Owning Your Story as an “Off-Beat” Leader | Cassa Grant | Episode 202

Scott McCarthy [00:00:00]:
On episode two zero two of the peak performance leadership podcast, we speak to Casa Grant and she’s gonna tell you how you can own your story regardless of your background as a leader. That’s right folks. It’s for all of us who came up through the non conventional way. Are you ready for this? Alright. Let’s do it. Welcome one. Welcome all to the peak performance leadership podcast, a weekly podcast series dedicated to helping you hit peak performance across the three domains of leadership. Those being leading yourself, leading your team, and leading your organization.

Scott McCarthy [00:00:49]:
This podcast couples my twenty years of military experience as a senior Canadian army officer with world class guests to bring you the most complete podcast of leadership going. And for more, feel free to check out our web site at movingforwardleadership.com. And with that, let’s get to the show. Yes. Welcome one. Welcome all. Thanks for coming out. It is your chief leadership officer, Scott McCarthy, and so great to be speaking to you.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:27]:
The leader, the leader in this case who may have not, you know, risen up through the ranks in a stereotypical way. The leader who may be working in, you know, those stores, those, convenience stores or the gas station or whatever. The leader who thinks that they’re not really a leader, but reality is they are. Yes. You folks, you matter, and that’s why today in this episode, we are speaking to Casa Grant. She is the creator of the wonder brand and wonder leader, which are coaches programs, which help you show up as the leader that you want to follow. Isn’t that powerful? Right? The leader that you’d want to follow. She helps her clients communicate better, get more buy in, and feel really great about how they’re spending time in their business or their company.

Scott McCarthy [00:02:30]:
She also helps them become more confident with unstoppable influence, unbeatable stories, and powerful personal brands. Casa has worked with all kinds of different companies, but mostly she spends her time coaching people like you. She’s also a certified neurolinguistic programming practitioner, a life coach, and a business coach. And I found her pitch really interesting and it was different, the off beat leader. And I was like, the and you’ll see, you’ll hear. The first question I ask her is like, what the heck’s an off beat leader anyway? And she’ll dive into that. And reality is, you know, when I boil this interview down, Casa is here to help you believe in yourself. And I did a, podcast episode on the exact same topic quite some time ago.

Scott McCarthy [00:03:28]:
And that is, you know, you as the leader, you need to believe in yourself because if you don’t believe in yourself, then people won’t believe in you neither. And the reality is us as leaders, we need to exude that confidence so that our followers, well, they follow us. And anyway, that’s what today’s episode is all about. And folks, that’s enough for me. Why don’t you sit back, relax and enjoy my conversation about owning your story as an offbeat leader with Casa Grant. Kath, welcome to the show. So good to have you here today.

Cassie Grant [00:04:22]:
Thank you so much for having me, Scott. I appreciate it.

Scott McCarthy [00:04:25]:
So you’ve run with this thing you call the offbeat leader. What the heck’s an offbeat leader?

Cassie Grant [00:04:32]:
Well, I’m glad she asked. I think of an offbeat leader as somebody who maybe has followed a slightly less conventional, I’m doing air quotes here, leadership path. So maybe somebody who doesn’t have an MBA or who didn’t think at at, you know, 12, I’m gonna be a leader or where whenever. Right? Like they weren’t working. They weren’t working on that track throughout their life. But for various reasons, various circumstances, they have ended up in a leadership role in some capacity. Right. And they find that they’re really liking it, but they also feel like they don’t really know.

Cassie Grant [00:05:05]:
I mean, this is most leaders anyway too with imposter syndrome. They don’t they they know that they could be doing better and they’re not really sure how to do it better, but there’s still kind of this, I mean, I wouldn’t call it a chip on their shoulder, but some kind of feeling of, like, I didn’t follow the traditional path. So maybe I’m not, showing up the way that I wanna show up as a leader. So I call it the offbeat leader. But, you know, like I said, it could be somebody who so for me, the reason I came up with that was because I had a very, I guess you could call it bizarro life path that led me to where I’m at now. I mean, we all kind of have to some degree or another. And I was a teacher and then I was an adventure travel bus driver. We drove all over The US and Canada, for on and off for years, I did that.

Cassie Grant [00:05:47]:
Then I finished grad school and then I went down and worked in Antarctica for a while. And that was where I really dealt with a lot of bureaucracy and being more in these leadership roles. And so when I left Antarctica, it was kind of like, well, what, you know, how do I fit in with the rest of these, you know, any any place that I might be working or things that I might be doing. It’s just such a bizarro, way to come back into the world. And so I think that a lot of offbeat leaders might feel like, okay, I was a skateboard shop manager or any, I don’t know. I’m just making stuff up, but things that they might, feel like we’re not that traditional path to leadership. Does that make sense?

