Do Sweat the Small Stuff: How Our Small Interactions Have Big Impact with Sarah Langslow
Sarah Langslow - Author of Do Sweat the Small Stuff, Executive Coach and Leadership Development Expert
Sarah integrates leadership lessons from a sporting career as a rower, a 15-year corporate career across management consulting and finance, and experience as a successful entrepreneur. Sarah has an MA and an MBA from the University of Cambridge.
A few years back, a best selling book appeared about why we shouldn’t worry about the little things in life: Don’t Sweat the small stuff. And it's a tempting premise: as leaders we often focus on the macro.
Our guest today poses the question: what if some small stuff is worth sweating? What if sometimes it's the micro-interactions that can lead to maximum impact in how we build relationships, foster trust, and deepen connections at work and beyond?
In this conversation we are speaking with Sarah Langslow, executive coach, leadership development specialist and author of the brilliant new book, “Do Sweat the Small Stuff: Harnessing the power of micro-interactions to transform your leadership”
We get granular on the often unrecognized power of micro interactions to impact our relationships,our leadership and the culture we create. We explore what it means to practice self awareness and congruence, and how we can ensure we truly and consistently align our intentions with our impacts.
Learn more about Sarah Langslow and find her new book here:
Find our more about Sarah, her books and podcast here.
Connect with Sarah Langslow on LinkedIn.
Get your copy of her book Do Sweat the Small Stuff: Harness the power of micro-interactions to transform your leadership here.
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Alexis Zahner: Welcome to We Are Human Leaders, Sarah. We're so delighted to have you here with us today. And we'd love to begin conversation by getting to know you a little bit more and the journey that has brought you to this very important work that you are doing now.
[00:00:25] Sarah Langslow: It's, it's lovely to be here. First of all, um, yeah, I was thinking about how to answer this question because I think it's, it's, it's often, I think, for many of us, our journeys aren't fully straightforward. There isn't an obvious answer. You know, I left university. I went into consulting. It was a very generalist career. Um, five years into that, I decided I'd sort of gone down a direction. I wasn't sure I wanted to go down, did an MBA, used that to switch career, went into finance in 2008. Not, not something I would recommend, by the way. Equally then discovered that wasn't for me either. So I, I felt a lot of my early career sort of bounced around, but when I look back at it, it was still hugely important learning and actually the foundations of what I did, what I do now, although I didn't realize it at the time. So it was in that job in finance where I actually first encountered coaching, um, because I was unhappy. I'd really, I'd felt like I'd made a bad choice. I wanted to get back out of it, but was really struggling too. And a friend said those immortal words to me, have you ever thought of working with a coach? that was really that moment 12 years ago now that sort of kicked everything off introduced me to the world of coaching. Um, I sort of discovered the possibility of it and what it could do and it was a medium and a type of work that I'd never encountered before that. Um, I didn't quite go into it yet.
[00:01:55] Sarah Langslow: I worked with a coach successfully to then go back into consulting and was much happier, but still didn't feel like it was for me. I didn't see myself in that career forever. Something she said to me while we were working together was that she thought I'd make a good coach you know, those things that just sort of sit in your mind and won't leave you alone. So another three years later, I kind of, when I'd realized that, consulting still wasn't quite right for me. I came back to her and said, well, did you mean that? And can you actually make a career doing this? Like, what does it look like? What does it actually mean to do this, um, as, as something you do full time? And that kicked off really the journey I'm on now. So that was eight years ago. I retrained, took the plunge, went for it. And I've, I've had my own business ever since with leaders. Um, you know, it's coaching at its heart is so simple. It's, it's. Asking questions, challenging, reflecting, um, helping people uncover things, see themselves and see the world differently.
[00:03:01] Sarah Langslow: And through that, develop themselves as leaders and, um, and, and really become more effective. And I, I love that work. So that, that's, I guess, the thread of career wise, but the other big piece of that is how I find myself now with a book. been published. Um, that's, that, that is also one of those slightly accidental stories where, again, I'd sort of, I was always tempted and I always had a lot of admiration for authors.
[00:03:35] Sarah Langslow: I never really, I think for a long time I didn't believe I could, it was such a massive undertaking to write a book. Um, and I'd always related to myself as someone who didn't really stick at big projects. I was good at the sort of day to day, week to week, month to month, but something that would require me on my own largely to work at something for a long period of time, I never thought I was capable of. But I, it was a sort of itch I wanted to scratch. was also clear. I didn't want to write a book just for the sake of writing a book. I wanted to wait until I felt like I had something to say and something I, was worthy of that time and effort to put, put something out in the world. Um, and so yeah, I guess it was six years or so into my coaching when threads came together and the idea for the book was born and two and a half years later, it's out there and on the shelves, which is. Still slightly surprises me, I won't lie.
[00:04:32] Alexis Zahner: it's an amazing read. We absolutely loved it.
[00:04:35] Sally Clarke: Yeah, I'm
[00:04:36] Sarah Langslow: you. I'm really glad you enjoyed it.
[00:04:37] Sally Clarke: really excited to delve into it with you, um, Sarah, and I really love that you've also elucidated what we hear a lot on we are human leaders from people, and it really resonates with our own experience to have sort of our careers, sometimes feeling a bit disparate and perhaps some steps at the time that you kind of like.
[00:04:56] Sally Clarke: This doesn't feel like a normal linear trajectory. And then the beauty of hindsight at one point, eventually being able to look back and go, it's only by virtue of all of these different things that I'm actually where I am now. And I have the things to say that I do. Um, so thank you. I think for, I think it also gives a little bit of courage for those who are perhaps, you know, Having those kind of questions come up for themselves too, that it really is something that just trusting that intuition, trusting the next step, that it will ultimately all come together.
[00:05:24] Alexis Zahner: Yeah,
[00:05:25] Sally Clarke: Now your, uh,
[00:05:29] Sarah Langslow: say on that, I think it's this perception that there is somehow a normal career.
[00:05:32] Sally Clarke: yeah. No,
[00:05:36] Sarah Langslow: everyone's, everyone makes the best decisions they can at the time.
[00:05:42] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:05:43] Sarah Langslow: I just don't think there's any such thing as a normal career in that sense.
[00:05:46] Sally Clarke: and we're seeing also the shift from kind of, you know, historically where people might stay with a company for 40 years and get a gold watch to where people are actually pivoting for, I think they're estimating up to sort of 10 or 11 times during their, um, you know, time they're working life. So it is something where I think we, we perhaps have this still archaic idea that it's wrong to be changing when in fact it's entirely normal and it's often quite healthy to be making those shifts.
