How do you become fully confident and in control of your emotions and experience at work? It’s by mastering your own psychology and that of others. On this show, we decode the science of success, exploring how to get out of your own way and advance your career to new levels without becoming someone you’re not. I’m Melody Wilding, best selling author, human behavior professor, and award winning executive coach. Get ready, and let’s put psychology to work for you.

Hey, make sure you’re signed up for the free training I’m hosting on January 9th at 3 p. m. Eastern. It’s called From Overlooked to Recognized and Rewarded. Earn 100k more in 2025 without sucking up or selling out. This no fluff actionable event will show you how to speak up in meetings and impress the company’s leaders.

Without offending your colleagues, I’ll give you the magic phrases, how to guarantee your next promotion by doing this one thing daily. And it only takes five minutes, how the highest paid top performers instantly build credibility with higher ups, even if they’re remote. This secret is one psychological trick you can begin using immediately.

I’ll be sharing many of the same strategies. Our clients at top companies like Google, Amazon, and more have used to land a hundred K bonuses and raises head to melodywilding. com slash training to grab your spot. Now it’s 100 percent free and I can’t wait to see you there.

Leadership isn’t always about having a fancy title or a corner office. Sometimes it’s something that sneaks up on you. Maybe you’re the person who everyone is turning to for help. You’re the one who naturally takes initiative on projects or who others seem to look to when things get challenging. But that informal transition from teammate to emerging leader, you can feel a little bit like walking a tight rope.

And today, we’re talking about that delicate shift with Eddie Turner. He is a Harvard trained leadership expert who has coached thousands of professionals and executives at organizations worldwide. And Eddie has graciously agreed to join us here today. He’s going to help us unpack what it really means to step into leadership, especially during that unofficial period where you don’t yet have formal authority. So, Eddie, welcome.

So glad to have you here. Melody, thank you for having me. I am excited to be here with you. I always love the energy you bring to situations. You have your own show that, and thank you for having me as a guest on on your show when my first book came out, and I’m so honored to have you here now.

I said before we started recording that we’re we’re flipping the tables now, which is always fun. And why I wanted to bring you on is because you talk a lot about being an emerging leader. And so I wanted to start there. Can you tell us, what does it even mean to be an emerging leader? Like, how do you define that, or how do you think about it?

And then I wanna get into some some signs of how you know you’re being viewed that way. But first, let’s start with a definition in your terms. Well, first, let me say that it is an honor to be here with you, and that your episode, my show is one of the highest rated episodes of my show. People love you and love your content. So truly an honor to be, in the hot seat, this time myself.

You know, what is an emerging leader? Depends on who you ask. If you ask my friends in the HR department, human resources, they say that an emerging leader is a hypo, a high potential employee. At the end of every year, they’re doing their succession planning, and they’ve identified a group of employees who they say, here are our high potential employees. Here are the people we should invest the most resources in.

But when I wrote my book, I, did a bit of an anecdotal, research where I query people and ask that question. And I did find that some people gave me the answer my human resources friends gave me, but I also received other answers. And I, through my own work, identified other groups. I ended up coming up with a category 10 categories of what it means to be an emerging leader. If I might, let me tell you what the dictionary says and then we can springboard off that.

I won’t give you all 10 right now. But essentially, I take, from the Merriam Webster’s dictionary that it says to emerge means to become known as or to be coming into view. So when I thought about leadership through that lens, I started to say, well, who do we know in our organization who is becoming known as because of their activity in the organization, or who’s coming into view? And by that definition, that’s how I was able to identify these these 10 categories of people who we should be looking at beyond the folks that we, would traditionally look at and call any emerging leader. Excellent.

Excellent. Yeah. And I I love that. It’s so interesting because I think a lot of people don’t understand what happens behind closed doors and HR, like you were saying, that certain people are being categorized this way and are being identified this way as hypos, high potentials, or emerging leaders, and that that leads to a lot of advantages, as you were saying. You may get more resources.

You may be tapped for special opportunities or programs within the organization. And so in your research that you did, what were some of those 10 signs? Like, 10 10 of your favorite or ones we might not even expect. I decided, when I was putting that together to really just take a a holistic lens. So let’s expand that lens.

And so let’s start with a group of people we might often overlook, and that would be youth. I believe that learning begins in the womb. And, as a new parent, I applied that in how, I would read to my children in my wife’s stomach. I would play specific music in their environment because I believe, personally, that that would impact who they were when they came out of the womb and have an earlier impact on developing them as a leader even at, a stage which you wouldn’t consider that. And I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll be a proud father for a moment and brag a little bit.