Scott McCarthy [00:06:26]:
It makes absolute sense. And, actually, you set me up great to plug my Facebook group, leadership skills for managers who wanna be leaders, not bosses. And I’m thinking of one person who posts in there in particular, and she runs, like, I believe, a convenience store or, like, a jewelry store or something, you know, a a small store like that. Kinda like the example you just used, but the skate the skateboard shop, manager or whatever, where she just kinda found herself now in in in that role. And as well, you know, we have managers from, like, Subway, for example, one of another lady that reaches out to me and reaches into the group for advice and stuff. And, you know, it’s like the offbeat leader for sure. It’s not the traditional MBA. It’s not the person who went to some kind of grad school and got leadership or was kinda, like, groomed per se through the kind of you know, you you rise up through the ranks.

Scott McCarthy [00:07:25]:
And Mhmm. Actually, I believe this is the type of show that, you know, really speaks to these people, and they need this because guess what? You matter too. You’re a leader just as much as the rest of us. Right?

Cassie Grant [00:07:38]:
So Well, I mean, my joke is that no one is going to come down from on high and anoint you as an, you know, as the perfect leader. Right? You have to start accepting that and and and owning who you are and that part of yourself in order to be a more effective leader.

Scott McCarthy [00:07:55]:
Oh, that’s a that’s a great segue, actually. I love that, you know, owning that part of who you are. So how do these, you know, these off week leaders who kind of rise up through, you know, get the moral courage to start owning that because I bet there’s probably some imposter syndrome syndrome in there with them. Actually, I know there is some. So I had these conversations. So from your standpoint, how how can they own that and then really bring forward their leadership skills to their team?

Cassie Grant [00:08:23]:
I mean, and that’s a great question. So there’s a lot of ways to do it. One of which is accepting it. First of all, right, like some of us, I I always joke about this character that I had, like, I thought of as I called her patty shoulder pads. And I was thinking of this like real businessy lady from the eighties who was like no nonsense. And, you know, I had this idea. I mean, this is a goofy caricature of it, but it’s this idea of who that professional person is, which is a joke. Right? So part of it is owning, you know, understanding the parts like that.

Cassie Grant [00:08:51]:
Having this type of background actually helps you lead from a much richer place. You know, you have more varied experience set to work from. And then the other things can be learned, right? So, you know, the experiences that bring you to where you are enrich who you are and how you relate to people and how you lead. So one of the tools that I definitely recommend for people is to think of, and this is through personal branding. I mean, personal branding is just your reputation, right? It’s, it’s become this like kind of, I mean, it is too also, it’s like, you know, the Instagram influencers and the people that are, making a lot of money of selling drinks or whatever they’re doing, that’s their personal, that’s that one type of personal brand. But if you think about a personal brand in terms of just people that, you know, it’s generally going to be like the top three or four things that you think about about that person. So for example, for me it could be something like the bus driver, one of my friends are always teasing me. They’re like, Oh, are you a bus driver? Woah.

Cassie Grant [00:09:44]:
You know, it’s become part of my identity partly because of the stories I tell around it, partly because of, you know, who that, what that says about my personality as someone who is an adventurer, who likes to explore who, you know, loves big machinery, right? So there’s this identity that gets built around one of those types of labels, right? So as you’re thinking about, okay, well, how do I communicate this in an appropriate way? Because we do want to avoid like oversharing. We’ve all been around leaders who are just kind of, I don’t know, dumping without any kind of discernment or filter things that people don’t really know. And that’s not the kind of want to know that’s not the kind of thing I’m talking about. I’m talking more about, using the experiences in a very, targeted and intentional way. So that so for example, like, again, if you own that skate shop or if you ran the skate shop, you know, that said something about you right off the bat is that, you know, you’re somebody who’s interested in maybe, I mean, maybe not as alternative now, but you know, was alternative, in the, in the nineties or whatever, that kind of culture, that’s what you’re associating yourself with just by having been a part of that. But then also being in a leadership role there is that you also had to have some kind of structure. So people are going to be creating meaning based on just that one thing from your life. Right? So if you want to share and own that part of you, you can think about, again, you can ask people around you.

Cassie Grant [00:11:07]:
I actually have clients do this all the time. Like what are the top three things you think of when you think of me? And you can start to actually cultivate that a little bit more. You can start to think of stories within that. Cause I do, I mean, I definitely work with my clients a lot with, with, strategic storytelling. And so you can think about stories from that type, that thing, and continue to grow it that way so that it reinforces the things that people already think about you while also helping them understand more about the context of what they want from you. Does that make sense? Like, you build on it, but it’s not something that you just make up.

