Carla Miller [00:00:02]:
Self awareness as a leader is sometimes easier said than done since we all have blind spots.

Sarah Langslow [00:00:07]:
Now, one way to improve the quality of our working relationships as a leader is to get our micro interactions right. And when I came across Sarah Langslow's book, do sweat the small stuff, I immediately recognized it as an invaluable guide to any leader looking to lead in a positive and more people focused way because it is all about micro interactions and how to do them right. So I'm really excited to share this conversation with you. In our conversation, we discussed what is the small stuff Sarah's referring to in her book, and why should leaders sweat it. And you'd be pleased to hear it doesn't mean that we need to get paranoid about every single detail. We also talk about what are micro interactions, and why do they matter so much? Sarah shares how important it is for leaders to recognize that their job is their people and to become more conscious of the impact of both the content and the delivery of our words. We also chat about the ways in which many leaders unconsciously create a team culture through their own behavior, and it's not always the team culture they would like to create, and Sarah shares her top tips for making every interaction count in a positive way. My name's Carla Miller, leadership coach, author, and trainer.

Sarah Langslow [00:01:27]:
And this is the influence and impact podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership, and feel less alone in your journey as a leader. Now, I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about Sarah in a moment, but first, I wanted to give you a bit of an update about what's going on. First thing to say is that International Women's Day will soon be upon us. That's coming up on the 8th March. Now if you have a women's network and you haven't given them my name and details, please do so because not only do I have a really popular talk called closing the influence gap, which is all about how men and leaders can be better allies for women, for a start, not interrupting us so much in meetings, for example. But I also have the allyship toolkit, which is a really fantastic way of starting the conversations that matter within your team meetings. So that's 5 2 minute animated videos talking about some really practical allyship actions that people can take and with conversation props and further resources as well. So you can find those on my website or just introduce people to me.

Sarah Langslow [00:02:37]:
I'm always happy to chat to people, and I'm really active on LinkedIn. So that's a great place to have a look for me. In other news, you've only got about a week or two to sign up for be bolder, my 4 week confidence and assertiveness course. This is gonna be, in all likelihood, the last time that we run this. We've got a fantastic cohort signed up already, but we'd love to add you or some members of your team to it. In this, it's super practical. It's all about tackling imposter feelings and self doubt, mastering your mindset around the things that are holding you back, how to have courageous conversations, and building that confidence to speak up and to deal with difficult situations in meetings. 94% of people who have taken this course feel more confident, feel more positive, feel like they're equipped and more willing to have challenging conversations, and are speaking up more in their meetings as well.

Sarah Langslow [00:03:34]:
So it's a brilliant, of course, and we'd love to have you on it. We've also got influence and impact running in May as well. This is a smaller group for women leaders going through everything I know about building your confidence as a leader, as a middle and senior leader, influencing upwards and sideways, developing your personal leadership. And loads of fantastic stuff in there. We're only gonna run that once this year, so this is your only chance to do it in 2025. Okay. A bit about Sarah. Sarah is an executive coach and leadership development specialist.

Sarah Langslow [00:04:10]:
She integrates leadership lessons from a sporting career as a rower, including competing twice in the Oxford and Cambridge boat race, and a 15 year corporate career across management consulting and finance. She has an MA and an MBA from the University of Cambridge and is an accredited professional certified coach. Now as well as Sarah's book, do sweat the small stuff that we're gonna be talking about, Sarah's actually offering a free workshop at the moment as we're recording this called small stuff, big impact, which is about how you take some of the things that you're gonna hear about in this podcast and put them into practice through a framework that you can use on a daily basis. The link to learn more and register for that is in the show notes. Okay. So let's roll this episode and get you really mastering those micro interactions as a leader. So welcome to the show, Sarah. Lovely to have you here.

Sarah Langslow [00:05:10]:
How's your day going?

Speaker C [00:05:12]:
Not too bad. Thank you. I could do with a bit more sunshine, but apart from that, pretty good. Thanks. It's great to be here.

Sarah Langslow [00:05:18]:
I was just saying today is one of the very rare sunny days in Cumbria, and no one else has sun. So I'm in a very good mood today. So all I'd love to do is to just start off by hearing a little bit more about you and what you do, and how did you come to write a book on leadership.

