The LinkedIn Podcast Network is sponsored by SAP.
SAP Business AI. Embedded across SAP solutions, it drives immediate impact.
From dual, your digital assistant, to AI powered capabilities portfolio wide, make confident decisions using your own data.
SAP Business AI. Revolutionary technology.
Real world results.
That's SAP Business AI.
Hey. I'm Kwame Christian, and you are about to step into the world of Negotiate Anything.
The number one negotiation podcast in the world where we teach you how to make difficult conversations easier while getting more of what you want in the process.
Each episode is packed with practical tips and strategies from the experts.
We delve into negotiation, conflict resolution, and leadership skills that are crucial in both business and in life.
Whether you're closing a deal, managing a team, or navigating personal relationships, Negotiate Anything provides you with the tools you need to succeed.
Our conversations are real, relatable, and most importantly, rooted in practicality.
So if you're ready to transform your conversations and elevate your negotiation skills, join me on Negotiate Anything.
Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen.
Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation.
Leading under pressure.
David, why do you think it's important for us to understand how to do that?
Well, 2020, I could just stop there, right?
You know, just 2020.
But if you notice, the leadership landscape has changed fundamentally and indelibly.
It's not going back to the way it was.
And we have in this one year, these 12 months or so, leaders have been put through a lot of changes.
And what I've noticed working with leaders in a number of different industries is that they weren't ready, right?
The changes that happen, moving from in -person to remote, handling remote teams, still being able to adapt on the fly as other leadership needs changed, there was definitely a gap for a lot of leaders.
So right now, we're going to see change continue and it's going to speed up.
And most leaders, again, still aren't ready.
So what I've done is I think that this is the time for leaders to learn how to lead under pressure.
You can argue that leaders are always leading under pressure, but this is one of those moments that is a standout moment where the pressure is so heavy, the pressure is so great right now that people can actually step back and say, yes, I need to step up what I'm doing as a leader.
Absolutely, man, this is great.
I want to dig a little deeper into your focus at the University of Colorado because it's really interesting, the intersection of leadership and diversity.
And for a lot of people, this might be a completely new concept for them.
And so when you think about the intersection of leadership and diversity, why is that something that is worth exploring?
Absolutely. I mean, that's a great question.
And I've been doing this work for over 20 years when starting in a time when it was a very surprising intersection to look at, I would say today people really care a lot more about this topic and there's awareness about the lack of say women CEOs and Fortune 500 companies, and same thing if you look
across race. There's the vast, vast majority of CEOs, senators, pick any type of leadership role in the US and you'll see it's disproportionately occupied by majority group members.
And so why do I study this topic?
I am a woman and I'm Mexican -American.
So maybe it's because of my own identity that I bring that caused me to study it.
But I don't know if that's really true.
I think the real answer is I don't think it's possible to study leadership without looking at race and gender because if you are a researcher and you collect data about how leaders are evaluated or what leaders can do to be successful, you will inevitably find differences across race and gender.
And I say inevitably because when I started doing this work, maybe way back in graduate school, I actually tried not to study gender or race or diversity.
And this is like horrible.
I feel bad saying it now.
But because I wanted to, because I am a, you know, Mexican -American, first -generation college student, female in like a very masculine field, I wanted to do something that was like mainstream because I think people would doubt me if I did, you know, if I studied diversity, people might think, oh, well,
she's not as serious of a academic.
I'm fully ashamed of having felt that way.
But I think it was kind of true at the time.
But nonetheless, every study I did on the topic of leadership, I would find gender differences.
I wouldn't find race differences as often because I usually didn't have enough diversity in my data to really find race differences.
But there's always gender differences.
The same behavior that predicts success for male leaders predicts failure for female leaders, right?
So you can't ignore those differences.
If you're a serious scientist, you can't just pretend they don't exist.
And so I had to study that topic.
And then over time, it really became the most interesting thing that I study.
I think it's the most important thing that I study.
And after, maybe after tenure, it isn't really, I don't care as much if people question whether I'm the most serious scientist or not.
I think what I'm doing is the most important topic out there.
This is great. And so I want to highlight a couple of things because the persuasion and negotiation nerd in me can not help but do this.
But you in particular are a very compelling person to have this message because you were reluctant to carry the message.
Like that in itself is really persuasive because as you're having these conversations with other people and they are skeptical, you can truly empathize with them and say, listen, I get it.
I didn't want to do this.
But after being confronted with the data, I had to do it.
And I think it's really telling the fact that you found those discrepancies between men and women in your data.
And you didn't see those same discrepancies as it relates to race, mainly because there wasn't enough of a significant sample size to come to a conclusion, which is an important data point in itself.
So I just commend you for leaning into that and kind of leading this because it's really important.