Scott McCarthy [00:11:41]:
Yeah. No. For sure. You bring you bring your experience to the forefront. Right? And and and you enable that to, you know, give yourself some street cred, enable your experience to help you with your decision making, enable your experience to relate with now your subordinates that are, you know, maybe the salesperson or the cashier at the at the skate shop that you’re overseeing, whatever it may be. Understand, like, oh, this is how you know, I understand the trials and tribulations of doing inventory. It sucks. Yep.

Scott McCarthy [00:12:08]:
Got it. And sometimes mistakes happen. Right? All those things because you’ve you’ve grown up in that whole system. You you’ve you’ve done all those jobs. You you’ve gone up through that system. And, and, really, you know, you you own that because that’s part of who you are. Now my question, I guess, would be is sometimes, you know, people put down like, oh, you’re a leader. You have to talk a certain way.

Scott McCarthy [00:12:34]:
You have to act a certain way. You have to be a certain way. And sometimes I kind of feel you know, the new especially the new emerging leaders out there kinda feel like they’re being pushed into a corner per se, and it’s not like, I don’t wanna be that in corner. I like this corner over here. It’s warm and fuzzy, but I’m being shoved in this leadership corner where, you know, I don’t like it. I’m being told to dress this way and talk this way. That’s not how I am. And then they just start feeling like they’re being someone else.

Scott McCarthy [00:13:02]:
So for those people out there, how they feel, what’s your advice to them? You know? Should they be going into that corner, or should they try to stay in their corner or probably do a nice blend of the two per se? What do you got for them?

Cassie Grant [00:13:14]:
I think that’s a really great question. And I think that there’s a couple of things that come out of that. Right? Because anytime you’re getting put in anytime you’re trying a new thing, you’re gonna start in some some level of your mind, some level of your subconscious is going to fight it a little bit, right? Because you’re not going to be comfortable anymore. You’re going to be doing something new. So there’s always going to be that. So there’s noticing that and understanding that versus people trying to force you like square peg in a round hole, right? Like, cause what you were describing sounds a little bit like that as well. Right? So it’s discerning between where am I uncomfortable here and fighting against this and where are they trying to make me into something that is inappropriate and or not me? Right. So how do I find that balance between the two? And I would say it’s with radical empathy for the people under like the people that you’re gonna be leading.

Cassie Grant [00:14:03]:
So for example, you know, it might be around surface things like what you have to wear, what you have to whatever. But it’s, it’s about things like if you were in your employee’s position, what would you want to be seeing from somebody who was leading you? And sometimes that does come down to things like I would, I call it costuming, you know, signaling that this is, this is the new version of me, and this is how I’ll be acting. Right. I I’ve had this, I actually was just, I contributed, attracted to a book, of coaching exercises. And it’s the one that I had was called super you how to, basically embody a new or a version of yourself that you don’t necessarily know how to do. So the whole thing is, when you are doing a new endeavor like this, you can kind of start to think about what would Super Me do. Because like, so for example, when I was teaching high school, I was 23 when I started teaching high school, I was only like five years older than some of my students. And, it was really scary.

Cassie Grant [00:15:02]:
I had no clue what I was doing. I was just kind of, yeah, I was definitely winging it. And I was watching judge duty every day after school because it was on every day and also I love judge duty and it was helping me create this miss Grant persona. Right? Like I’d always been kind of like, you know, college student Casa. And then when I came into this, I was like, I have no clue who this miss Grant is, right, or miss Grant. And so, I would like pull quotes from judge Judy and, like, you can talk and tell I’m tall and you’re short, but that doesn’t change facts. Like, you know, I wouldn’t necessarily pull it exactly like that into the classroom, but it would give me this embodiment of someone with authority. And it helped me like, I I wasn’t trying to pretend to be judge Judy, but it helped me make decisions from, well, what would judge Judy do here? Or how can I act that is gonna be in a way that’s going to get the students to do what I need them to do? And so as you start to do that more, you’re not necessarily you’re not faking it.

Cassie Grant [00:15:59]:
I don’t like fake it till you make it because I think fake it till you make it is more about lying. It’s more about giving yourself the understanding so that you can actually step into and be that new version of you, because we’re always, we want to grow. We want to expand as humans. So we’re always kind of pushing ourselves past these boundaries. It’s just a matter of, are you pushing yourself in the way that’s appropriate to you and the people that you’re leading, or are you being pushed into something by, you know, whoever else based on their perception of it? So I think, like I said, that if it comes down to that fundamental question of what do the people that you’re leading need to see from you? And you’re gonna have to pay attention to that. You’re gonna have to look around in different ways. You’re gonna have to, really see the kinds of ask listen to the questions that they’re asking you to understand what that really looks like. Because sometimes it can be something like costuming, but most of the time, it’s more like just showing up and really paying attention and really asking the right questions.