Speaker C [00:05:32]:
Yeah. So I'm an executive coach, now an author, of course, and also a speaker. And I've been doing this in my own business for about eight and a half years now. I I came out of, in some ways, a quite traditional career. I was I was in management consulting for quite a lot of years. I was I spent a number of years in finance. But I started coaching because I worked with a coach. And that sort of inspired me and made me discover the profession.

Speaker C [00:05:56]:
And then a few years later, decided to actually take the leap and train myself. And the book is an interesting it's I've sort of wanted to write one for a while, but was equally clear I wanted to wait until I really had something I wanted to say. I didn't wanna write a book just for the sake of it. This really emerged from such a strong theme in so much of the work I was doing with clients. It felt like an opportunity to distill out some of that learning and some of those ideas and and actually get it to a wider audience. Coaching by its nature, I do mostly one to one work is you you work with a relatively small number of people, and this was a chance to sort of spread that message and and introduce more people to me and and the work I do as well.

Sarah Langslow [00:06:42]:
Amazing. Well, you totally nailed it. I I love your book. It's going on my list. I have a very small list of books that I recommend every manager should read, and this is now on the list. I was reading it going, this is really I wish I had written this one because this stuff, no one talks about it. And it's so, so important. So, tell us a little bit about your book.

Sarah Langslow [00:07:05]:
What are you aiming to achieve? What's it called, and what are you aiming to achieve with it?

Speaker C [00:07:09]:
So it's called Do Sweat the Small Stuff, harness the power of microinteractions to transform your leadership. And it's really the I mean, the title is deliberately provocative. Of course, I think lots of lots of your listeners will no doubt be familiar with it. It's namesake, don't sweat the small stuff. But I'm talking about a different set of small stuff. So the small stuff I'm discussing in this is all of our tiny interactions that we have with other people every day. So when you think through your day from sort of the moment you get up through, you know, engaging with your family, perhaps at the breakfast table, through going to work, if you're in the office, saying hello to the security guards, smiling at people when you go in or not, or if we're working remotely, the conversations we're having on video calls and emails and so on. And these are all, to me, made up of a lot of very small interactions, a lot of tiny moments where I think what we say and how we say it matters.

Speaker C [00:08:10]:
So our microinteractions are what we say, what we don't say, how we say things, the questions we ask. But it's also what we listen to and what we ignore, the emails we respond to quickly and the ones that we sit on for a fortnight and avoid. These are all sending out messages as our our habits and our behaviors. Even our body language and our facial expression is all communicating all the time. And I think particularly as leaders or people managers, really anyone in a position of kind of authority, we have an extra influence through that because those around us add significance to all those things we say or don't say or how we say them. So we need to be paying attention. So that's really the premise of the book that I think we go through quite a lot of our life on kind of autopilot, not really thinking about how we go about these day to day interactions with with the people we work with, with our teams. But I think we need to pay a lot more attention to them.

Speaker C [00:09:09]:
So it introduces people to the impact they may be having completely unintentionally through some of the ways they interact with others and then sorta aims to help hold a mirror up and say, okay. So if this is the impact I want to have but I'm not currently having, how do I adapt or shift or explore different ways of interacting that can help me match my intention with my impact?

Sarah Langslow [00:09:36]:
Okay. I love it. And the book Don't Sweat the Small Stuff is all about not stressing too much about things that aren't important. How sweat. Like, what do you mean by if you want us to sweat the small stuff, what do you mean by that?

Speaker C [00:09:52]:
It's it's a good question because I yeah. It it can lead us into a temptation of being hypervigilant or being scared to do anything in case we did it wrong or or just getting kinda hung up and paralyzed on on every single thing we're doing. That that's not my intention. It's really more about thinking about it and actively working on it. You know, so you think about sweating in terms of going to the gym. Sometimes you're gonna mess up the the way you lift something, or you're gonna fail at an exercise that you're trying, or it's not gonna quite go to plan. That's fine. The point is don't keep showing up and doing it in that same way every time because you're not paying attention.

Speaker C [00:10:34]:
So you notice it. You think about it. You get curious about why that hasn't worked or what your impact has been in an interaction. And then try something else. Experiment, adapt, play with it. So So it's not about having to be right all the time. We're not going to be. And, in fact, in so many situations, there is no right.