My new. My my, my son’s teacher, he’s only, 18 months, talked about how he conducts himself in the classroom, and he started to say a couple of words. Right? He’s not full vocabulary yet, but she just was like, I can’t believe how how how much he talks and how he conducts himself. And, he’s at a newer school.

She I I I laughed when she told me that, and I said, clearly, she doesn’t know who his dad is or situation in in the classroom of my daughter and how she, was getting everybody in the class to behave. The teacher marveled at that. Well, you know, I I it’s because of developing these these leadership skills, and sometimes what people might say is being bossy, but rather being someone who’s not bossy, but who’s taking control, taking charge, even at a early age when she’s just 3. So I pride myself on how they’re developing, but that group. And then the work that I was doing at a university helped me to see that at the college age.

You don’t have to wait. When you’re 18 to 22, you don’t have to wait to be a leader. There are so many ways to lead on campus. Be it through student government. Be it through how you, take charge even in the classroom.

How you lead projects, how you lead your study groups. Boy, does tension develop when you try to get those projects done, right? And looking at areas even where a senior leader leaves the workforce because they wanna have a child. Or these days because they need to care for an aging parent. Well, when they leave for time and return, they don’t have to start all over.

They have experience, but they do have to reemerge as a leader. They have to prove themselves all over again, if you will. And I’m just giving you one more category, job changers. There are a lot of people who have experience in one area. I have a lot of attorneys who I I I I’ve worked with.

Some of them will call themselves a recovering attorney because they choose to leave law in into another field altogether. Well, when they go into this different field, they’re not in an inexperienced leader, but they do have to prove themselves all over again, emerge, if you will, as a leader in this new area. Yeah. So many I love what you’re saying because it challenges our notion of what we traditionally think about and what it means to be a leader. Right?

It’s not the title. It’s your behaviors, which I think is really because that’s available to everyone, no matter what stage of your career you’re at, no matter what level you’re at. And so just following on that on that question, how how do you know, what are some signs that you are starting to be viewed as an emerging leader, even before you get a formal promotion? Are there certain signals in how your boss or others might treat you or talk to you, or what are some signs that other people are starting to see you that way? I always say don’t wait for others to treat you as a leader.

Start to lead well before you’ve been given the formal title. And so we all know of someone in an organization who they don’t have the title, but they’re the one always taking the, the initiative to get things done. They have an alacrity, a willingness to respond when something needs to be done. They just jump in and do it. And sometimes the very person who should be doing it based off title is not doing it, but this person is.

And so other people start to recognize that, hey. Melody is the go to person. She hasn’t been promoted yet, but when you want something done, she is a person you can depend on. And then you can identify that when other people are asking you to to take on certain task. And at times, it might be that we’re waiting for someone to come and ask us.

And that’s why I say, show the initiative. Give the company a reason to bet on you. Don’t wait. Yeah. Which is so much more important than ever before.

And I I would love your perspective on this because everyone’s busy. Everyone’s busy. And if you are waiting for someone to hand you something, you may be waiting a long time because everyone’s got their mind on their own things that they have to do. They may not even be thinking about, oh, Eddie would be great for x, y, z. Let me go ask him if he would be willing to do that.

They’re trying to save their cognitive energy. They want you to step up and say, hey, actually that’s something I would be happy to take on. And, and also like in the remote work environment, it’s, it’s sometimes harder to get a sense of what someone’s skills are. Communication is so much more siloed. And so if you’re not explicitly asking or explicitly taking that initiative, you might be overlooked because it’s so much easier to be invisible.

You you and I are on the same line of thought. That’s precisely what I was thinking, Melody. You have, because of remote work, you’re out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. And then even when you’re in an office environment, people don’t always know what your skill set full skill set is. Or just the fact that they are so busy, it’s not intentional that you’re being overlooked, but primary recency theory kicks in.

Right? I only I’m thinking about what has most recently taken place or who I have seen, do something. And so that makes it all the more important to, make yourself seen, be known. And if you’re not known, get known. To that end, what what are some practical ways you can get yourself known?

And I think specifically a lot of listeners to this show, the person listening might be asking themselves, like, that’s great. I wanna do that. But I’m really afraid of stepping on toes or coming off as too pushy and aggressive that I turn people off or offend them. So what do you say to that? Let’s actually take what are some what are some practical ways to get known, and then we can address the the pushiness objection.