[00:06:12] Sarah Langslow: Very much so.
[00:06:12] Sally Clarke: Yeah. So your book do sweat the small stuff, harnessing the power of micro interactions to transform your leadership, which is amazing title. And it is a bit of a reference to a classic that, um, some of our listeners may know, uh, don't sweat the small stuff by Richard Carlson.
[00:06:30] Alexis Zahner: Hmm.
[00:06:30] Sally Clarke: And you mentioned in the introduction, you're not arguing against the premise of his book.
[00:06:36] Sally Clarke: I'd love to hear a little bit about how that title came about and how your message is different. I love it. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Uh, Uh. Uh.
[00:06:52] Sarah Langslow: meant to sweat this stuff. Like, why?
[00:06:54] Alexis Zahner: I, I had exactly that reaction. Sorry. I saw it. I was like, no, don't tell me. Cause I'm, I'm
[00:06:59] Sarah Langslow: I get it wrong all the time.
[00:07:03] Alexis Zahner: Loved
[00:07:03] Sarah Langslow: and as I say, it's, I do, to what the title might suggest, I do still hold the concepts that he talks about in his book, because I think me, the message I really took from his book is that It's about not over overreacting, not stressing, not, um, excessively worrying about the frustrations we have in life.
[00:07:28] Alexis Zahner: Mmm. Mmm.
[00:07:29] Sarah Langslow: you know, it can be so easy to let those tiny moments get to us in a way that we judge ourselves. We stress about them. We worry about them and they color everything else. You know, how many of us can think of a mistake we made 10, 15 years ago that still the memory makes us cringe. Right.
[00:07:49] Alexis Zahner: yeah, yeah,
[00:07:50] Sarah Langslow: That's, that's his message is like, don't like, how does that help you?
[00:07:53] Sarah Langslow: That offers nothing. And I very much still agree with that. Um, the difference for me is I'm talking about different small stuff. So the small stuff I'm talking about is the nuances of the way we speak, the way we listen, our habits, our behaviors, our, what we prioritize, how we make decisions, all of those little tiny things that add up every day to. our relationships, to our culture, to the way we work with other people. I don't believe that life and work actually is predominantly about the big moment, the important conversations, the big presentations, or,
[00:08:34] Alexis Zahner: yeah.
[00:08:34] Sarah Langslow: know, if you took it into a relationship sense, even outside work, you know, marriages or, you know, civil partnership is not about the wedding day. Don't get me wrong, it's lovely, but it's not about that. about the day to day, the micro, the little moments that we have. And I think it's very easy for us to. Go through life on autopilot a lot of the time, not really thinking about those.
[00:08:58] Alexis Zahner: Mm.
[00:09:01] Sarah Langslow: I mean, sweat it in terms of work at them. know, the, I'm, you know, I'm, I also have an app, a background as an athlete. So the idea of sweating stuff and working at stuff and practicing stuff and training ourselves and and developing a skill, that's the kind of sweating I'm interested in. Not the stressing. That's not helpful to anybody.
[00:09:22] Alexis Zahner: I love that discernment Sarah, because what I'm hearing is it's, What I, what I took away from your book was pay attention to the meaningful things and continue to throw away the unimportant ones. You know, if it doesn't matter in five years or in, or in a few weeks, even don't bother with it. But, you know, from personal experience, it's the, it's those little moments that we get, whether it's with loved ones, or it's that little moment with a colleague or a team member or a boss where they've, You know, just showed a genuine appreciation for something we've done, or it's such a, it can be such a seemingly small thing.
[00:09:55] Alexis Zahner: And I want to just get a little more granular on this terminology. Cause the, the term you use in the book is micro interactions. Can you help us unpack this a bit? What are micro interactions? Um, and can you give us some more examples, um, of what they are and, um, how we can do them well, and then also not so well.
[00:10:13] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:10:15] Sarah Langslow: it's, it's important to balance the two because it's often easy to point out when we don't do them well. So to look, you know, and I do want this whole book to come across as this is an opportunity. This isn't about seeking out your problems. This is about how do you harness them, you know, for your power. So. What I term as micro interactions is they are the moments of connection that we have with humans every day, and they occur in their hundreds. if you think through a typical day for you, whatever that is, whether, you know, whether you're going into work in the office or you're working at home, whatever it is, you will still be interacting. Perhaps you are. smiling at the barista when they make you a coffee in the morning or acknowledging somebody on the street as you're out for a walk. Um, it could be saying hello to people, the security guard or your boss as you come in. Um, it's how you might open your first meeting of the day, whether that's in person or online, is there chit chat or not? Are you smiling or looking like? You know, you want to kill somebody, kind of thing. Yeah, see you somewhere else. Exactly. Um, it's, you know, it's, it's maybe the moments of chat you have with friends, the texts you might send or the WhatsApps you know, bothering to share. I have a friend who I just share Reels with.
[00:11:32] Sarah Langslow: That's our entire friendship. I think lots of
[00:11:34] Sally Clarke: Love it.
[00:11:34] Sarah Langslow: But the fact that we're thinking each other, that's a little micro interaction. all of those tiny little moments that each one by themselves, feels kind of insignificant. You know, does it matter if I'm thinking of my friend or I'm, or my boss smiles at me that day?
[00:11:50] Sarah Langslow: Maybe not.
[00:11:51] Alexis Zahner: mm-Hmm?
[00:11:52] Sarah Langslow: But when you add them up over time, and when you think about them in a bigger sense, all of those little moments make up our relationships. They are the vast majority of, of, you know, What is actually the foundation of those relationships? And so if we're not thinking about them, if we're not putting effort or intention or thought into how we interact with others, there's a risk that they're actually not enhancing and building and growing and strengthening the relationship that they might be doing something else. Eating away at it and damaging it or just certainly not improving things or leading to a more effective relationship with those we work with. Um, so, you know, you can contrast it. I used to an example of the sort of the good or the less good. I had a boss who, um, years ago, who you, you kind of knew the kind of day you were going to have when you walked into the office.