Speaker C [00:10:55]:
And and equally, that means there's no wrong way to interact. But there will be more or less effective ways to to interact with others. And the closer we can get to the most effective ones or the ones that actually are giving the message that we're we're trying to deliver, then I think actually the more effective we'll be as leaders. And and through that, the more the stronger the relationships we'll be able to build and and probably the healthier the team culture that we we ultimately create.

Sarah Langslow [00:11:26]:
Absolutely. And I'm sure, as you're saying that, I'm not the only one who's thinking about that leader that, really did pay attention to those micro interactions and the leaders, and I say leaders because there's plenty of them, that really didn't and were very unaware of the impact, either they as a whole were having or their words had on a certain occasion. I also really wanted to start with that sweating side of things, because I know my audience, and I know that, like me, they're probably more likely to on that hypervigilant, slightly people pleasing, worried about their impact on others' side of things. But even when you are like that, you still have blind spots. Like, I think I'm really conscious of things like this, but it will take a coach or someone who will give me honest feedback to say, actually, the way you did that wasn't very helpful. So the the message for me here is we are not saying that you have to be hypervigilant and on high alert all the time. We're saying pay attention to your interactions. Be curious.

Sarah Langslow [00:12:32]:
I love that. As a coach, I love that be curious thing.

Speaker C [00:12:35]:
Exactly. And I and I I talk about it in terms of we're still taking responsibility for our impact. So it's not about blaming that the other person saying, well, they should have understood, or why did they take it like that? Or they didn't need to react like that. That's not what I meant. So we're still taking responsibility for it. But when we're noticing it and when we're experimenting with it, we'd as you say, we're doing it from curiosity, not from judgment. So it's not asking why didn't that work or what did I get wrong. It's it's more a, how could I try doing that differently? Oh, I wonder what caused that reaction? What could I explore next time or try experiment with to to just try something different? So we're staying out of the self judgment, which, you know, as you say, a lot of us fall into a lot of the time, especially when we see a very visible or get a sense of a a real impact that we didn't intend to have.

Speaker C [00:13:30]:
Yeah. I believe most people have really good intentions. This is just saying, okay. Let's do whatever is within our power to have our intention match or impact. But that starts with us. It's not about blaming the other person for not receiving the message. Because, actually, it was probably something in the way we communicated it that made that message a bit wonky and, I mean, it didn't quite land as we intended. And we can do something with that.

Speaker C [00:13:56]:
And so why wouldn't we?

Sarah Langslow [00:13:58]:
Exactly. For me, as I was reading the book, I was thinking this is really emotional intelligence for leaders, isn't it? Like, it's understanding your impact on others and keeping in check your own emotions in an appropriate way as well. So there's so much fantastic stuff in here. Now you've talked a little bit about what is a microinteraction in a work context. Where where do you think there's most potential for microactions to either micro interactions to either go really well or really badly? Like, if we're gonna start paying attention, are there particular things that would be a good place to start?

Speaker C [00:14:36]:
I mean, the the most obvious is always in our sort of, probably in our verbal interactions. And now whether that's people working, you know, face to face or whether, you know, whether we're working remotely, we still have the chance to do that. But it's it can be the simplicity of how we phrase things. Even managing our tone of voice. You know, we might be irritated by something we've just read in an email, but we don't need to transmit that to the person in front of us, or if we're struggling to manage that, to ask for the extra time. So I I think a lot of it is in the relatively short snippets of conversation. I think lots of us, when we're having a a conversation with someone that we relate to as significant or important, we we do mentally prepare for it a bit more. We think about how we might say something.

Speaker C [00:15:22]:
We consider different ways the conversation might go. We might, you know, think about what we can offer afterwards or how we might deal with it if certain situations arise. But I don't think we do that for smaller stuff. And, again, it's not about overplanning and, you know, the the three sentence interaction you have with one of your team members requires a 10 minute preparation. No. Clearly, that's not feasible. But just that pause before we speak even to think, how do I want to phrase this? Or what is the clearest way I can communicate? Or sometimes it's the follow-up. It's the check and the I I mean, I just I just want to double check that came across.

Speaker C [00:16:01]:
Can you let me know what you just heard from me, or what questions do you have for me about that? Things things like that which reconfirm that understanding and that, actually, your message is landing. And if it hasn't, we try again.

Sarah Langslow [00:16:16]:
And that aligns really well with another episode I recorded recently, which I think will come out before this one does on, being a coach like manager and asking those kind of questions. So, yeah, definitely listen to those 2 together. Now one of the chapters is entitled your job is your people. And I think this is such an important mindset to have. Could you speak to that a bit, please?