One way to be known is, to be seen. Show up. Now on a, in remote work, that means when you are on a team meeting, turn your camera on. And I’m looking at you here, but I should probably look up here as I’m saying this, I guess. Turn your camera on.

So often people come to the meeting and their camera is turned off. Now there are reasons to do so. A new mother, for example, coming to the to the meeting, she may be nursing or what whatever the case may be. So there’s some legitimate reasons to absolutely have that camera off. So I’m not saying don’t ever.

But for some folks, it’s just not necessarily wanting to be seen, for other reasons. And if it’s not a a a a business reason or a deeply personal reason, can you allow yourself to be seen? If you’re seen, you’re able to make a deeper impact on people. Your words will carry more meaning when it’s associated with the visual. You can have a deeper impact on the audience.

So be seen in the audience, in the office rather. Be seen. If you are in an environment where so many, employers have called people back to work, show up and then do what you can to be able to interact with your team, to be the person who is getting to know people. And as my mentor taught me, it’s not about who knows you. It’s not about who you know.

It’s about who knows you. So be known and be known for doing good work. That certainly is is one step that people could take to, be on the radar. And that the quality of your work, don’t assume that because you’re doing good work, that your work will speak for itself. You must promote your good work.

Now promoting your good work doesn’t mean that you’re bragging about it, but it does mean that you’re informing the right people about your contributions, that you’re, making sure that you’re getting the credit for the work and someone else is not taking the credit for your work, That you are, letting people know the impact that you’re having at the organization, the value that you’re bringing to the organization, and not letting it be assumed. So good. And and something I wrote down is, you know, visibility does not have to be big flashy. You know, you’re you’re leading the all hands or you you spend 3 hours at the the happy hour after work. It’s these little touches.

That’s what I wrote down, little touches, like just having your camera on or maybe even being more active in the Slack so people are seeing your name. Because to your point earlier, I love how you brought the psychology in there, the primacy and recency effect. How available is your name and your skill set and the value you bring, how top of mind is that for someone? And that doesn’t require, you know, becoming the right hand person. It just it requires them knowing your name, understanding what you bring to the table.

And I also want to underscore, I completely agree with you, and I’m always saying that to my clients around your work doesn’t speak for yourself. I wish it did. I wish doing hard work was enough. But unfortunately, it’s table stakes now, right? It’s like this is the baseline.

And I wonder if you agree with this. I would love to hear from your perspective because you work with a lot of executives as well. And the leaders I work with will say to me, my people aren’t informing me enough of what’s happening. And then that puts me in a bad position because I can’t tell my own leadership what’s going well, what the milestones are, what needs we need to address. And so, I see visibility a little bit like it is an obligation.

It is part of your job description. It’s not necessarily, yes, self promotion is great. We want people to know your value and do your work. You have an obligation to make sure that people know what you’re accomplishing and what the impact of that is from an information standpoint, and to make sure they have all the data they need to make a case for resources or, you know, the the influence, having your team have a seat at the table where decisions are being made. So I think it’s a great point on on multiple fronts.

Yes. And I must cite Sally Hegleson as, one of the people who really stressed that in my interview with her, and and that’s something that I have really carried with me. Excellent. Excellent. And so okay.

Let’s let’s loop back to that idea of I don’t wanna be pushy. I don’t wanna step on people’s toes. So, Melody, Eddie, I hear what you’re saying. That’s great. Take initiative.

But people are gonna be angry at me if I do that. What what do you say to that person, and what advice might you have to them about navigating that? So that’s within bounce that you you do that. There are certain tasks where a leader asks who would like to do, this particular project, this particular task. Raise your hand.

That’s one way of taking the initiative. And, we talked about having your camera on in a in a in a meeting, a virtual meeting, or being seen in the office. Well, that’s part of it. But the other part of it is don’t sit there silently. Raise your hand to offer us insight during these meetings.

That’s another way of taking the initiative. And don’t wait, feel like you have to have some deep profound comment to add. Every thought adds to the pool of knowledge. Every idea, no matter what we might consider small, it actually could be very big. So actively adding content to every discussion is another way of taking the initiative.

