, you observe. People don't know you're watching. And so you can see things.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:30:28]:

And just getting in that habit of not having to have 7, 8, 9, 10 data points to feel confident that I had a read on something. You're right. It doesn't mean that you have to go all the way to like, executing on it, but at least vocalizing it begins to get some more data points more quickly so that the decision can actually be shipped faster one way or the other. It's not just about letting people go. It's about getting people in the right spot set up with clear expectations so that they can perform well.

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Brian Kavicky [00:30:56]:

Yep.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:30:57]:

Anything that we missed?

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Brian Kavicky [00:30:58]:

I think there's two different ways people show up when they're ignoring their gut. One is they ignore their gut and they sit in this mode of not doing anything, not sure what to do, and everything stagnates. It's you and your word documents. The other is they dismiss their gut and they say, okay, I'm going to ignore and I'm going to dismiss my gut and I'm going to do what everybody else thinks is right because at least that way I have buy in either way. You're not leading when that happened. You're giving up your position of leadership unintentionally. And it's actually why employees leave leaders is because they're going, well, you either won't decide or you're letting us decide and we need you to lead us. So the fix is either get permission from someone to go, hey, I'm going to run this past you and then I'm going to act, or just pull the trigger and make the decision.

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Brian Kavicky [00:31:54]:

But you have to roll with it.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:31:57]:

Thanks for being on again, Brian. If you guys love this conversation, we will link episodes to the back catalog so that you can hear the other conversations that Brian and I have had really around this topic of women and leadership and some of the things he's taught me. My viewpoint on the life of and. And this idea of how do you ask yourself, but how would I if I could? Versus exchanging your dreams for status quo. In this 20 years of life where you're building your career and your family and trying to be present for the people that you love, how do you figure out how to be present for yourself, too? So Brian's been a huge teacher in my journey on that. We'll link those in show notes. And if you have your own little mess that you're trying to figure out how to sort out, there's a link in the show notes where you can jump on a call for an hour with Brian. I am not kidding you when I say there would be times I was like, I don't even know how to articulate what I see.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:32:53]:

This is actually right in keeping with this whole idea of just trusting my gut. There's something I don't like, how it smells. There's something I don't like, how it feels. There's some like, I. I just, I don't like this. And Brian would be my first phone call and it would be a way where I could just sort of begin to get the mess out of my head, out of my mouth, and somebody else could help me look at the ingredients. So if you're in one of those places and spaces with your business trying to figure out how to scale your leadership, your team, or you just feel stuck, like your rate of growth is different than your business's rate of growth or your team's rate of growth, Brian should definitely be a call. So thanks for being on Brian.

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Brian Kavicky [00:33:29]:

Yep.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:33:31]:

Thank you for joining me on another episode of Scared Confident. Until next time, keep telling Fear. You will not decide what happens in my life. I will.

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