Speaker C [00:16:40]:
Yes. So I I believe we live in a very kind of task focused world. You know, our everything from the way we think through our days, whether it's our to do lists or our list of meetings, to all the deadlines we have coming up, to just the way we do performance appraisals and reviews. We tend to review performance on tasks and, you know, or sales figures or whatever it might be. We we focus very much in on the on that side of things. And yet, all of those results are delivered by people. And if I my philosophy is that if our people are thriving, if they feel supported, if they feel challenged, if they feel engaged, if they feel feel like there's someone is listening to them, they feel seen and heard and understood, and they feel like their boss has their back. And that doesn't mean always having to be nice or never giving any criticism, but it's that's where we need our focus.

Speaker C [00:17:39]:
And especially if we're a manager or a leader of people, we achieve all the things we achieve through others. It's very little of it is actually about the tasks that we ourselves do. And so if we bring that kind of idea that actually, our job is our people. And so the most important things I can do on any given day are to make sure that my people are thriving, take, you know, get whatever barriers I can out of the way, support them, challenge them, coach them, give them the resources they need, support them when they're struggling. That's the sort of enabler for everything else and actually is what what makes the whole thing work. But it's we often, I think, especially managers at a certain level, I find it's it's very often the the the level I kind of work with. So it's not the sort of c suite. It's almost the level below where they have a lot of operational responsibility.

Speaker C [00:18:34]:
They often have quite large teams. They do have a lot of things. They are expected and required to deliver, and it can lead us to have that focus on the staff on the task rather than remember that all of that gets delivered through the team. And so the team I just everything we we're doing with our teams to make their lives easier and make it easier for them to do a great job, that's what then delivers ultimately the the performance that we're measured on.

Sarah Langslow [00:19:02]:
And you're so right. When if you think about KPIs, I never had a KPI around the happiness of my team or even, like, how well they were performing as a team or how supportive I was being or how good I was at getting the best out of them. That was never actually articulated, and and therefore was not necessarily being valued enough. I think the challenge is we need this to come from the top of organizations, don't we?

Speaker C [00:19:28]:
Yeah. It's it's a it's an aspect. I mean, yes and no. I think it's yes. If you have an organization that is so incredibly focused on the task side and almost devalues its people or at least doesn't just doesn't show it cares, that can be difficult to fight against. But I think I'm also a believer that we have quite a lot that's under our influence and control, especially where if we're quite senior people managers. You know, we can actually shift the culture of our own teams even if that is at least slightly different from the wider organizational culture. And and there are ways that we can still meet those hard you know, the hard sort of task based KPIs, if you like, whilst still bringing a focus on our people.

Speaker C [00:20:16]:
If we're recognizing that our people are the route for us to achieve that, I think we can still we can still do a lot. So because it it can be tempting to offload that responsibility or might say, well, my you know, CEO doesn't talk about this, or, it's not the message I get from my boss. So, well, what can I do? But, actually, I'd rather people were thinking of saying, well, what can I do? What is in my remit to change? How can I even if I just shift the type of conversations I have with my team, that makes a difference for them? It probably makes their life more enjoyable, makes them more engaged. And that's only a good thing.

Sarah Langslow [00:20:55]:
And it shows them a different way to lead as well. Like, I learned how to lead through watching and experiencing the things I would never do again, and then the things I'd like to do more of, the leaders I wanted to be more like. So, yeah, you might not be able to control how the chief exec talks to someone in your team, but you can control how you show up and how you support them. I think this message is actually also really important for those newer people managers who have been rewarded until now and praised until now for getting stuff done themselves, and then to move into those roles where they are delivering through other people, and have, yeah, the urge is I I think there's often one of 2 urges. 1 is to be a complete control freak because, I'm being measured on you. The other is to say, I really don't wanna micromanage, so I'm just gonna give them all the freedom in the world. And that doesn't necessarily go very well either, particularly with junior staff. So I think this message around your job is your people is a great reframe from your job is not about ticking everything off as fast and as well as you possibly can when you move into management.

Sarah Langslow [00:22:07]:
It is about learning to deliver through a team. And I think so many of those micro interactions and things you pull out in your book will be really helpful for those newer managers as well who are trying to work out how to do that without driving themselves and everybody else mad.