Now there are times you talk about getting things done that, even sometimes someone else is not is not doing. Well, another way of of getting things done is bringing ideas. You’ve observed something in the in the organizational environment that sometimes that senior leader who’s so busy, who’s setting the vision, they are down in the minutia looking at the daily details as much. So in one initiative might be, hey, I’ve noticed that we’re doing, this particular task this way or approaching business this way. Would it be appropriate for us to consider looking at it this way?

Here’s what I see our competitors doing. And the senior leader would go, wow, I have never thought of it like that. That’s just one way of doing it. The Secret’s Out. My second book, Managing Up How to Get What You Need from the People in Charge, is available for preorder now.

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It’s okay to give pushback if we see things differently, but to do it in a respectful way. Don’t feel like we have to be timid. We can acknowledge what they’ve said, talk about the value of it, but then offer a different viewpoint. And I say offer versus just spitting it out there. Right?

Say, is there is would there be value if we consider this approach in terms of, an idea that they they have presented? Because maybe it’s not something that was the only way to do that. It wasn’t from the ground up, but it’s coming from the top down. Can we offer that insight? And sometimes, leaders who have the right mindset will be very receptive to that because they recognize they don’t have all the answers.

And they value people who aren’t just going along and cosigning, if you will, with every idea, every thought. They value someone who will speak truth to power. Now every leader is not like that, so caution needs to be exercised, especially as we consider psychology at work. But if we have a leader who we, can really be open with, Tell them the truth. They will, they will, welcome that.

And that is a tremendous way of showing leadership because that shows them if you’re willing to speak truth to power, how you would be in leading your own team and leading the organization during times of crisis.

Hey, make sure you’re signed up for the free training I’m hosting on January 9th at 3 p. m. Eastern. It’s called From Overlooked to Recognized and Rewarded. Earn 100k more in 2025 without sucking up or selling out. This no fluff actionable event will show you how to speak up in meetings and impress the company’s leaders.

Without offending your colleagues, I’ll give you the magic phrases, how to guarantee your next promotion by doing this one thing daily. And it only takes five minutes, how the highest paid top performers instantly build credibility with higher ups, even if they’re remote. This secret is one psychological trick you can begin using immediately.

I’ll be sharing many of the same strategies. Our clients at top companies like Google, Amazon, and more have used to land a hundred K bonuses and raises head to melodywilding. com slash training to grab your spot. Now it’s 100 percent free and I can’t wait to see you there.

Yes. Yes. And what I wanted to pick up on there, I mean, first of all, great tip for the person who’s listening about not getting caught in perfectionism around waiting until you have the perfect, best, most brilliant idea. Again, you’ll be holding yourself back forever.

But what I also love about what you said is getting that insight into how executives and senior leaders are evaluating you. Because what I hear and correct me if I’m wrong, but reading between the lines and what you say is that it’s not necessarily the merit, the strength or the accuracy of any one idea that you bring to the table. It’s more your thought process, your rationale, your critical thinking and problem solving skills. You’re, they’re looking at those competencies around how are you taking initiative or considering the vision, thinking strategically. It’s not just, I think people get very caught up in, I have to have this very creative idea that’s gonna have a lot of ROI and they’re missing the point that the leaders around them are evaluating their skill set more broadly.

Would you agree with that? What would you add? 100%. I I I agree with that. It’s whenever in fact, my favorite one of my favorite quotes is from James Humes, the the speechwriter for, president Ronald Reagan.

He said, every time we speak, we are auditioning for leadership. And that was made to apply to public speaking, but given a professional speech in front of an audience. But I I recently wrote an article in Global Leaders Today where I applied that to this very scenario. I applied that to being a person who speaks in team meetings, who speaks even on an interview. Right?

Every time we speak in these small ways, you are still auditioning for leadership because it is such a window into who you are and what you bring it into into that scenario. Yeah. Yeah. And that brings me to a question of how do you demonstrate to executives and senior leaders that you are leadership material, you’re ready for leadership in a higher level role without coming across as just desperate for a promotion? One way you can demonstrate that is that you bring a we not me mentality.

When I’m desperate for a promotion, it’s usually because I’m more desperate about me, who I am, what’s in it for me, how I’m coming across, what am I getting out of this. And there should be some of that, but that should be your only driver, your primary driver. That we mentality is I wanna make things better for all of us. And I believe I have something unique that uniquely qualifies me to do this for our organization, for our team. And when that is how you are perceived, you have a higher probability of achieving that, because people typically, depending on the environment again, are are are excited to put someone in place who they feel will do add to the greater good of the organization and not someone who they believe might, harm because of a a siloed approach, siloed thinking.