[00:12:48] Sally Clarke: Ouch. Uh,
[00:12:50] Sarah Langslow: he would walk in, he was breezy, you'd get a hello, you'd get a smile, he was kind of calm and, you know, patient, you would, if you went and asked him a question, you'd, he'd give you time, he'd listen, or he'd, you know, say actually not right now, but let's talk a little later, he'd be helpful, he'd kind of be, maybe be coaching you, supporting you, you'd have a good day, and actually so would everybody in the office when he came in like that. And then there were the days When you just knew the moment you saw him that it's going to be such a good day, his face was, you know, it was written all over his face that he wasn't in a great mood. He would just march straight through everybody into his office. Not exactly slam the door, but it would certainly be shut with, you know, with some force. knew not to bother him. You knew, you know, that was a kind of no go area. If you could avoid talking to him, you would.
[00:13:41] Alexis Zahner: Mm.
[00:13:42] Sarah Langslow: And in the middle of the day he used to have this habit where he would send you an email and about 30 seconds later march over, stand behind your desk and be like, what do you think? You'd be like, Whoa, it's that important, don't email me is the first thing. And second, I hadn't even seen it, but then he would be literally standing over you. As you read the email, putting you under pressure to a response, come up with what you say, right. Which is just not helpful, absolutely not helpful in any sense. Didn't get the best out of me, certainly didn't get my best thinking with him doing that. Didn't get, you know, it was just a how do I get him out of here as fast as possible.
[00:14:19] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:14:20] Sarah Langslow: And, you know, so those are examples of kind of the good and the bad. But also taken as a whole, the fact that he was that unpredictable was really unhelpful.
[00:14:29] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:14:29] Sarah Langslow: Because there is also the consistency over time, the, you know, the willingness to work at it and if you have somebody, you know, in a way, the good days weren't particularly good days because you never knew if they were going to turn into a bad day or the next day was going to be bad. So
[00:14:45] Alexis Zahner: Mm-Hmm
[00:14:46] Sarah Langslow: that and so that's what I mean.
[00:14:47] Sarah Langslow: Those was each was any of those single moments terminal for that relationship or ultimately me working that job? No. We can all cope with it, but consistently over time, it
[00:15:01] Sally Clarke: It's such an important point, Sarah, because I think it's one of those things when we get asked, you know, how do I build trust in the workplace? How do I get people to respect me? Um, and it's really about, you can't just flick a switch on this. It really is about that consistency. And I think, you know, I also appreciate that you highlighted when someone is that volatile.
[00:15:19] Sally Clarke: And I, you know, I grew up in an environment where we're constantly on eggshells and that level of just not knowing what you're going to get in itself is, is quite, um, unpleasant and harmful to a relationship. So I think, you know, it sounds like there's. A lot that we can do when we start to bring real awareness to these micro interactions, not taking them for granted.
[00:15:40] Sally Clarke: And I'm curious, you've started to sort of, um, elucidate what impact they can have on our teams in workplaces. Can you sort of share a little bit more, what kind of outcomes we can see when leaders really do start to consciously focus on their micro interactions?
[00:15:57] Sarah Langslow: Yeah. So I think there's, there's three, three big areas that I talk about. So one is this one I keep coming back to, which is relationships
[00:16:05] Alexis Zahner: Mm.
[00:16:07] Sarah Langslow: the. The sort of genesis for the book actually originally was almost more themed around engagement, because I started thinking about this at a time when we were seeing the Great Resignation.
[00:16:17] Sarah Langslow: We were seeing people walking away from their jobs after during and after COVID, where employee engagement was Just somewhere around the floor, people were just feeling disengaged. And I've always been a believer in that. And actually it is backed by research, the saying that people don't leave jobs, they leave managers. And so if you don't have that effective relationship there. You it's not only about the engagement and potentially productivity and everything else that that you get out of someone while they're working with you, but it's about retention,
[00:16:49] Alexis Zahner: Mm.
[00:16:50] Sarah Langslow: it's of replacing
[00:16:51] Sally Clarke: Yeah.
[00:16:52] Sarah Langslow: people in the end don't stick around for that.
[00:16:54] Sarah Langslow: You know what we were saying earlier people move around much more in their careers now. So if you're not building effective relationships where where people feel seen and heard and understood, they feel engaged. They feel trusted and they feel valued in their workplace. And that's what. Micro interactions done well can absolutely do because it's not about being perfect.
[00:17:15] Sarah Langslow: It's not about every single moment having to be done right, whatever that even means.
[00:17:20] Sally Clarke: Mm.
[00:17:20] Sarah Langslow: But if you're making the effort and you're thinking about it and you, you're aware of your impact and you apologize when you get it wrong or you mess up, um, Those micro interactions can really build strong, powerful, effective relationships, your team want to show up for you because you're showing up for them.
[00:17:40] Sally Clarke: Mm. Mm.
[00:17:42] Sarah Langslow: is a really cool one. I think a related, a very much related area is culture, which is, know, I, there are so many different definitions of culture, but I, I've always been a fan of the way we do things around here. And so when you can break that down, that is your interactions, and not just between a leader and their team, but between teams, between individuals.
[00:18:07] Sarah Langslow: It's what, um, what's accepted and where's the line,
[00:18:13] Sally Clarke: Mm.
[00:18:14] Alexis Zahner: Mm.
[00:18:15] Sarah Langslow: oh, do people put their effort, the effort into building a, a positive culture, one where we actually enjoy coming to work and one which is effective, one which is psychologically safe. Right? Psychological safety comes hugely down to micro interactions.
[00:18:31] Sally Clarke: Mm.
[00:18:31] Sarah Langslow: How do we respond when somebody makes a mistake?
[00:18:35] Alexis Zahner: Mm.
[00:18:35] Sarah Langslow: we say that we won't punish them, but then actually somewhere down the line we actually do because we withhold opportunities or whatever it might be?
[00:18:44] Alexis Zahner: Mm.
[00:18:44] Sarah Langslow: do we encourage people? Do we, of those things come back to psychology. So that's, you know, culture is, you know, Rooted in our micro interactions and also just our experience of work. spend so much of our life at work, so many hours a day, a week. And, you know, you add it up over the years. I think, um, I don't have to start in front of me. I think it's over 90, 000 hours. We spent like it's huge amounts of time. So let's make it be somewhere we enjoy.
[00:19:11] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:19:11] Sarah Langslow: I don't want to just endure my working life, like where's the fun in that?
[00:19:15] Sarah Langslow: And that's both for me or the, you know, whoever's speaking as a leader, but also for everyone around us. We have the opportunity to make a huge difference to that through tiny changes in the way we interact with those people around us. And I really think that effort is I think it really pays dividends, not only in do we get the best out of our team, but just sad days are much more enjoyable.