So presence, what do we need to know about that?
So executive presence is basically making sure that you are staying focused on the right things.
You're enabling your team to stay focused on the right things and you're not running around, panicking and messing up the morale and doing more harm to your team and your culture than you're doing good.
So one of the things I've noticed during this time is that many people didn't panic as outwardly as you'd think but they retreated.
It was a way of them dealing with overwhelm.
And when you're in a time of crisis, as a leader, you can't retreat, you can't hide out, you cannot.
Because as you go, so goes the team, so goes morale, so goes culture.
So as a leader, a big part of what you're going to be doing is demonstrating that presence to let people know that you can stay calm.
We may not have the answers, but we're working on it.
I can't say what's going to happen, but we're working to make sure that everyone's jobs are stable, intact, moving forward.
We're going to take care of you.
It's a lot of reassurance.
It's a lot of people management above and beyond assigning tasks and making sure that things are getting done and hitting targets.
This is the softer side of leadership that is more nurturing and a lot of leaders have gotten away from because they don't see themselves as motivational.
They don't see themselves as nurturers.
They see themselves as employers, making sure that people get work done.
And fundamentally, that's a big difference between management and leadership.
When you think about the things that people often do, unwittingly, that are problematic in their leadership when it comes to communicating effectively and resolving conflict effectively, what do you think those key mistakes are that people need to avoid?
Oh, that's a great question.
You know, I think the number one mistake that I see is that people come to conflict and expect that this is going to be a logical dialogue because the data is right in front of us and the data leads us to very logical solutions, one, two, and three.
Why don't we try those, get some more data on how this is going to work, find the best strategy, and move forward.
And when those human beings who are complex people come to conflict, they don't bring just their logical mind, they bring their whole selves.
And so when the leaders that I'm working with are having to talk through conflict, having to deal with difficult conversations, the number one mistake that I think people make is to assume that we can handle this in a logical, objective, abstract kind of a way.
It takes a lot more emotional intelligence than that, which means it takes more time.
It takes more deep breaths.
It takes a whole lot more listening to be able to get the engagement to move down that road.
It takes a lot more discovery in the process.
Absolutely, yeah. And we see it all the time, especially when you have people who believe that they're quite intelligent.
They think highly of themselves, right?
Right, you try to get a whole lot of these really intelligent folks who are amazingly skilled.
They have amazing skills, deep wells of professional technical knowledge.
And then they have to deal with something that isn't really a technical kind of a problem.
It's a culture problem, or it's an equity problem, or, you know, there are folks like the community that we serve is really feeling left behind.
That's not a logical, that's not a purely, let me say it that way, it's not a purely logical problem.
There are emotions involved and there's humanity involved.
Absolutely, and when you miss that, it leads to frustration for everybody involved.
And I think about it as a mediator.
Some of my favorite mediations were when people would use the terms irrational or crazy.
And because whenever I heard one party say, oh, I can't believe they're asking for this or they're doing this, it's completely irrational.
I'm like, oh, I know what the other side is gonna say.
I go in and they say, they're completely irrational.
This is crazy, right?
And if you think that rationality or logic is gonna save, either one of those things are gonna save the day, you're going to be woefully mistaken.
And a lot of times the things that we think are logical are rational and are very subjective.
Absolutely, what's logical to you might be, you know, something that seems, you know, pie in the sky or on the clouds to me.
One of the things that we talk about with just this kind of problem is, most everybody has heard about, you know, listening and being able to reflect what people say, being able to, you know, reframe what people say.
So someone comes to you and they're expressing their frustration in this difficult conversation.
So active listening.
We're gonna say back to them in a different way what they've said so that we're showing them that we're listening to them.
And a lot of times these conversations, the person goes, oh, okay.
No, and they say it again.
And they say the same thing.
You're like, I just did the whole like paraphrase kind of thing back.
Okay, I'm gonna quote them this time.
I'm just gonna prove I'm listening to them by, I heard you say, and then you just quote to say exactly what they said.
And when they go, oh no, that's when they need to feel heard, not be heard.
And that is a completely different process.
Now we're not talking prefrontal cortex of your brain, you know, right behind your forehead.
Now we're talking the, you're like what we call your reptilian brain, your amygdala.
It's your emotional center.
You know, if you put one finger above your ear kind of by your temple and one in the middle of your forehead, where those two lines intersect, the amygdala hangs out in your brain.
And when it is stimulated, it is harder for people to hear to do that logical, rational, objective, analytical abstract thinking, which belongs right behind your eyebrows basically and your prefrontal cortex.
So if people are gripped by emotion, then you might need to say, you know what?
I can hear the frustration in your voice.
Can you tell me more about that?
Or, you know, what I think I'm hearing in your voices, you know, is that anxiety?