Scott McCarthy [00:16:52]:
No. I I I like a lot of that. Right? Ultimately, from my experience, my advice to listener out there is, you know, you can’t forget who you are, where you come from as you as you develop and grow. But at the same time, you have to look forward because what you got you here won’t get you there per se. And you need to see and I I kinda like that whole, bit about judge’s duty, actually. But what you’re looking for, you’re looking for a mentor, someone to someone to model model after. Right? And be like, okay. This is what that person would do.

Scott McCarthy [00:17:25]:
Now how we’re using that as a framework, how am I going to deal with it? Because you said those words the exact words. Like, you know, we can talk as until you grow tall and I grow short or something along those lines, but I didn’t put it the keywords was I didn’t put it in that way. So you use that context, that framework, but you didn’t use the exact same words. Right? Because that would probably be inappropriate, I would think, in a high school setting.

Cassie Grant [00:17:47]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally. But it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s embodying, like, really taking on that persona versus, like I said, faking it because they can tell I mean, there’s still always gonna be some level of insecurity around that. Right? But, I mean, I’ve had clients do it with they can create their own like, it’s generally it can be superhero based or, you know, there’s I have different ones that I use for different things too. Like when I first started driving buses, I had, like, kick ass cast and it was like, you know, whenever I felt nervous, I felt scared. I mean, you know, you’re driving a 40 foot coach with 35 people behind you, you know, in very interesting conditions a lot of the time. And it was really terrifying at first.

Cassie Grant [00:18:25]:
So, you know, it’s just helping talk yourself down from like little panicked self into what’s the next level of me gonna look like. Right? How am I gonna actually show up as that person? Because a lot of times you don’t know, well, all the time you don’t know, so that’s your best guess, you know? And then that’s where Judge Judy, it was like giving me that authority. That essence of authority was my best guess as to how I wanted this grant to be able to relate to these kids. I still wanted the warmth. I still wanted the humor. I still wanted to be able to relate to the kids and guide them, but I also wanted to have the authority to, really make a difference for them. And, and this is the same thing with leadership. You know, if you are a leader who tries to be too, who doesn’t step into this next level of you enough, and I’ve also done this poorly.

Cassie Grant [00:19:11]:
I had a, employee when I, my first or no, my second winter in Antarctica, we had a, he and we had started working at the, at the same time at the program together. So we’d come from, you know, being peers in a different department to two years later, or actually, no, it was like three, me being his supervisor, his direct supervisor. And I did not step into that as well as I should have. I was kind of, oh, we’ll we’ll just make it happen. And, you know, a lot of, like, vague whatever. We’ll get it. We’ll figure it out. And then, you know, partway through the season, I started looking at my numbers and going, I am not going to get all this work done.

Cassie Grant [00:19:50]:
Like, I really have to turn this around. I have to start thinking about how to do this. And he did not respond well to that at all. Like, and to be honest, rightly so, because I had not set expectations correctly and I had not stepped into that leadership role for myself. So that can be really, really challenging, especially when you’re moving up within the same organization and people already know you as one thing. You know, stepping into that new idea of yourself is it can be very challenging. And so it’s thinking about, well, what does this look like now? And I think the most important thing to do is to do it with intention. I did not have the guidance to really, sit down and figure that out at the time.

Cassie Grant [00:20:28]:
Looking back, it’s like, yes. Or if I had an employee who I was moving up the chain right now, I would absolutely be sitting down with them going, okay, what’s the plan for this? How are you going to communicate that? Like really help guide them through, help help helping them be successful in this, this new version of themselves.

Scott McCarthy [00:20:47]:
It’s tough being alone as a leader. You’re often in situations where you’re not sure where to go. You’re not sure what’s the best decision. Yet, as Colin Powell once said, it’s lonely at the top. And reality is, it takes time. Sure, you can read books and listen to podcasts such as this one, but nothing beats experience. But who has time for experience when you’re at a situation right now that requires experience to lead yourself, your team, your organization through? That’s where coaching comes in. You see, coaching enables you to unlock the experience in others.

Scott McCarthy [00:21:31]:
Right here, right now, you have twenty years of military service, plus a a 50 plus episodes of interviews and topics and research sitting at your disposal. So what are you waiting for? Are you ready to level up your game? Become that leader that you know you’re meant to be? Are you ready to go to the next level? If so, drop me a line, scott@movingforwardleadership.com, or swing by the website and book a discovery call through movingforwardleadership.com/book. Let’s get you moving in the right direction, leading better, leading more effectively today, right here, right now. Starting off with leading yourself. And then let’s focus on how you can build your high performing team to drive your organization’s output higher, faster, harder today. Not next week, not next month, but today. Alright, folks. That’s it.