[00:19:42] Sarah Langslow: Yeah,
[00:19:46] Alexis Zahner: you will not get an argument out of Sally and I on that point, Sarah. And one thing I did write down as a note out of your point on culture was that you had a quote in there that says, put that said positive workplace cultures are generative. Can you help me understand how micro interactions perhaps feed into this a little bit?
[00:20:05] Sarah Langslow: it's, it's a sort of, it's a, it's like, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Um, they create sort of an upward spiral,
[00:20:15] Alexis Zahner: Hmm.
[00:20:16] Sally Clarke: Mm.
[00:20:17] Sarah Langslow: So, You get, you know, someone is, takes that little bit of extra time, um, is thoughtful in the way that they speak to someone or
[00:20:29] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:20:29] Sarah Langslow: bothers to ask about how they're doing or how they prefer to do something.
[00:20:34] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:20:35] Sarah Langslow: a little, just that little, it's like a little warm fuzzy feeling in a way
[00:20:39] Alexis Zahner: A
[00:20:39] Sarah Langslow: inside, right? A little ripple, exactly. That's a great metaphor for it. And That in turn is more likely that it's sort of passed on because it leaves them feeling good and feeling more positive. Um, and it's, it's both in how they then might communicate with the next person that they might go, actually, do you know what? Oh, okay. Yeah. I can make that effort too. Because when we're, you know, as leaders, we're modeling a behavior in a culture that we want to see.
[00:21:07] Sally Clarke: Mm.
[00:21:08] Sarah Langslow: that ripples outwards because we, Whether we do it consciously or subconsciously, we look to particularly those in positions of power and authority for how to behave. And so if we're modeling that kind of behavior, we're making the effort, others start to make it too. And so it ripples both within the organization, but it's also, it ultimately ripples out to the reputation, to how people talk about their work. You know, we go for drinks with friends. How do we describe our workplaces?
[00:21:39] Sarah Langslow: That is a big part of reputation, which, so it becomes generative in all sorts of different ways, not only internally, but externally as well.
[00:21:47] Sally Clarke: I just want to briefly zoom in a little bit on the micro interaction as well, um, Sarah, because you highlighted, I think something that's really important that it often takes a little bit of extra time. And I've been doing some research in workplace loneliness recently, and this is a big part of combating loneliness is taking that little bit of extra time to connect genuinely.
[00:22:06] Sally Clarke: And it's also, I think there's a component of a little bit of courage sometimes because it's so normal to kind of. Keep walking past that person in the hall or not ask that question before the zoom meeting starts and keep looking at our phones, whatever it is, that's quite normalized. But I think there's sort of that, um, some fairly important leadership capabilities that we have to bring when we're starting to be more mindful about our micro interactions.
[00:22:29] Sally Clarke: Is that the case?
[00:22:31] Sarah Langslow: Yeah. And it's, it can be a very, it's a message that doesn't always go down well, because when you ask leaders to try and find more time, there is often a response, but where from? I'm already busy. I'm already flat out. And so the way I look at it is it has to be about a slight reprioritization.
[00:22:54] Alexis Zahner: Mm.
[00:22:54] Sarah Langslow: Um, and that, so when I, you know, slow, what slowing down does is it shifts the part of, The brain that we're working from, um, I think many, I'm guessing many of your listeners will be familiar.
[00:23:08] Sarah Langslow: The idea, you know, called different things and different, um, methodologies. Daniel Kahneman talks about the system. One system to thinking are slow and are fast thinking we, we have to get into that slower thinking because that the fast part of the brain, the automatic part will just continue with our habits. will, you know, to your example of walking past someone even in the corridor, we won't even think to stop and say it's not that we have a conscious thought and go, Oh, should I, we just, we go, we're on to the next thing. Our brains thinking about what we're doing next. The meeting. We've got to get to the email.
[00:23:43] Sarah Langslow: We've got to send the report or the paper. That's it. Whatever, like, whatever your role is. And so. The first step, the slowing down gives us a chance to notice it's a, a fractional thing. It's not huge, but it's us making the decision is where it comes from the decision to do it. The decision to dial up our attention.
[00:24:08] Sarah Langslow: If you like, you know, if you think about it. I always think about like Geiger counters, you know, the dial up the sensitivity until they're right up crackling and so every little thing we hear and we notice. And for a while that can become a bit overwhelming. So it's not about doing everything at once and trying to be perfect and trying to do everything.
[00:24:24] Sarah Langslow: But if we're dialing up our noticing, then at least that first step is we notice the person in the corridor. We go, Oh, okay. Maybe I could, or, and maybe we don't realize until we're five yards past and go, Oh, right. Okay. Opportunity missed. But we start to think about those things and say, you know, actually next time I'm just going to smile and say, hello, maybe that's, that's it. That's literally it.
[00:24:48] Sally Clarke: Love it.
[00:24:51] Sarah Langslow: I think I've slightly lost track of your question. I'm just
[00:24:53] Sally Clarke: It wasn't really a question if I'm honest, it's more, I think that's just really important to highlight that it's that kind of. And I love that you mentioned, you know, the slow and fast thinking as well, and almost shifting gears because we are so programmed to some extent to just keep shifting, to be focusing on the next thing, you know, busy minds.
[00:25:12] Sally Clarke: And I think it really, that kind of, you know, hitting pause and holding space for that interaction, even if we miss it the first couple of times, but it can really, really transform, I think, obviously those moments themselves, but really who we are as an individual to our own sort of self leadership as well.
[00:25:31] Sarah Langslow: think the irony. Is with all of the busyness is it the busyness begets more busyness because like I work with so many clients so many leaders who are sort of overwhelmed by their to do lists.
[00:25:44] Alexis Zahner: Yep.
[00:25:45] Sarah Langslow: I said, well, why are you doing some of this stuff? Why is this on your list? Oh, well it's faster, it's just easier if I do it. Oh, well I'd have to take time to explain that to someone. Oh, well they don't have the capability to do that, or the skill. Or, oh, they're not experienced enough. Well, they're never going to be. Unless you take the time. sure, it might feel slower in the short term.
[00:26:10] Sarah Langslow: It might be wildly frustrating that you have to sit next to somebody and coach them through something and walk them through it and they won't do it right or won't do it as well as you the first time or the second time or even the 15th time. But unless you slow down and take that time, it will always be on your to do list. And that, you know, that again, it comes down to the micro interactions, the slowing down the realizing that, you know, you don't have to do all of this stuff. the only route to you not doing this is taking the time to develop your people to develop your team. And that's through all those little interactions.