Speaker C [00:22:21]:
Yeah. Very much so. And I for me, it comes back to the leadership is about relationships. So if you break it down into thinking, well, how do I build stronger, better, more effective effective relationships? And, you know, that doesn't have to mean it's that doesn't have to be about sort of asking all sorts of personal details or anything like that. But what are the conversations you're having with those you work with that aren't about just the next deadline or the tasks that they're they're doing that day or the thing that they owe you that they haven't like, even just talking about how they prefer to communicate, how they like to work, what are the conditions under which they do their best, What would they like you to do more of or less of? What they like you to stop doing or start doing? You know, where where do they feel they have gaps in in their support that you or or somebody else might be able to fill that you can be an enabler for making that happen? You know, though, even those conversations, it shows that you're paying attention. It shows that you care about them, and it's and it is all about getting helping them be at their best, which will ultimately mean you and the wider team and the organization will be at their best too.

Sarah Langslow [00:23:32]:
Absolutely. It's hard work sometimes being a leader, isn't it? Because you're you're flexing your behavior and your communication preferences. You're flexing them upwards in order to influence effectively, and then you're doing that as a people manager as well. It's, I think our expectations of managers and leaders grow all the time. I definitely think it's harder now than it was when I was first doing it. But, having this framework and and having models, we didn't have this when I was learning to manage and lead. And I was like, why can no one tell me this stuff? Why do I have to learn it? By upsetting someone, by accident, or realizing too late the impact that I was having on others. So I think this is really, really helpful.

Sarah Langslow [00:24:18]:
Now one of the things that comes through loud and strong, you've already touched on it, is the impact of our words and how we deliver them. How can we start to become more conscious of the impact of our words and how we deliver them on the people that we work with?

Speaker C [00:24:33]:
Couple of places I I start with this. One one is to almost notice where we get frustrated with others. So why why are they not I I thought they understood this, or I was really clear about that. Why why have they not done it? Why did they not tell me about this? Why are they waiting till the last minute to tell me they've got a problem? Right? So if we notice the areas of frustration that that we feel or where things have gone maybe a little bit wrong, we can always rewind it and go, okay. So what did I do or not do that maybe had it go this way? How can I be curious, to use that word again, curious, not judgmental, about the approach I took, reflect on that? And even if we can't figure out a specific, oh, well, because I did this, this happened. Even if it's simply to open up a conversation, to seek feedback, or to just try something different next time. Okay. So doing it that way didn't work very well this time.

Speaker C [00:25:32]:
What could I try differently the next time this happens? Like, whether it's, I don't know, the next time I'm giving out tasks or the next time I'm setting up a project or kicking off something new or whatever. Right? Try something different. So much of this is about experimentation. And it can take time to build up to a a level of confidence where we can actually ask for specific feedback on it, though I very much recommend that if you're feeling brave. But even in the meantime, we can do an awful lot with curiosity. So I think that side of of just noticing our frustrations. I think we can also notice just where relationships aren't working. You know, notice where, you know, if that's I struggle to get on with them.

Speaker C [00:26:18]:
And, again, bring curiosity. Perhaps you're simply missing each other in the way you're communicating. Perhaps a conversation about how you work together or, you know, what's missing or what the gap is might help and uncover something and give you a chance to to try something new. So we don't always have to do it ahead of time is, I guess, what I'm saying. And that's, again, where this sort of hypervigilance and fear can come from. Well, I'm not gonna say anything in case I say it wrong. No. We have to.

Speaker C [00:26:46]:
We've got stuff to do. We have deadlines. We have all of this stuff. But if we're dialing up our awareness a bit as we go through and noticing where there's just something that's unexpected or something that wasn't quite smooth or something that frustrates us or just something that didn't feel like it worked and actually find a moment to be curious and reflect on that, That gives us a great starting point to to explore this and experiment. I keep coming back to that word experiment because I I love it as a way to think of there's no right way, there's no wrong way. But each time we try something new, we learn.

Sarah Langslow [00:27:21]:
How much do you think the way that we say something matters or makes a difference?