Scott McCarthy [00:22:45]:
Now let’s get back to the show. No. I I love it. I love the Antarctica story. So and it it kinda tweaks, my brain here and thinking about these people as they move along. And many of them find themselves, you know, becoming in charge of the who were once their peers. Right? Especially in these small in these small stores and and and shops and, you know, small companies and stuff. They they really find themselves, you know, becoming becoming their their peers and in some cases, friends’ boss.

Cassie Grant [00:23:26]:
Mhmm.

Scott McCarthy [00:23:26]:
So for those people in those circumstances, what advice do you have them to step into this new roles, take on, you know, take on this persona, becoming, you know, that leader that they’re meant to be, but at the same time, you know, looking at, you know, Jane over there and, like, you know, giving them more direction or whatever and, you know, potentially having a discipline in them. Like, what the hell? We’re just hanging out Friday night having drinks. And now all of a sudden you’re you’re you’re riding me for being late.

Cassie Grant [00:23:55]:
Yeah. I mean, I I definitely, you know, again, having learned from being in that situation a couple of times myself, I mean, there are definitely a couple of things, one of which being, sitting down with that intention like day one or before you even step into that role and really clarifying, Hey, these are the changes that I foresee happening. We’re going to keep checking in on them so that we make sure that we understand what’s going on here. I mean, honestly, it really only becomes a major issue if you have an underperformer, right? Because especially if that person is your friend or was your friend, things get ugly fast. Right? So, but part of the part of preventing that is sitting down and making those expectations really, really clear at the get go. And then again, checking in regularly because if you don’t check-in regularly with as much, you know, metric based feedback as you can, it’s, they’re going to feel like you did sideswipe them. They are going to feel like, wait, we had drinks on Friday and now all of a sudden, you know, and they also might take things personally. So it’s keeping it’s really helping to keep those boundaries strong and clear as well.

Cassie Grant [00:25:03]:
Like, you know, we under, I understand that we’re friends and I want to preserve that friendship, but I’m also your boss. And I need to help us preserve that relationship too. And here’s what I need from you as your boss. I mean, if the person is even remotely, emotionally intelligent, they should be able to handle that. But you know, there’s a lot of other things that could be playing into that too. So you never really know. And that’s where a third party, I think is also really important. If you have the opportunity to have that conversation with your boss as, you know, if you’re like kind of the middle person or whatever, or an HR representative or something along those lines where, there’s an open dialogue, there’s not this kind of he should they they said they said, or there’s not a lot of, you know, secrets being whispered in the hallway or whatever.

Cassie Grant [00:25:47]:
You want to make sure that all of this stuff is creating an open dialogue because at the end of the day, we’re, you know, they know you as a person, not as a robot or a robot leader. And so you have to convey that you have to be that person. You have to be that person who’s like, Hey, you know what? I’m going to be learning here too. They already know that. Like, so, you know, if you were to just show up with, like, some really uptight suit and tie and try to, you know, force them to call you like miss Grant or whatever, that would be totally bizarre and very, very weird and not appropriate. Right? But if you just come at it with, like, look. I’m learning too. There’s going to be things that I’m not gonna know, and that’s where I’m really gonna be counting on you to let me know what’s going on on your end of things.

Cassie Grant [00:26:28]:
And I will try to keep that line of communication open both ways. Is that yeah. So I think that, like I said, just setting it up for success. I also have, you know, regular check ins, delegation frameworks to help make sure that if there’s projects in place, that the everything that needs to get communicated, how to do it, when to do it, milestones, budget, how I don’t want you to do it, all of those things are very, very clear. Excuse me.

Scott McCarthy [00:26:55]:
No. There’s a lot lot of great advice in there. And, actually, it’s funny I asked the question because I actually found myself in that exact situation this past summer. I was thrown at work and then became, you know, the supervisor of someone who I’ve known my entire career almost. Mhmm. And, you know, and it’s just like, I wasn’t working in in that team at that time, but I come in and take over the team. So one of the first things I do is bring her in, shut the door, say, alright. You know, let’s get the awkward bit out of the way right now, shall we? Let’s

Cassie Grant [00:27:29]:
Mhmm.

Scott McCarthy [00:27:29]:
Let’s get this done and over with, and and let’s get it out of the way. And, like, now alright. End of the day, I’m still with me. I’m still Scott. Yes. I am now your boss, but this is how we’re gonna work it. We’re gonna work this from a team dynamics, per se. Like, you have your job to do.

Scott McCarthy [00:27:45]:
I have my job to do, and we both know those two things. We’re both mature adults here, and we can get along. And, you know, and it kinda does fall in line with what you said, though. She’s a performer, so I don’t need to worry about her having those tough conversations and Mhmm. And, like, hey. This is where I need you to pick things up or whatever. Right? Because, she she she’s she’s a rock star. Like, I have no issues with leaving my job to her to do it.