And that’s that’s that’s one way that I would I would answer that. That’s fantastic. A we versus me mentality. And just you and you were even saying before, you know, the name of the show is psychology at work. And it’s interesting you say that because as you as you rise into higher levels of leadership, it becomes much more about managing the people dynamics and the relationship dynamics.

And it’s often less about your technical skills and competencies. So you have to be, you have to be more we oriented because almost your entire job as a leader is rallying people, moving them towards a vision, and to get things done, holding them accountable. And so you have to have that other orientation and awareness in order to be successful at that level. Absolutely. And in fact, that that concept that you just described is one of the things as an executive coach that I’ve worked with people on.

I I had a gentleman who had started from the ground up in his organization. He had worked his way up to a very senior leadership role, been there 20 years. So the the good news is he had learned every role, could do every role, understood what it takes to get them done. The bad news is he was still doing every role. Yeah.

Right? So we had to help him understand no longer is it about getting things done because you do it. It’s about letting go and letting others do that work, growing them. And he’s a wonderful gentleman, but he’s he had the idea that I’m not gonna ask him to do something that I don’t do. So he felt he set an example by still trying to do everything.

Right? But no. No. No. When it’s a crisis or that’s an urgent situation, roll your sleeves up, jump in.

But other than that, let others grow by letting them do the work. And this is how you identify who your other leaders are. Right? Because they’re gonna rise. Give them a chance to rise and they will.

And so, great to set that example that you’re a servant leader, but, engage them. Let others, do this work, and you’ll see them flourish. And then you’ll also be able to be more of a visionary leader because you’re not tied down to the day to day. Right. Right.

And that goes back to what we were talking about before about what you’re actually being evaluated on at the leadership level. It’s it’s not how many, you know, widgets you got done or tasks you crossed off. It’s about your ability to facilitate and enable and move other people along. And so that’s that really counterintuitive, difficult shift, as you were saying from doer to leader. And I wanted to ask sort of a follow-up question on that, because many people may be working for a manager like that, who’s having trouble letting go for whatever reason.

Maybe it’s coming from a good place of, you know, I don’t want to ask my people what I won’t do, but maybe it’s from a less nice place, a less well meaning place. And you’re being blocked by your boss for whatever reason from taking leadership opportunities or taking the type of initiative you want to. What have you worked with people in that position, and what can you do if you find yourself there where your boss is not as open to you stepping up, as you might want them to be? Yes. That does happen where sometimes your boss who should be your backer becomes your blocker.

One of the best ways to get around that blocker is to expand your sphere of influence in the organization. We talked about becoming known for doing good work earlier. So there’s a couple of ways you can do this. If your work, and I’ve I’ve seen this happen on a number of occasions, especially as an executive coach where the boss is taking credit for your work. And your boss has you do all this great work, and then they go and then they present it as if it was their own content and brilliant ideas they came up with.

Never give you the credit. Never give you the chance to go present to the senior leadership team. One of the ways you can surface is you attend company events. You attend outings. There’s sometimes that it’s going and participating in the in the local we did this for the Habitat for Humanity project or the for the food bank.

And now you’re interacting with executives that you never would have had a chance to interact with. One of the strongest pieces of encouragement I give my clients, never have an interaction where you don’t make that person better. Always have in your back pocket a couple of factual tidbits that you can give that executive. So when you say, hey, Melody. How’s everything going?

I’ll just say, hey. Great day, isn’t it? How’s the weather? No. Hi, Tim.

Hey, Sherry. Things are going really swell. On our team, we just had this client win where we did x, y, z. Right? Some type of a fact that you’re you’re delivering, some update, and they go, wow.

I didn’t even know that. Right? Always have something of value that you can offer. I shared that with one of my clients, and he ended up having such an interaction with his CEO, was able to leave that nugget with the CEO. And he said, Eddie, you were right.

It worked really well. And that it allows you we talked about primary recency theory earlier. Wow. That’s gonna be on their mind. And it’s not that everything leads to something immediately, but every seed that gets planted starts to build this value, this reputation for you with all of those who you come into contact with.

Another thing that happens is, you talked about on the, on the I wanna call it the social media. So the internal social media channel, the internal communication channel. Some people become known because they’re answering all the Q and a’s or they’re posting to the internal blog. They’re posting to the internal, systems and people start to see that, wow, you notice that this person’s name always surfaces when we need to answer to a question. This person’s publishing great articles in the organization.