[00:26:49] Sarah Langslow: And the beauty of those is it doesn't only build those skills. It. It's, it's opportunity. It's, um, it's time with you. It's, that is building trust that, you know, building trust that you see their potential. It's, um, building engagement because you're challenging them and giving them new opportunities or stretching, giving them, you know, stretch assignments. It's, you're learning about them. You're understanding their strengths and weaknesses and helping them build skills. And
[00:27:21] Alexis Zahner: Yep.
[00:27:21] Sarah Langslow: all of that strengthens relationships. But you've got to be spending time with your people to do that. If you're sitting over here, just doing tasks,
[00:27:31] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:27:31] Sarah Langslow: not doing that. Or just, you know, loving tasks out that, you know, other people can do via, you know, via Teams or Slack, or, you know,
[00:27:38] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:27:38] Sarah Langslow: that's not relationship.
[00:27:40] Sarah Langslow: That's not building. It's actually not leadership. It's, it's really where I think that line between managing and leading often sits is. The difference is the people, the relationship in the middle of it.
[00:27:54] Alexis Zahner: love that, Sarah. And, you know, you've kind of mentioned all these outcomes that many people who want to switch from being a manager to being a leader want to see, you know, they want to have their staff feeling empowered. They want to have people take initiative and take ownership. And as a, Person who's led people many times in the team here, I'll be the first to raise my head and say, sometimes we just get in our own way and we don't know how to get out of our way. Um, but one of the things that your book does so beautifully is helps us understand what you've called the four foundational pillars for creating this, this mindset, the right mindset for a leader. Um, and I think we've kind of dug into the first one here a little bit, but the four are self awareness.
[00:28:32] Alexis Zahner: Clarity of intention, your toolbox and congruence. you briefly unpack each of us, uh, each of these for us? And I'd love to, if we could just take a little bit extra time to dive into the congruence component, please.
[00:28:48] Sarah Langslow: Sure. Yeah. So as you say, I think we've, we've probably talked quite a bit about the first one. So it's the idea of that self awareness is kind of learning to hold a mirror up to ourselves and then actually look at it. Because sometimes we don't always like what we see at first. And there is definitely a skill to doing it in a way that is just from curiosity, just from it's interesting that I do that rather than why do I do that?
[00:29:13] Sarah Langslow: That's. That's ridiculous. That's stupid, whatever. So this is doing it without judgment. This is purely to try and learn more about ourselves. So as we say, self awareness is, is the foundation for noticing these opportunities, um, of even seeing where the possibilities might be. Clarity of intention is then the sort of, I see it as the beginnings of the foundation to taking action. Because if we. Try and deal with every single micro interaction on an individual level. It's going to be overwhelming. If I have to, for every single time I have a conversation with one of my team, I have to go through a whole thought process of, well, how about, how might I say this and what would I, right?
[00:30:01] Sarah Langslow: If we have to do that everywhere, all the time, yeah, we're not going to get anything done. It's there's a level of almost from the amount of thinking we'll have
[00:30:10] Sally Clarke: Mm. Mm. Mm, mm. Mm, mm, mm. Mm.
[00:30:24] Sarah Langslow: perceive the world, how we want to be perceived, there's lots of different elements to that, and the book takes you through some ways to develop that, but to really Develop that idea of who do I want to be as a leader? And then in each moment simply becomes, am I aligned with that? How closely am I aligned with that? Or how could I behave that would be aligned with that? What are my options? So it simplifies the kind of thought process and also the reflection process, because you're not trying to establish what's right or wrong. We're simply looking at how aligned with it, with who I want to be. The toolbox, and it's a common analogy, but I, um, just to be clear on what I mean by that is we all have, uh, there are, we know there are lots of different ways of speaking and being and listening and behaving with people. And all of us will have our kind of favorite ways will have our habitual ways.
[00:31:26] Sarah Langslow: If you like, we might not even think of them as favorite, but, you know, I'm naturally quite talkative when I get excited. I tend to interrupt sometimes because I'm like, Oh, I have something to say. I, you know, I, there are, I can be quite verbose talk quite a lot. probably lean towards longer sentences. So I have my habitual ways of being. I use humor a lot. That's fine. That works for some people in some situations. for other people in other situations, it doesn't. So I need to build the skills with different tools, different ways of being, to understand where I might need to slow down. Or more simply or the humor because frankly it's inappropriate or whatever it might be, but to be able to communicate and be with people in a slightly different way, because that's what the person or the situation demands. So, when I talk about building our toolbox, it's building that facility with different tools, different ways of being. Rather than, you know, the tool, we've probably again heard the term, if, if all you have is, if all you have is a hammer, all you see is nails. So if you only have one way of being, that's the way you show up everywhere.
[00:32:44] Sarah Langslow: And, you know, it will work at some occasions and not in others. But if we've got that skill to say, well, actually, this doesn't need a hammer, this needs a screwdriver or a saw or a tape measure or whatever, and then the skill and the confidence to use that. It may never feel as comfortable because it's not our habitual way.
[00:33:05] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:33:05] Sarah Langslow: there may always be an element of extra effort required or extra thought, or just a sort of, Oh, this doesn't feel very natural. But again, practice over time, it will get better. And it will make a huge difference to that person in that moment, we're able to use that different tool. So that's the toolbox.
[00:33:23] Sarah Langslow: So those are the first three. So is a really interesting one. It's, um, um, I talk about it in several different layers. So in one sense, congruence is about the alignment between what we say and what we do and how we act and what we prioritize.
[00:33:43] Alexis Zahner: Mm
[00:33:44] Sarah Langslow: So,
[00:33:45] Alexis Zahner: Mm.
[00:33:49] Sarah Langslow: be familiar to many of your listeners, is the boss who says, no, no, it's fine.
[00:33:54] Sarah Langslow: You are on holiday. Take your holiday. That's all good. I don't want you to, I don't want you to feel like you have to answer emails and work. But then A, they take their laptop every time, you know, they're sitting there on the beach writing emails. And B, they still send you emails without really being clear that it's, they don't expect a response until after you're back.
[00:34:14] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:34:14] Sarah Langslow: And so you take this, well, they're saying I don't have to.
[00:34:18] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:34:19] Sarah Langslow: Their actions maybe I do and in that position, particularly given there is a power differential, there is somebody in authority
[00:34:29] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:34:30] Sarah Langslow: incongruent. The safe option will always be to sort of assume that actually I do have to answer emails.