Cassie Grant [00:28:10]:
Yeah. So That definitely makes easy. And I would say that is the case most of the time, frankly. I mean, I I would, like some of my previous bosses, I’m still like we’re great friends with and we just had fun. We just laughed and we worked and then we laughed and we worked, you know, and it was just like, it was very fun and it was very seamless. And, you know, and, and so I think that those types of situations, but, you know, again, like you said, they were trusting me. If I screwed up, they were not like, you know, holding it over me or being weird and passive aggressive. I mean, it’s it’s it’s being, you know, not taking things personally as a boss is also really important.

Cassie Grant [00:28:42]:
You know, when things go poorly, sometimes it might be a reflection of your performance, but sometimes a lot of times it’s not so, you know, letting things roll off of you when they need to. And then knowing when to like, Hey, we need to deal with this and escalate if it needs to get escalated is so it’s such a, and that’s one of those things that you do have to just, that’s the experience thing. And that’s where having experiences that are varied can help you with understanding at the point at which to go, Oh, it’s time to escalate.

Scott McCarthy [00:29:13]:
No, that’s a lot of great, a lot of great things in there. And just, you know, a lot does come with experience, and I think that probably highlights the need for, for people to dove back or boom right back to a quest or something that we mentioned earlier. But, you know, having a mentor, having someone that you can look up to, And, hopefully, if you can find someone that you can confide in that’s not really part of the team that’s been there before, or, you know, you find a group like that I mentioned earlier that you go in and say, hey. This is what’s going on. What, you know, what advice do you have for me? And this is what we get a lot in my Facebook group. I think it helps a lot. Right? Just because Mhmm. We the top is the lonely place.

Scott McCarthy [00:29:53]:
Being in charge sometimes, it can be a lonely place. So just having a place to confine in and really, get some advice goes a long way. Mhmm. Now there was a situation that pops up, and and, you know, going back to the skateboard shop, skateboard shop example, often, these, you know, offbeat leaders, they they, you know, climb up, become the manager of, you know, that particular store, but they don’t own the store. Mhmm. They’re not the manager of, you know, there’s a manager above them per se, but they’re not necessarily there all the time or rarely there. You know? The the leader we’re talking to right now and, again, these these ladies that I have my mind are prime examples of this, where they’re overseeing their their store location their location, but, you know, their supervisor is not always there, and they’re having problems with communication, expectations not necessarily being met on both ends of the spectrum, you know, lack of trust that may be going on, and that kind of bleeds out into the rest of the team. And there’s people bypassing people and all these types of different situations.

Scott McCarthy [00:31:03]:
What’s your best advice to the leaders entered or listening to, you know, really grasp this?

Cassie Grant [00:31:08]:
To them. I mean, I’m

Scott McCarthy [00:31:09]:
a little down.

Cassie Grant [00:31:11]:
Yeah. I mean, I mostly work in tech, so it’s, but it’s a similar situation in terms of whenever you have I mean, what I would that’s a it could still be a fairly flat organization, but you still have, like, some the the the team and then you have, like, a little high a mid level hierarchy and then a higher, you know, that goes a further and further up the hierarchy. Right. So, I mean, that’s where I do like that metaphor of the skate shop or whatever kind of shop. So, yeah, I mean, as a manager of anything, you’re always going to have tensions with between whoever you’re leading and whoever, either, even if you’re the CEO, if you’ve got a board or something like this, or even, you know, whoever else you were accountable to, even if it’s just your, if you’re a founder, it might be more just accountable to yourself, but you’re still accountable to the people below you. Right. So, there’s always going to be this tension, this upline, downline tension. And it’s, it’s definitely challenging to be in that kind of, frontline role.

Cassie Grant [00:32:02]:
Right. I would call that like a lead of some, like a lead of, of, like I said, if it’s the manager of the shop or whatever, there’s still kind of a corporate structure above them. So the thing that I think is really important there is to, is to keep, cause I’ve, well, the problem that I’ve seen happen here, a couple, there’s a couple of things that I’ve seen happen here. A, again, like you said, they move up the ladder and they were previously peers and now they are, you know, managers and B, they are, sometimes they can get caught. I’ve seen this a lot. They can get caught up in, I would call it just like the complainer mode with the employees. It’s easy to get caught up in that because you’re not actually seeing the management above you as much as would be helpful so that you could actually understand the context or the, you know, more of the information of, of what’s being done above you. And so you still feel like you’re getting caught up and I don’t want to call it the drama necessarily, but it can be, you’re getting caught up in their reality while you need to be a conduit between their reality and this upper leadership reality.