Can you help clarify for me?
You know, what's happening?
How can I be of support to you in this?
And sometimes people have to work through the emotion part before they can get onto the being heard part.
Absolutely, and that is an expert level distinction, being heard versus feeling heard.
And again, if you think about it just completely logically and rationally, well, I repeat it back to what they said, so clearly I'm understanding it, but if you don't understand the psychology that's lying beneath the surface, you're going to try to solve the wrong problem with the wrong tools.
Hello, my friends. Before we get back to today's episode, I wanna ask you a question.
Have you ever wondered how to elevate your team's negotiation game and how you can help the folks on your team have better, difficult conversations?
At the American Negotiation Institute, we offer transformative keynotes and workshops tailored to empower professionals with top tier negotiation and conflict resolution skills.
Whether it's a keynote for your next event or hands -on training for your team, we've got you covered.
Don't just negotiate, master the art with the American Negotiation Institute.
Click the link in the description to find out more.
Elevate, negotiate and succeed.
One of the things I liked about that is the fact that you said focus and that was interesting because typically when you think about executive presence, people say, well, stand up straight, shoulder is back, shake with a firm handshake now virtually, I guess a firm wave, whatever it might be, right?
And I like that you started off with focus.
That was interesting.
So tell us why it starts there.
It starts there because what you're focusing on is what your team is going to focus on.
And I've heard all of the same stuff, the firm handshake, look them in the eye, hand your business card with one hand and shake with the other.
That's not necessarily executive presence as much as it is making a good impression, right?
Executive presence goes well beyond making a good impression to ensuring that your team can function through crisis.
That's fundamentally the role of executive presence and coming back to focus as you help your team to stay focused not on the crisis but on what they're doing now and how they will move through the crisis and who they will be on the other side of the crisis that is executive presence.
Helping your team to stay focused on getting the right things done even when everything is a distraction, when they can't turn on the news without being distracted and they can't get away from the distraction because perhaps it's hitting them personally, perhaps it's hitting them in their social circles,
they're being distracted.
There are things outside of your control that are clamoring for their attention.
Your role and the fundamental role of executive presence from what we're talking about right here is making sure that they can function, letting them know that you understand being a human being in the middle of this crisis, allowing your team to breathe and understand that yes, it's not good right
now but we're gonna get through this.
That's executive presence, that calming presence that lets your team know we're going to make it.
If you're running around, and I often use the Six Days, Seven Nights, Harrison Ford, and I can never remember the young lady who's in that with him.
I love that movie. But there's a scene when they've tried everything and Harrison Ford, who was a pilot in this movie, walks into this tall grass and he starts shaking the grass and cussing and kicking and everything.
And she walks back out and the actress looks at him and says, I understand you're upset, don't ever do that again.
I can't afford to see you like that.
That's understanding executive presence.
You can't kick the grass.
You can't go off and have a hissy fit or a meltdown that's public because it will undermine not only their confidence in the direction and tomorrow, but it will undermine their confidence in your ability to get them there.
That makes a lot of sense.
And we can understand why it's so important for leaders to be like this, right?
But we understand at the same time that it's incredibly difficult for them to be like this too.
Because just like how their employees are feeling pressure and they're afraid too, the leaders feel the same way.
And for a lot of leaders at the top, that's almost like, not almost, it really is the loneliest place in the organization.
So how do leaders still maintain this presence while still maintaining their mental health?
So two things, one, it's Anne Heche or Anne Heche, I did remember her name.
And two, you're hitting a great point here.
For leaders, it's always lonely.
In times of crisis, it's even lonelier because the stakes are even higher.
So one of the things I've done working with my clients, I become that safe space.
I become that calm in the middle of the storm as it were, the eye of the storm where they can step back, think they can game plan and they can get ahead of the curve versus always playing catch up and always fighting fires and always trying to figure out what's next.
I become a confidant that allows them, this is an executive coaching and even in the program we do this, give them an opportunity to step back and think and breathe and take the loneliness out of leadership because that's one of the things that's different now.
It's always been lonely, but before you were lonely in the same office building.
Now you're lonely at home, really feeling disconnected from your people, not being able to get those subtle cues in a meeting or those subtle cues as you walk down the hallway or in between meetings, you're not able to read the people like you could before.
So now it feels even more disconnected as leaders are making decisions that have greater impact, that are more crisis driven than vision driven, right?
So you end up having leaders struggling and this program, I mentioned leading under pressure is designed, leadership doesn't have to be this lonely and that's why I built a community.
But when I'm working with clients one -on -one, one of my clients was when I went and spoke to his entire executive, all of his peers at an executive level, the way he introduced me was, David helped me when COVID broke out, didn't even know I needed the kind of help he gave.