[00:34:37] Sarah Langslow: Actually, I can't really take my holiday. I do need to check. There is that expectation so that that's 1 level of congruence is the between sort of actions and actions and behaviors and what we say. Another layer of congruence is, as we've talked a little bit over time, so it's really more like consistency over time. say you know, again, I've, I've certainly worked with bosses. I think many people probably have where the goalposts move. Well, as long as you just do this, okay, here's your title. Well, no, actually you were meant to do that. Well, what do you mean? And also, If we're working on some of these things, if we're, you know, the example of my boss earlier, what mood is he in today?
[00:35:19] Sarah Langslow: You know, that's another inconsistency. Or even just, if you make an effort on some of these skills and you say, well, I'm really going to work on my listening and slowing down and you manage it for two or three weeks and people are like, Oh, that's great. Okay, is this starting to change? And then you flip right back again because you have a bad week and suddenly you have no time for anybody. So it's the consistency matters when we're under pressure. We can all do this stuff when life is easy and everything is smooth and there are no crises. But figuring out how we can do this.
[00:35:49] Alexis Zahner: that people
[00:35:50] Sarah Langslow: we are under pressure and there is a crisis or something has gone wrong or big mistakes been made or whatever it is we have to be consistent in those moments too that people can trust us. That's, that's actually a big part of what builds trust. The final layer for me of congruence is with identity and this is a It's a really, it's a really interesting area because there's a huge amount of literature on authentic leadership and how when we're being true to ourselves, that's when we're most effective.
[00:36:21] Sarah Langslow: And I do generally hold with that, that, you know, I, and I've certainly felt the pressure in roles before of conforming to a particular, you know, of being aware of behaving, you know, I worked in consulting. I worked a lot in oil and gas. It was very male dominated sectors, and very masculine in that sense, or what we might term masculine, quite aggressive, quite competitive.
[00:36:45] Alexis Zahner: hmm. Mm hmm.
[00:36:49] Sarah Langslow: me. And it certainly wasn't, I think with hindsight, certainly what got the best out of me. But I felt a pressure to conform to that because it was like, well, if I want to be promoted, if I want to be successful, I have to kind of be like that. So I think where we can, if we can find a congruence to we actually are, what's important to us, the leader, the identity we want to inhabit,
[00:37:13] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:37:14] Sarah Langslow: the type of leadership we want to model, the closer we can be to that, the more effective we will be.
[00:37:21] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:37:23] Sarah Langslow: you know, as white, cisgender, middle class woman, it's relatively easy for me to say that is not true for everybody. It's so it's, I say that with great care because, just be yourself. It's fine. You know, it's easy. Why do you mean you can't be yourself? It's not that simple. But if we can find organizations, workplaces and also find in ourselves the confidence to express more of ourselves and to,
[00:37:51] Alexis Zahner: Yep.
[00:37:51] Sarah Langslow: Challenge the norms, challenge the pressure to conform.
[00:37:54] Sarah Langslow: I think we become more effective and that's often through our micro interactions and how we work with others and our behaviors and our habits are speaking and listening and so on. I think congruence has lots of different layers, but when we're thinking about when we think about this in the whole. We need to be cognizant of all of those. They're not all easy to do, but an awareness of them is really important.
[00:38:21] Alexis Zahner: Yeah. Agreed, Sarah. And I appreciate this, that final one you touched on that, the, the congruence of our own identity, if you will. And similarly, I had an experience like yours where, um, you know, having worked in very male dominated industries and there's, you show up with the identity that's expected of you, I think. Um, that can actually, I think over time where an individual down, so our own experience of work as well becomes really tiresome because we're putting on a certain mask at the door. So. It's really tiring, but I also can't help but think as a leader. People do, the felt sense of you as a leader isn't genuine.
[00:38:59] Alexis Zahner: Like people, whether you feel like you're wearing that mask well or not, people's felt sense of you and the presence that you have actually isn't genuine enough for these micro interactions to actually really matter as well. So there's, there's, um, so much in that and I appreciate you going there. And I also just wanted to acknowledge, um, you mentioning the privilege there that we, um, some of us are fortunate to have more so in different ways than others. Um, and that not everywhere is a safe space for all of us to show up as well. And also acknowledging as a cisgendered white woman, that my experience of safe spaces is drastically different from others. And I think it's also as an individual and as a Taking ownership of that congruence in ourselves, um, and, and really showing up with an identity that does feel authentic and aligned.
[00:39:49] Alexis Zahner: I think we do start to have that ripple into creating cultures where others can actually feel that that's safe for them to do so as well.
[00:39:56] Sarah Langslow: Exactly. And that's where we can use the, that privilege for good, because we can use it to, to break down this expectation that we should show up in a certain way. We can use it to reinforce those around us in our teams and in our organization that we encourage and support them to show up that is congruent to their identity in a way that is. And I, is overused, but it is nonetheless, I think it's still useful
[00:40:24] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:40:25] Sarah Langslow: and, um, yeah, it's so, such an important thing and it's, I think it's not, it's not an element of authentic leadership that is talked about enough, the intersection with power and privilege and, but also the opportunity of that yeah, somebody, see inspirational leaders. You know, we talk about breaking the mold or whatever phrase we use for it, but it's powerful because we've become role models say, Oh, I don't have to look like that or be like that or behave like that to lead. And as you say, it's, I think it's where the potential of our people can be really unleashed because you're right, it's absolutely exhausting wearing that mask the whole time.
[00:41:11] Sarah Langslow: And you know, I've only experienced it to a, to a low level. And some of it was to be honest, self imposed because I believe that it wasn't, I wasn't okay to ask for help or get support at periods of my career, which, in itself generates a lot of struggle, but for some that's, you know, it's a much more experience than that, but it's also know, I think we sort of.
[00:41:32] Sarah Langslow: I don't know. It's almost smelling it on people. You can just sense some things.
[00:41:37] Sally Clarke: Yeah.
[00:41:37] Alexis Zahner: 100%. Yep.
[00:41:39] Sally Clarke: Absolutely. And I think it's also something you know, thinking about the, um, the research that I've done around burnout and my own experience of burnout as a finance lawyer as well. And it's, you know, really, one of the ways I sometimes describe. Getting to a state of burnout is that incongruence with who we genuinely are.