Speaker C [00:27:27]:
I think there's there's different ways of looking at that. So you can look at it as the way we say the way we phrase something, or you can look at it as in as in our sort of tone and timing and that side. I mean, phrasing, definitely. One of the simplest examples I I use a lot is I had one client who, at the end of her meetings, she would say to her team, anybody got any questions? And they would all look look at her with sort of blank faces and write, no. No. That's fine. Or or she would say, is that clear? Does everybody understand? And, of course, no one puts their hand up and says, no. I don't understand.

Speaker C [00:28:01]:
And it would become clear later that some of them didn't. And when she switched that to say, what questions do you have for me? Or what support do you need from me? That the how you say it, it's a very similar it's the same motive. Right? It's the same question she's sort of trying to ask, but one one does it in a way that it's much easier to answer. So there's there's that side of it of just thinking about rephrasing things. There is also this sort of tone, timing, energy, emotion, and and so on that comes through our voices. I think a lot of that comes back to we all have a natural way, a sort of habitual way. I can be quite direct. I'm quite, verbose sometimes.

Speaker C [00:28:46]:
I talk a lot. I use very long sentences. You know, if there's silence, I'll jump into it, all of those sorts of things. Now, in lots of circumstances, that's fine. I don't need to adapt. It it works. And especially if I'm working with people familiar to me, they know that's my style, and it's fine, and we've figured out how to work together. But if I'm aware enough to understand there are situations where I need to shift that, where I might need to slow down, I might need to really intentionally hold silence and hold space to allow another person to speak, then what I all I really need to do is be aware of where those different situations arise and not blindly wander in with my habitual way.

Speaker C [00:29:31]:
In a way, it's the same with emotions. If we're aware that we have a lot of emotion in our space I'm not I'm not always a fan of this, I'll manage your emotions. You know, it it's not always about tamping them down. Sometimes it's about owning them. You know, it's about letting others know you've got things on your mind. And if, you know, if anything sort of leaks out, it's not about them. Sometimes that's about asking to reschedule a conversation to say, do you know what? I I just can't right now, rather than pushing through and having underlying frustration or fear or worry or whatever is leak out. And the other person on the other side will sense that.

Speaker C [00:30:10]:
There's a lot of evidence that we're pretty terrible at hiding our emotions. But if we're not either explaining them or rescheduling where we need to, then we get that emotion all over other people. And they don't know that it's not about them. They've no idea. Yeah. So being mindful of I think is is really important.

Sarah Langslow [00:30:28]:
Yeah. That awareness of your emotions. The number of times people go into a stressful meeting with the people above them come out, and instead of taking some time to decompress, get themselves a nice cup of tea or whatever, they're straight over to people's desks and just sharing that stress around, aren't they? Just like, let's make sure it multiplies around the office. And we don't even know that that's our stress response, and we probably think, well, everyone knows we've just had that stressful meeting. But someone who doesn't have many interactions with you or doesn't know that thinks, oh, no. They've done something wrong. Like, you're in a bad mood with them. There must be something wrong there.

Sarah Langslow [00:31:04]:
So, yeah, that that point that our as leaders, the impact on others is is amplified, I think, is so important that people know because I think a lot of people don't realize that. They were like, I'm just me. Like, I'm not intimidating. I don't particularly have authority. Well, you might not be naturally intimidating or have lots of natural gravitas or whatever, but you are still in a position of power. And therefore, people will be paying attention. Now another of your chapters is called you are always being watched. Can you tell us a little bit about how we unconsciously create a team culture through our behavior without knowing what we're doing?

Speaker C [00:31:43]:
Yeah. And it it's exactly that point that it's it because of that power dynamic in place, and that the power can come in the form of sort of formal power. You know, maybe you do literally have the power to hire and fire or reward and punish or, you know, even just withhold opportunities. It might just be power in the sense of you're confident, or you've been there a bit longer, or you talk louder. Right? It power can come in many forms. But it as you say, what it does is it means that those around us are observing us and deriving meaning from that. Well, they did this, therefore, or she said that all that must mean. So we we take something we observe, and then we add a whole load of meaning and interpretation to it.

Speaker C [00:32:29]:
Now as leaders, we can't fully control that interpretation. That you know, some of that will still happen as part of being human. But we can be aware of some of the messages we might be sending and sometimes take the opportunity to clarify them. So, you know, one of the very common ones that comes up is around around either holidays or or time off or, you know, boundaries around working hours. You know, if if you're relatively new in an organization or a team or you're you, you know, you you feel nervous about your position for for any reason, whether that's logical or not, if your boss or your manager is saying, no. No. We it's really important you take your holidays. You know, don't don't worry about this.