He helped me to think through things.
He helped me to understand what was happening and to not react but respond more effectively.
So those are the types of things that having someone like myself, a coach or someone in your sphere of influence that works with you, help you as a leader to make those good decisions and not react but respond more effectively.
Essentially how to persuade as a leader.
And so when you think about your approach to leading and managing and moving people from one position to another position with your communication style, what would you say is your ultimate goal in every conversation?
You know, I would say depending on what the, what role I play within this negotiation, it is to get to yes, especially if I am managing up and I'm talking to my CEO and we're trying to figure out what to do, he may have a different opinion or he or she may have a different opinion and I am trying to
figure out how do I maintain my role, autonomy and all those kind of things while still making sure that I'm delivering what's needed.
And that's just more of a, as you get a little bit older and get into your career, you start realizing that ego counts a lot less and causes more issues than actual doing.
And execution and all those kind of things.
And so staying focused on that is critical.
When I'm managing laterally or you know, to subordinates is making sure that they're experiencing me as a leader, as a colleague in a way that leaves them feeling heard, transparent and what is needed, that they have direction that is actual direction and not just a task, mastering, that they have,
that they feel whole from the interaction and that I could be vulnerable enough to convey what it is that I really need to get done.
What really, what the vision really is for this task and being vulnerable enough to receive things and be able to pivot if needed.
Sometimes you're just wrong and that's just the key and that's just something that I've seen for a lot of people that could be the hardest part of their professional journey of just being told like, well, you're not the brightest, you're not the smartest, you don't know everything about all these intricate
things. You're great, but just like Jordan, Jordan won with Pippin and Grant and Rodman and all these other people, that's still my goat.
But I don't know if our goat gets six rings without having these other great compliments and around him of people who are great in their own right.
And I'll tell you, just being in leadership and things like that, a lot of this for me was forged and had a boss tell me a long time ago, I was like, well, how do you know how to do these things?
How do you know how to do these things?
Well, because I screwed them up.
And when dealing and working throughout my early career, learning to lead by being willing to be a teammate first and foremost really helped me become, to take the next step in my leadership journey and what I had to realize too, in my own right, it was good, it was great, I had traversed pretty well
by my mid -30s and had hit all the markers, as far as titles, pay, autonomy, all these kind of things.
And I found myself thinking like, okay, what's next?
And if I can't see what's next, why?
And I remember my wife sat me down and was like, well, maybe you're not ready for it.
And you know, you know you married the right person when they can just be brutally honest, honestly to you.
And shout out to Crystal Davis, my wife 10 years now and next month and August, so.
But we had this conversation and I remember sitting there like, okay, okay, okay, babe, I got you, all right, I got you, but I'm still thinking like, no, no, I'm great.
I'm good at what I do, I'm good at what I'm thinking, I'm sitting there thinking this, I'm sitting there thinking this and she told me, you know, a few months later we're having the same conversation, and she's like, well, until you realize that what got you here isn't gonna get you to the next level,
and I'm like, what do you say?
Like, well, what got you here was good, like it was great, but what's gonna get you to the next level is development of something else.
And for me that development was making sure that I could lead and I could be a teammate in a very authentic and vulnerable way that allowed people to really understand like what my motivations are.
This is great, this is great.
And there are. One of the ways you can treat people with respect during these times is to acknowledge their stress, to be patient with people, to be understanding.
Let your folks know exactly what the goalpost looks like.
Then celebrate when you get there.
I would encourage leaders to celebrate things now more than ever.
Give people more opportunity to take a victory lap, right?
You have to be the chief motivational officer for your team.
One of my clients, this was her hangup.
She was not, she was all about business, business, business, business, right?
I just had a Lego movie.
For those of you who have kids and have seen Lego movie, you'll know that's business, business, business.
But she was all about business.
And one of the things I shared with her is I said, you've got to become the chief motivational officer.
When people see you, they need to smile, not frown.
People need to walk up to you to share their good stories, not try to avoid you because they think you're just gonna hit them with something else.
And when you're leading under pressure and you're leading in crisis moments, we have a tendency to double down and try to muscle up and man up and woman up and put it on our shoulders.
And that means we drive people harder so we can get results.
And guess what, when people are already grinding gears, all that does is accelerate burnout, accelerate drops in morale, accelerate you not hitting the targets because people keep checking out.
So yeah. Oh man, David.
Congratulations, you've just joined an elite club.
By listening to a full episode, you're now officially on the Negotiate Anything team.
So welcome aboard. What most team members do is they subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to automatically get the latest episodes of the show.
The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations.
Keep learning, keep practicing, and keep getting better.
Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations.
Again, thank you for joining the team.
We're excited to have you and I will see you in the next episode.
I'll catch you later.