[00:41:55] Sally Clarke: And, you know, as Alexis alluded to, like it's, it weighs heavy, that mask, we think we need to have on, it takes, you know, physical, psychological, you know, effort to wear that consistently. And I speak again as someone with a lot of privilege, there's a lot of masks that I haven't had to wear in those situations, but I think we can't, um, really.
[00:42:17] Sally Clarke: You know, overestimate how intense and stressful those, that experience can be. So I think this is what, you know, that the concept of congruence as you so beautifully elucidate in the book that really stood out to both of us. And I'm really glad I've had this opportunity to kind of dig in a little bit deeper because it resonates in, in all of those levels that you spoke to.
[00:42:35] Sally Clarke: Now, um, you mentioned that your, you like to talk, um, you know, newsflash soda, Alexis and I, and in the book you, uh, describe the elephant elements of impact. speaking mindset, behaviors, listening, and emotions. And so we wanted today to maybe unpack speaking a little bit, because as you mentioned, it's something that we often particularly in our sort of comfort zone around how we communicate, how we speak.
[00:43:01] Sally Clarke: We don't even really think about it. It's just our automatic pilot. And again, as a former lawyer, mine tends to be a bit on the verbose side, a bit on the long sentences, peppering it with, with some fancy words. So, um, I'd love if we could, Sort of unpack that a little bit. Um, Sarah, how our habits and our preferences and assumptions about how we speak as a leader influence our impact and perhaps even, I'm sure we could talk for hours about this, but how we can also bring some more intentionality to our speaking.
[00:43:31] Sarah Langslow: yes. Yeah. So there's, there's so many different layers to this and then speaking, you know, you probably picked up in the book. It's one of the ones where there's just so many different aspects that influence influence our speaking. Uh, the, I, I often say that our words give us away they belie or they, they, they give all of these.
[00:43:53] Sarah Langslow: I mean, it's literally how I coach is, you know, you listen carefully to what people say and how they phrase it and their tone and so on. So it's, give away so much when we speak, but at the simplest level. Yeah, we've got. tone and volume and, you know, things like that. And the same words with different emphasis can express entirely different meanings through, you know, through, through just the way we say them. We've got, um, things like our emotion. How does our emotion come into our speaking? How does that, um, both influence what we say when we say it, but also how we say it, do we, we, do we control that or are we the kind of person that yells, right? It's, we all have different, different styles. There's, then you sort of go a layer deeper and you get into some of our sort of speaking patterns and also what we talk about, so. Um, I talk about a whole different sort of set of almost almost archetypes in in our sort of conversational patterns in the book. So might be to give a few examples, people have a tendency towards fixing. So in a conversation, they will always be the one trying to solve the problem. Um, some. Right. It's, it's satisfying.
[00:45:17] Sarah Langslow: It's, we get a sort of dopamine fix. We get to be useful. We get to, right. So there's, there's great reasons behind it. And
[00:45:23] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:45:23] Sarah Langslow: in many situations, nothing wrong, but that might also be unhelpful because if you're the leader that the moment you hear even a sniff of a problem in your team, you dive in and fix it, you're not developing that capability.
[00:45:36] Sarah Langslow: You're not developed. You're sort of infantilizing them almost because. You're not trusting them or giving them the opportunity to figure something out for themselves. You're just doing it for them.
[00:45:45] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:45:45] Sarah Langslow: It can also be in some conversations, in the nicest, I don't mean this to be rude, just a bit annoying. It's like, well, I wasn't actually looking for a solution.
[00:45:54] Sarah Langslow: I just wanted to express something.
[00:45:57] Sally Clarke: Yep.
[00:45:57] Sarah Langslow: I wasn't looking for you to solve my problem for me. Um, you get the people who apologize all the time. This commonly, but certainly not exclusively, I think comes down to women because we, um, Uh, there's a sort of societally, there's an expectation. We don't take up too much space.
[00:46:18] Sarah Langslow: And so, you know, we can and we pepper. Oh, I'm so sorry about. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm late. I'm oh, I'm sorry. I didn't get to your email. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm a bit, you know,
[00:46:28] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:46:29] Sarah Langslow: we pepper our words with it. We, we don't even necessarily. Notice it.
[00:46:33] Alexis Zahner: Yep.
[00:46:35] Sarah Langslow: there are the sort of yes people and no people. I'm of towards the people pleasing and so I tend to be a yes person, which sometimes absolutely comes back to bite me because I say yes to too many things or I say yes because I feel I shouldn't or couldn't or I can't say no. then there are also the people who tend to start with, oh, no, I'm not sure I can. Oh, no, not really. And again, one is not right. One is not wrong. Depending if you do it all the time, it does have an impact. It does affect that, so, right. You've got sort of conversational styles in that sense. And then at the very deepest level, one of the things that comes out through our speaking is our sort of expressed beliefs about ourselves, other people, and about world around us.
[00:47:24] Sarah Langslow: Like what we think is possible and what isn't. So, well, I'm not very creative, or I'm not very good at those things, or, oh, I'm so disorganized. So we talk about ourselves and give ourselves labels, but we also do it about other people. Ah, they're the spreadsheet guru, on one level sounds like it might be a compliment, and maybe it is, but if they're always the spreadsheet guru, does that prevent them being given up on opportunities?
[00:47:51] Sarah Langslow: Does it shape how other people perceive
[00:47:53] Sally Clarke: It's a label, isn't it?
[00:47:55] Sarah Langslow: It's a
[00:47:55] Sally Clarke: Yeah.
[00:47:55] Sarah Langslow: Exactly. And we, we do it for, you know, um, um, some people do it sort of gossiping about others or other, Oh, they'll never say yes to that. Or, Oh, finance always say no to everything or, with no disrespect to lawyers, Oh, lawyers will, Oh, they just shut everything down.
[00:48:12] Sarah Langslow: Or right. We, we sort of have these, and when we say them as a because of the sort of power and authority that is inherent in that, it gives them extra weight. So we might say it as a throwaway comment. Oh, they'll never say yes. Or, oh, so and so always does this. But that is given significance because those listening add significance to it. And so something we don't intend to can become very fixed.
[00:48:43] Alexis Zahner: Yep.
[00:48:44] Sarah Langslow: So being aware of some of these tendencies in our speaking and starting to surface them a little bit and start to uncover them and notice them when we use them and where we can really cut them out is actually really important because our words are shaping not only our own experience of work and life and our team and our organization and what we think is possible and what we don't. But it starts to shape it for everybody else, too, of all the position that we hold.