All of that allows you to be seen around your blocker. So internally, building your brand, building your network, making sure that you bring something to every interaction will allow you to get from under that person. Another option would be building your external brand. You can serve as a leader of local community organizations. Are you a member of your local if you’re an engineer, are you serving on the engineering board for your profession or your accounting board or your local talent management board?

That is allows you to show that I have leadership skills because you’re doing it externally. Are you are publishing articles externally? Are you speaking externally? There are a lot of ways to show your talent and leadership skills in a way externally that can highlight you internally and allow you to be seen in the way that you wanna be seen and not leave your career in the hands of 1 single individual. Mhmm.

Finally finally, I I encourage people to get mentors inside the organization, not just in your department, but outside of your department, because those people will help you navigate and give you insight on what you need to do to get around internal office politics. So mentors in your department when you can, outside your department, and then in your industry, but outside your company. That will help you navigate as well. Amazing. That was like a mini master class.

Eddie, thank you. And, you know, the I think the most important message there that people overlook is you have to diversify your sources of your support. You can’t rely on just your manager. Because even if you have a good relationship with your manager, unfortunately, they could be gone. You know, unfortunately, they could be gone to, you know, in the next week or month or circumstances you can’t control.

And like you were saying, having this perception that another allies just it allows you so much more, flexibility and a safety net, and just so much more opportunity organically coming your way. So it’s just such an important note for people, because I think building those relationships is something people put off before it’s way too late. And then you, it’s hard to build them when you need them. It’s much better to cultivate those relationships over time before you need something that’s gonna feel a lot more authentic. Yes.

There’s nothing worse than, someone feeling like you’re using them because you’re just coming to them asking. Yes. 100%. Yeah. And so, I have just a couple more questions for you.

You were talking earlier about the fact that we, we can speak truth to power. And that can be one way we can show our leadership potential. So do you have a quick example or a tip about how do you disagree with someone that is more senior than you in a diplomatic, respectful way? Do I have an example of disagreeing with someone who’s superior to you in a respectful way? Well, I’m gonna give you an example of myself.

Those those are sometimes the best examples. As I’m trying to, sort through some items here. So whether the client example, I’ll give you my example. I before transitioning to leadership development work, my initial skill set background was information technology, which I reached a point where I was implementing this in the world of, learning and talent development. So that an organization, I had been brought in to the organization, and they were having trouble with how the senior meetings were being run.

And I wanted to change how it was being done, and I was meeting with Pushback. And in part, one of the things that I wanna do is use a different platform than what was being used by the organization. And the leadership team for the information technology said, we’re not going to implement the program that you’re asking for. And I told my superior that this is what we need. Here’s why we need it.

I made a business case. And he says, okay, Eddie. Well, this is what you believe, then I’ll support you. Tell me what you need. I said, did you tell them to get out of my way?

I I I even told him, I said, I don’t even buy the solution. That’s how convinced I am. I will buy it. I will pay for it. I will prove the concept.

I should tell them to get out of my way. Let me do this. So now I said that, and we both had a good laugh about it. And so but, the idea was, if you’re going to do pushback, you have to have done your research. You have to make a business case, and it’s based on fact.

And in this case, I was willing to bet my career on it, bet my job on it. Well, the idea, is everybody can’t do that. But are there scenarios where you can bring facts, stats, and proof of concept to a to a scenario where it will make things better? As it turns out, he did have them get out of my way. He and then he says, I’ll I’ll tell them to get out of your way.

And in fact, you don’t have to pay for it. I will pay for it. Right? So that was a win win for me. Now the pressure was on.

I had to prove concept. The concept changed so well, and I and I laid down the strategy for how these meetings should be run, how we can do it more effectively To the point that one day, I got a call, and the call was from the CEO. And he said to me, Eddie, I have a problem. And this was, at a time where I was for oil services company that the the oil prices were very high. So they were having problems with the oil pricing, and so they couldn’t fly the executives all around anymore.

He says, I can’t fly everybody around. We need to run these meetings virtually. This is long before COVID. And I understand you can help me. I said, yes.

He he he had heard about the solution I had been piloting in the company. And so we had this conversation, and he said, I want you to start running my my meetings. And so I I to get the executives out of the air. And so I started running those meetings, which was the most important meeting of for the corporation. The, quarterly business review, QBR.