Cassie Grant [00:33:11]:
Right? So really being able to ask the right questions when you are talking to your manager is so crucial in this. And, and then conveying those answers to your people and also nipping the complaining stuff in the bud. Like you don’t want people to feel like they can’t ever complain around you or they can’t ever, you know, commiserate. But at the end of the day, you are their boss. Like they shouldn’t be, you probably won’t don’t want to be Facebook friends with them, or you want to limit some of that more. You want to start having that boundary around. They need to feel like if they need to blow off steam and complain about you to their friends, they can, but but they also need to feel and that they can also bring legitimate concerns to you, but that you’re not gonna get sucked into kind of the cesspool of negativity if that’s the case. I mean, clearly you don’t want a culture like that anyway, but making sure that there’s there’s a a line of a line of communication that’s open, but there’s not this kind of, whirlpool of let’s let’s feed off of each other because you are that conduit.

Cassie Grant [00:34:09]:
So if you understand the context, you can give them that context more and help them understand it so that you’re not gonna get this kind of I call it like, I would call it a negative feedback loop, basically. And that can be really, really tricky. If you’re not getting what you need from above, it’s even trickier clearly, right, because you actually cannot, convey whatever information it is to them. So if you’re if you’re looking at people from a if you’re working with the people above you and you’ve say you’ve got, your direct supervisor is maybe a poor communicator, not good at giving you their expectations, not good at quantifying their expectations, that’s a whole other ballgame. And that, I mean, it gets, it really depends on the structure of the organization, but at times you’re going to have to have like a skip level and meet with their boss and not to complain about them necessarily, but to just understand a little bit more of that context that I was talking about to share with your people. Because at the end of the day, I always think of it as if you’re a leader, you are protecting your people. You gotta take care of your people. And so if you can’t figure out how to do that, you need to get the skills of the people above you to help you do that.

Cassie Grant [00:35:15]:
That. And sometimes that’s not necessarily gonna be your direct boss depending on their leadership limitations or personality, preferences and things like that. It can be really tricky and so you have to be, you have to be careful about that. But again, if you, if you feel like there’s too much of a divide between you and kind of this upper management area, that’s when you can start to see a lot of other problems start to rise. And it’s important to nip it in the bud when you can. I think that answers that question. I’m not really sure, though. It was a very long answer.

Scott McCarthy [00:35:46]:
Job. No. It was a great answer. And in fact, I love the part about being, you know, essentially taking care of your folks. I always say, you as the leader, you’re a reason for your team’s failures, and they’re the reason for your successes. And that’s essentially what that boils down to. Right? And and and to wrap everything up that you just talked about, from all the different levels of, you know, chain of command and all this stuff and supervision, communication. If we all just Definitely.

Scott McCarthy [00:36:14]:
Be adults and communicate properly, you know, life would be much, much better. And if you’re not getting what you need, you need to communicate, you know, upwards to your supervisor. You’re not getting what you need. And if, you know, people will blow you’re not bringing to you what you need, you need to communicate that and make sure that communication is constantly ever gone. Cass has been

Cassie Grant [00:36:35]:
a great

Scott McCarthy [00:36:36]:
conversation. Oh, go ahead. No. No.

Cassie Grant [00:36:38]:
That’s what I was gonna say. One one of the best ways to figure out because sometimes people don’t know what they’re not communicating, and they also don’t know what’s they don’t know how to articulate what they’re not getting. They’re just like, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, but they don’t know how to ask for the specifics of it. Right. And so this is where I actually really advocate for, well, of course, coaching helps clearly, but if you don’t have the resources to do that or the time or whatever, I do advocate for some self reflection and, and I do it. I actually say do it in journaling. Some people do it just through, recording themselves on voice notes, just talking things out. A lot of people don’t know what they think until they talk about it.

Cassie Grant [00:37:13]:
And so that can be a really valuable way to do that. The journaling also really helps too because it’s like if you are like, Oh, my boss isn’t giving me what I need, but then you have to go into like basically the five whys. Why do I think that they’re not getting what they need? What I need? Why do I, why? And then go from each why into what that really looks like, because that will give you a better, you’ll start asking better questions, right? As, as a kind of mid leader or whatever, you know, instead of saying you’re not communicating with us or let’s communicate better, you want to be going, what are the specific questions that are going to get me the information that I need? And of course that’s going to vary in all kinds of ways. But, I found for most of my clients, like just having like a self reflection practice where they sit down and really like journal through the issues that they’re having, it can help it can help bring up a lot of insights that you would not if you just sat there and ruminated on it and thought about it, you would never ever uncover them. Something

Scott McCarthy [00:38:09]:
there’s a lot

Cassie Grant [00:38:09]:
of science around the way that, our brains work with writing as well and it can help, untangle these things for us in a lot more tangible way. So I’m not saying you always have to just be like, dear diary, I’m so mad. You know, you could. But it’s thinking about, okay, I’m I feel like I’m not getting this and then really asking yourself those follow-up questions. What am I not getting? Why do I feel that way? What should I be getting instead? Getting really specific about that, and that’s gonna help you be a commit better communicator above and below you.