Speaker C [00:33:11]:
It's it's really important you have downtime. But then either they're still sending emails while you're away, you know, even if it's, no. No. You don't need to do this until you get back. Well, really? Or even themselves. If they're they go away on holiday and are just emailing day and night constantly and copying everybody in or, you know, demanding things get done, it sends such mixed messages. And the team are kinda gonna look at that and go, well, they say I should take downtime, but do they really mean it? Are they gonna look at me differently if I really choose to enforce that versus I actually do answer some of these emails and respond? And, you know, that can happen in the everyday as well. You know, whether whether it's that point about managing emotions and and, you know, managing our tone and so on, the way we talk to people within meetings.

Speaker C [00:34:06]:
It goes far beyond that single interaction, far beyond it. Because people talk. Oh, he was grumpy again this morning. Or, god, did you hear about the way they completely took that person apart? You know, somebody gets a dressing down in a meeting publicly, even if it's only in front of 2 or 3 other people, guarantee half of the building is gonna know or half of the, you know, the organization is gonna know by the end of the day. And that's starting to build a reputation. So someone else is gonna go, well, I'm not gonna talk to them about that. I'm I'm not gonna go and ask them about that problem because they might take me apart. So we're always creating that we're we're always sort of setting the tone in terms of what's acceptable, what's not acceptable, what gets you rewarded, what might get you fired or told off.

Speaker C [00:34:54]:
And then unless we're conscious that our our individual acts may not actually be individual acts, that they're actually setting a much wider set of expectations or norms almost, then we can quite quickly run into trouble if we're not, at least on some level, thinking about that. And sometimes, we'll do it unintentionally. You know, again, not about being perfect, but are we willing to go back and clean that up afterwards? Are we willing to go back and apologize? Are we we used to talk in my own coach training that there's no mess you can create in a conversation, that you can't also clean up in a conversation. But if you don't have the cleanup conversation, if you're never willing to apologize, if you realize something's gone awry, then those original messages stand. People people learn from them, and people interpret them in their own way.

Sarah Langslow [00:35:48]:
That makes sense. Now in your book, you share lots of ways that we can make our interactions count in a positive way. What are some of your favorite ways or bits of advice around that?

Speaker C [00:35:59]:
So there's sort of two sides to it. I think the single biggest thing of how we can sort of improve it and be more aware is to slow down. I I'm always really conscious of saying this because I would fully imagine most of your listeners are very busy, have very long to do lists, possibly have large teams or organizations, and are, you know, running from one thing to another. But that tiny pause before we speak or before we write or before we hit send on an email and think, do I need to include anything else? Or could I phrase this slightly differently? How's this going to land? That tiny pause can make a huge difference and, actually, I believe save us a lot of work further down the line because it allows us to be intentional from that first moment rather than do something and realize we've, you know, not had an impact we want. So so there's that on that side. I think beyond that, if we if we're really consistently curious, if we work on listening, if we work on having nontask based conversations, You know, one of my one of my biggest thing I would love to see everybody who is managing people, making the effort to have conversations with their team. That is not about the precise work they're doing. It there is just about something beyond that.

Speaker C [00:37:17]:
Maybe it's about their ambitions. Maybe it's about how they like to work. Maybe it's about what they're finding challenging. What whatever it is, but something that is not about the to do list. You learn so much through those conversations, and you build so much trust and relationship through those conversations as well that and and it's it's really the building block for making your job your people, like, prioritizing those and making those happen. Those are probably the biggest ones. But as you say, there's there's so many sort of suggestions throughout the book that I think it's one of the opportunities whether it is to sort of dive in. You know, if you know you struggle on the listening, you can focus more on those listening chapters.

Speaker C [00:37:56]:
Or if you're curious about your speaking patterns and your speaking habits, you can sort of play play more play more with those.

Sarah Langslow [00:38:03]:
Yeah. There's a lot you can dive into in the book. There's some really specific suggestions around understanding your own mannerisms and preferences and thinking about the impact on those. So one of the things that I've really noticed is that when I'm when I have time and space, I am really good at those micro interactions. I'm putting the effort in. When I struggle with it is when I'm multitasking. So I have a team that work remotely. They're freelancers.