I didn’t know what a QBR was at that point. But every corporation has these, and it happened because I took that step. I showed that initiative and the pushback that I gave. That worked out so well that I started I was saving the company with documented half a $1,000,000 every time that meeting was run because they didn’t have to fire everybody well. Fast forward, of course, that method got entrenched in a corporation.

I obviously got c level exposure, c level experience. There’s things I learned, because of just being in that environment, obviously. Right? And the amount of trust they have to have in me because I was exposed to content information that my managers weren’t exposed to. They couldn’t know what I was learning, what I was hearing.

And I was learning things before even investors and of things on the street. So I was under this cone of silencing even though I wasn’t an executive in the corporation. And so it was a tremendous opportunity that came my way because of that. And that got so entrenched. It became used to the corporation.

And by the time COVID came around, we didn’t know that was gonna come. Right? That’s what helped that company be ahead of everyone else in getting through that time period. What an incredible story. Oh, my gosh.

What an incredible story. And what what stands out to me is really important is you you didn’t just say, well, I want to do this. I feel like this would be really good. You made a business case. You made a sound argument in language, and in a frame that those decision makers could understand and cared about.

And so you translated what you wanted to do to the benefit it was going to have to them, the team, the organization. And I mean, wow, like what, talk about impact. Like that is, that is just fantastic. Just to see that and to know you can look back on that now and be like, wow. I I did that.

I played a big role in that. That must be really cool. It is. And it’s I hadn’t thought about it till you asked me that question, but, yes, that was one of the one of the pretty significant impacts that, that that, as I reflect back on my career. Yeah.

And thank you for sharing that. And the question I wanted to end on, I know you think a a lot about and you talked to a lot of organizations about the future of work as well, and what it’s going to take for emerging and current leaders to be successful in the next 5, 10, 15 years. And so I wanted to ask you, what leadership skills do you think are going to matter most in the next 5 years? Now that’s a good question. That’s an interesting question, from standpoint that I just spoke to a group of college students, last week.

Mhmm. And that’s one of the questions that they ask. Asked. So they’re working on their master’s degree, and they were surprised by my answer. And I gave, I think, 4 or 5 skills.

But the number one skill I said was learning ability. Learning ability followed by the interest in learning. So sometimes, we we stop having the ability to learn because we become myopic. We’re we’re we’ve closed our mind to new ideas. We we’re not taking in new information.

So the ability to learn, and so keeping ourselves open to learn and having an interest in learning. Because then when we are a, as a Microsoft CEO coined the phrase, a learn it all instead of a know it all. Now we have the ability to grow and develop, to be innovative. We cannot be innovative and apply any other solutions if we’re not continue not a continuous learner. I think that’s the number one skill.

And that one of the greatest examples of why that’s the number one skill to me is because look at what AI is doing. You can’t be a successful leader the next 5 or 10 years if you don’t learn and then master AI. It it’s just simply embedding itself in everything that we’re doing. So AI would be the other one, and I would say emotional intelligence. It’s no longer after a certain point about what you know, especially the higher levels of organizations.

Everyone’s got the top degrees. Everyone’s going to gone to the best schools. It’s about how you make people feel, how you’re treating people, and how you’re able to understand other people’s emotions. So emotional intelligence, I would say is probably the 3rd scale. And, I I’ll leave it at those 3.

Knowing those will help you be a successful leader over the next 5 to 10 years, in my opinion. Obviously, there’s some technical skills that come in there as well, but I think those 3 will help you do all the others. Yeah. It’s having the agility to respond to all of the changes, whether that, you know, people’s emotional changes, whether it’s the technological changes that it presents. And so, yep, the like you were saying, the willingness, but also the ability to learn, so key.

Yes. Eddie, thank you so much for being here, for sharing your wisdom with us. Where can people find you, connect with you, work with you? What’s the best place to send them? Thanks again for having me, Melody.

It’s been such an honor to be here with you on psychology at work. And, I I welcome people to follow me, social media, where you I’m on all the social major social media platforms. You can visit me at ask eddieturner.com. AskEddie is how I spell Eddie. Eddieturner.com.

Thanks for tuning in to today’s episode of psychology at work. If you enjoyed the show, I’d be so grateful if you could take just a minute to rate and review wherever you are listening. It’s how we reach more professionals just like you. And if you’d like to see even more content on how to feel more self assured, grounded, and in control of your emotions and reactions at work, follow me on LinkedIn or head to the links in the show notes.