Scott McCarthy [00:38:41]:
Do you have anything else before I wrap this show up? Because that’s, like, mic drop moments right there.

Cassie Grant [00:38:47]:
I just wanted to throw that in there because I do think it’s really helpful for people.

Scott McCarthy [00:38:50]:
No. It’s fantastic because, again, I often say, if you’re not getting what you need, like, results wise, then you need to start with yourself.

Cassie Grant [00:39:00]:
Mhmm.

Scott McCarthy [00:39:00]:
Because 98% of the time, it’s something that you did or did not do as the leader that turned into, you know, that negative result that you never that you’ve received.

Cassie Grant [00:39:10]:
And the way you find that out

Scott McCarthy [00:39:11]:
you’re sworn in.

Cassie Grant [00:39:12]:
Yeah. Exactly. And the way you find out is asking the right questions. Mhmm.

Scott McCarthy [00:39:17]:
%. Awesome. Well, speaking of questions, I do have a couple less ones for you.

Cassie Grant [00:39:23]:
Yeah.

Scott McCarthy [00:39:24]:
The first last question I have for you is the question I ask all the guests here at the Peak Performance Leadership Podcast as according to you, Casa Grant, what makes a great leader?

Cassie Grant [00:39:35]:
Okay. That’s a great, that is a good question. I like that. I think what makes a great leader is someone who is willing to show up as the kind of leader that they’d want to follow. I mean, I talked about this earlier that that empathy, that understanding and that willingness to do the hard stuff so that they can protect their people.

Scott McCarthy [00:40:00]:
Yeah. Definitely definitely agree with that. And follow-up question of the podcast is always, how can people find you? How can they follow you? Shameless plugs are lads all but you right now. How about it?

Cassie Grant [00:40:11]:
Yes. Well, my name is Casa Grant and so it’s, it’s a weird name. It’s after a road in Wyoming. So it’s spelled C A S S A. It’s like House in Spanish with two s’s so they can find me at casagrant.com. That’s my website. I also hang out on LinkedIn and Instagram. LinkedIn, like I’m getting more active on Instagram too actually, but, most active on LinkedIn.

Cassie Grant [00:40:31]:
I love LinkedIn. I’m on there a lot. So, I’d love to connect with people if they, hear the show and they’d like to connect. I also, like I said, just was a part of this book called Activate Your Life three and, it’s full of coaching exercises. It’s for it’s geared for coaches, but anybody can do them. So, if you’re interested in self development and you don’t necessarily have a budget to get a coach or to do that kind of thing, you can definitely do these things on your own. So I definitely, I recommend the whole series. There’s three of them always in the third book, but, the activate your life series or, you know, Kindle ebooks or you can get the physical copy.

Cassie Grant [00:41:04]:
So I definitely, recommend those. And, yeah, I mean, reach out. Let me know how you’re doing. Hop on my email list and, I call it the world of rad awesome, basically, like being rad and awesome. That’s what we’re going for. So you can definitely join me there.

Scott McCarthy [00:41:23]:
Awesome. Love it. And for the listeners always, it’s easy. Just go to movingforwardleadership.com/20two. 2 0 two. And the links are in the show notes. Scott, again, thanks for coming out. Thanks for being on the show.

Scott McCarthy [00:41:36]:
And, yeah, it was a great time.

Cassie Grant [00:41:38]:
Yeah. Likewise. Thank you so much, Scott. I appreciate it.

Scott McCarthy [00:41:48]:
And that’s a wrap for this episode, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting the Peak Performance Leadership Podcast. But you know what you could do to truly support the podcast and know that’s not leaving a rating and review. It’s simply helping a friend. And that is helping a friend by sharing this episode with them if you think this would resonate with them and help them elevate their performance level, whether that’s within themselves, their teams, or their organization. So do that. Help me help a friend win win all around and hey, you look like a great friend at the same time.

Scott McCarthy [00:42:26]:
So just hit that little share button on your app and then feel free to fire this episode to anyone that you feel would benefit from it. Finally, there’s always more. There’s always more lessons around being the highest performing leader that you can possibly be, whether that’s for yourself, your team, or your organization. So why don’t you subscribe? Subscribe to the show of the movingforwardleadership.com forward / subscribe. Until next time, lead, don’t boss, and thanks for coming out. Take care now.