Sarah Langslow [00:38:36]:
They're all lovely. I will send a really chat email in the day. But if I'm responding to something at half past 6 and my child is asking me when dinner is ready and it needs an urgent response, there's less of the niceties around the edges. So some there's something there about, like, creating enough space to be able to interact with people, isn't there?

Speaker C [00:38:59]:
Yeah. I think there's some yeah. Different I mean, it's a good example. Right? So a couple of things I would say. One is, does that reply have to be done right now? Like, really, does it have to be done right now? Because sometimes, one of the sort of mantras I talk with a lot of my clients is, does it have to be me, and does it have to be now? Because a lot of us have that tendency. Oh, well, I could do it, or maybe I should do it, or, oh, well, I'll just do it now. Oh, let me just get that. And, look, I know there are also arguments to say if it's a 32nd thing, just do it.

Speaker C [00:39:32]:
But if you can't do that right now, if your head is just not in a place, if you got too much else going on, is it actually better to wait? Is it better that that email gets sent either later in the evening or first thing in the morning? But whatever. But is it as urgent as we believe it is? So that's one side of it. The other side is one of the ways I explore in the book about how we reshape our interactions is to develop a kind of model for or an a vision for the leader we want to be. How do we want to show up? What's the impact we want to have? And that comes. It provides us a sort of compass bearing or a reference point to say, how am I doing against that? How can I you know, how did today go? Where did I not do so well? You know, where can I do better, or what's the next step to move me towards that vision? But part of having that vision is to commit to it. Because to your point, we we can all commit to stuff when it's easy and when everything's fine and there are no problems and there's no major deadlines. But part of this work, part of building the consistency and doing this in a way that people can trust our interactions, because one of the biggest problems is the up and down, good one day, nightmare the next. We have to commit to that and say, I'm gonna really work on doing this even when I don't feel like it, even when the baby's screaming in the background, even when I'm knackered.

Speaker C [00:41:04]:
How can I still find that fraction of a second before I speak to really think or before I send an email to to really think how I phrase this? And I don't think that means it has to be long winded. But there might be just one tweak we can make in that email, which makes our intention that bit clearer. So it goes both ways. Does it have to be now? But, also, if it does have to be now, that isn't the get out of jail free card to suddenly turn into the boss we don't wanna be anymore. We have to actually commit and do whatever we can to be consistent. And if we get it wrong, clean it up the next day. Come back to it. I'm really sorry.

Speaker C [00:41:42]:
I know I wrote that email at a time when it was I just had too much going on, but I I don't think I phrased it well. I apologize. Owning that because we're all human.

Sarah Langslow [00:41:55]:
Definitely. And I think it also comes back to that task versus people focus, doesn't it? Like, if you're task focused, you're like, well, I just need to get this done right away. That's something I can tick off my list. If you're people focused, then you think, well, can do I have the the time to reply to this in a manner that is aligned with the kind of leader that I want to be? Exactly. A good one. I'm sure that works for parenting as well. I might need to

Speaker C [00:42:17]:
think about I need to know. There it's yeah. There was one of my, one of the, people who kindly endorsed it. It made that made that point that actually this is I did write it, and I think I said it myself actually in there afterward. It like, it's written through the lens of leadership, but so much of this applies to our relationships and our interactions anywhere and everywhere in life, including parenting, including, you know, long term relationships, whatever it might be. It's this stuff, it does make a difference.

Sarah Langslow [00:42:51]:
It does. Well, like I say, I highly recommend the book. I thank you so much for coming on the podcast. If people want to find out more about you, we will put it in the show notes. But if you say it out loud now, then they'll pay more attention. So where should they go?

Speaker C [00:43:03]:
2 main places I hang out. So one is come come and find me on LinkedIn. So I'm Sarah Langslow. It's it's an unusual name, so I'm quite easy to find. You can also find me at sarahlangslow.com where there's a bit more on me, and there's also within that page about the book and and actually lots of supporting resources. So if people are interested, the book is full of exercises, and there's an online workbook and various other things too to access to to make actually doing those exercises a bit easier. Because it's, you know, as you'll know as a fellow coach, it's it's not just about having the insight. It's about actually taking different action, and that's what actually gets us a different result.

Sarah Langslow [00:43:44]:
Absolutely. Yeah. Lots of lots of practical stuff that you can put into action there. Thank you so much, Sarah.

Speaker C [00:43:50]:
Thank you.