[00:49:15] Sally Clarke: And that's the culture piece, isn't it, Sarah, where it's kind of that, um, on, you know, perhaps unconsciously we're very much having a significant impact on culture. And I think sometimes these kind of throwaway lines can, I'm thinking of a time where, um, a leader I worked with sort of referred to, you know, finance or HR or some individual, they'll push back because ha, ha, ha, that's what they always do.
[00:49:36] Sally Clarke: He was trying to create a sense of bonding with the team through to writing another. But it's interesting how these messages do have. and particularly from a leader. And I think that's such an interesting, um, you know, interesting component of how we speak in these, you know, really starting to shine some light on these micro interactions and, you know, including the way we speak is so critical,
[00:50:00] Sarah Langslow: And I think that point, it's worth throwing out because we haven't a lot. 90 something percent of this is not intentional.
[00:50:09] Sally Clarke: right?
[00:50:09] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:50:10] Sarah Langslow: We don't set out to. Which certainly don't set out to harm relationships. We don't, like, you know, I generally believe in the good in people. Sure, there's a very small percentage of that might not be true for, but broadly speaking, you know, we have good
[00:50:23] Sally Clarke: Hmm.
[00:50:23] Alexis Zahner: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:50:32] Sarah Langslow: whatever it is. So remembering that is important to any of the work we're doing on ourselves in this area. We're not, if we've messed up or if we've, you know, we reflect and realize that something we've been doing is actually frankly quite unhelpful. That's not a reason to kind of beat yourself up or, you know, to go right back to where we started to sort of sweat the small stuff in that sense and stress about it and worry about it and carry it with you as this judgment. To say, okay, right. Now I realize that, you know, I've got some new learning, some new information, which tells me that actually that isn't terribly helpful, so I'm going to change that.
[00:51:14] Sarah Langslow: I'm going to work on taking that out of my language because learned something new that makes me rethink that. that's what we're talking about. I think any of this work becomes immeasurably harder if we're framing it in terms of right, wrong, good, bad. Because. that becomes very heavy and very hard and very judgmental rather than a place of curiosity and experimentation
[00:51:40] Sally Clarke: Yeah.
[00:51:40] Sarah Langslow: playing with this.
[00:51:41] Sarah Langslow: And sometimes you're going to get it wrong.
[00:51:44] Sally Clarke: Thanks for that reminder, Sarah. Yeah.
[00:51:46] Sarah Langslow: sometimes it's going to be like worse than it was before. Like that was not a good change. I can reflect, get some feedback, practice, try something new, but embracing it in that way is so important, I think.
[00:51:59] Alexis Zahner: And I think another dimension is like time and place. Cause I recall one of my first leadership roles where, um, I've used this example a few times on the podcast, but basically where the intention I had wasn't the impact that landed for my staff. Um, And basically the feedback I got was that when I'm, when I'm giving an instruction versus when I'm actually making a suggestion and leaving the team to kind of make their own decision on that was unclear. And so what it created was this sense of uncertainty and that uncertainty was kind of felt like passive aggression for people. They were like, well, is she going to get angry? Is she like, we can't control her emotional reaction to this. Um, we can't control, you know, we don't know if we're going to meet the expectation because it's unclear as to whether or not this is how I want you to do it versus, Hey guys, I think maybe you want to reconsider.
[00:52:47] Alexis Zahner: So, I think creating that uncertainty for people is also something we probably want to avoid, um, as much as possible when it, when it's something as controllable as our behavior. Yeah.
[00:53:00] Sarah Langslow: but also, you know, to your point, You heard the feedback you'd clearly created environment where there was space to give that feedback. You heard it, you learned, you adapted. So, you know, we're never going to get this right first time, but if we've created an environment where, you know, we are listening to that, we've, it's where it's safe for somebody to speak up and say, Hey, I'm really unclear. Was that an instruction or a suggestion? Or, help me out here because I'm really confused, like that's,
[00:53:30] Alexis Zahner: Absolutely.
[00:53:31] Sarah Langslow: an effective micro interaction and you can still learn from it and adapt for next time. But it's, I think it's, it's so critical to stay away from this idea that we have to get it right the whole time because we can't and we won't. But it's, if we're taking the time, we're putting in the effort, we've, we've got the awareness and we've got the clarity of who we're trying to be as a leader, then when those mismatches happen, when the incongruence happens, we can take the feedback and learn and work with it. being seen to do that as a leader, you know, as we've talked about as well as a, it's modeling that behavior for others.
[00:54:07] Sarah Langslow: So it's also create space for others to learn and practice and adapt and not feel like they have to get it right all the time either.
[00:54:15] Alexis Zahner: Love that, Sarah. And for leaders who are looking to ensure that they have alignment between their intentions and the impact that they're having, what would you advise them as their very first step?
[00:54:30] Sarah Langslow: I think it comes back to, I'm going to cheat slightly because I think there's two things. Um, but as we've talked about that, the clarity of intention, because without that, what is your intended impact? Who is the leader you actually want to be? What do you want to be known for? What are your values? What's really important to you having that?
[00:54:51] Sarah Langslow: And so, you know, It's a, one of those weird questions, because I think sometimes when we ask it, we think, well, I don't know that, but do we? Can we actually express it? taking that time to work through it and express it, and I say there's exercises in the book and there's, you know, there's even just simply some time reflecting on that can be incredibly valuable. in parallel to that is the slowing down a fraction. Because unless you're doing that, you'll never, I think, actually, or you'll very rarely be aware of when your intention and your impact don't match. Because you'll have gone past that moment before you have the chance to realize. And the slowing down is then what gives you the chance to notice. make a change, practice, do something different, experiment. That's, so those two I think sit, sit very much together. And the beautiful thing about it is that, however successful or not you are, however well it works, the act of making the effort is noticed and is important. Because that is your team that you care, showing that willing to be a little bit messy and vulnerable as you're learning and reflecting and trying to improve, that it shows them that they don't have to be perfect.
[00:56:09] Sarah Langslow: All of these things. So there's simply the act of making the effort and trying and practicing has huge benefits by itself, let alone the impact that you can then have through, through reshaping some of the ways that you're, you interact with others.
[00:56:25] Sally Clarke: Incredible. Thank you so much. That's such, I think those two components, you know, really getting very clear on who you are and taking that time for her to reflect and slowing down such beautiful, wise words to leave us with. Thank you so much for being with us on. We are human leaders, Sarah.
[00:56:42] Sarah Langslow: Thank you. It's been great conversation.