Melody Wilding: Well, today’s conversation has been a very long time coming because when my book Managing Up came out a few months ago. So many people said to me, you have to meet Sabina. She just wrote a book called You’re the Boss, so you have sister books, and they were exactly right. I am so glad that they recommended that because we are here today.

Now, if Managing Up helps you navigate the power dynamics above you and get what you need from the people in charge, then Sabina’s book helps you as the person who is leading, really help lead those below you with clarity and integrity when you are the one in charge. So together, they’re kind of like both sides of the equation for you there.

But there is a common thread between them and that is this idea of navigating pressure. Not the big obvious kind of pressure, the tight deadlines, the major reorgs demanding clients. What I’m talking about is the more insidious kind, the kind that is invisible, but it is just ever present. That feeling that everyone wants something from you. That you have to keep constantly proving your value, that if you don’t show up perfectly, people might lose faith in you.

And that’s the type of pressure we’re gonna be talking about today, because it can be toxic if we don’t know how to handle it well, it can change people. It can change how you think, how you relate to others, how you show up over time. And that impacts how people see you, how they trust you, and ultimately the results that you’re able to get.

So if you are in leadership today, you are not just managing a team, you are also managing up. You are navigating stakeholders. You’re balancing all the different expectations around you. You’re trying to protect your team from burnout while trying not to burn out yourself. Every direction is pulling at you and that weight,

that can chip away at your best intentions without you real even realizing it. So my guest today, Sabina Nawaz, she has spent years coaching senior leaders at Fortune 500 companies and helping them through exactly this dynamic. And in her book, you’re the Boss. She offers what I think is really a refreshing take on becoming the manager, the leader that you want to be.

So, Sabina, welcome. I am so happy to have you here.

Sabina Nawaz: Thank you so much, melody. As you’re describing these and talking about these, I just keep going back to how much our books are a pair. Down to the exact same release date when we brought these books into the world.

Melody Wilding: That’s right, that’s right

Sabina Nawaz: I’m really to be digging in

Melody Wilding: They really are. They really are so compatible with each other. ‘Cause, as we were saying, even if, even if you are someone who is at a senior level, you are managing down, you are managing up to the people above you. And so, in your book, You’re the Boss. You have this line that really stopping me in my tracks.

You say pressure, not power is what corrupts people. That is such an interesting idea. So I wanna start there. Can you unpack what you mean by that?

Sabina Nawaz: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes, because, um, we like to say power corrupts and I think that’s wrong. It is pressure. Now what does that really mean? Pressure is, is uh, I call it the silent corruptor. Just like what you were saying, Melody, it’s not the o obvious things, oh, calendar, time, time zones, to-do lists, emails, slack.

It is the stuff that’s underneath it, and that underneath it is everywhere. It’s constant. And when unmanaged turns great intentions into destructive habits. One of the times when I was a lousy manager, it didn’t just squeeze my time, it squeezed out my humanity and I became one of those bosses. And we all have the potential to do that.

Uh, so what does it mean that pressure corrupts, you know, imagine those of you who are listening to this right now, think about the types of pressure you’ve been under in the past week. And in that past week, have you done something or said something to someone else, whether you’re a manager or not, that you’re not proud of. You were perhaps a little snippier, a little shorter, a little, arch of your eyebrow. It doesn’t have to be this big outburst, which could also happen, but these things that, that you, uh, your better self would know better, but in the moment you let down your guard or you got extra righteous. Every one of us as a human being will sometimes do things under pressure that are not healthy.

Not healthy for us, but more importantly, not healthy for other people. That’s what I mean by pressure corrupts. And I, I came at this through my own experience, so I know that I’m not always the perfect boss or the perfect coworker either.

Melody Wilding: Well, tell us a little bit more about your background. ’cause I always find that fascinating how when people come from industry and executive background and now are doing this work, so you were, you were very candid a moment ago to say, I’ve, I’ve seen this in myself when I snap or you said I lost my humanity, which is,

that’s big and I can, I can, I can relate. I understand what you mean. So yeah, bring us back to that time. Where were you? What were you doing?

Sabina Nawaz: Well, at one point in my career at Microsoft, I was a lousy manager. Now, it didn’t start out that way. For the first about nine years, I managed teams that built software and just about everybody said, you’re the best boss we’ve ever had. Why? I cared for them. I coached them.

I really invested, poured my heart and soul into their development and growth, giving them clear feedback. A lot of things that you might talk about in your book happened automatically for me because that’s how maybe I was wired and I had the time and interest to do it. Those were great years. Then I moved to running Microsoft’s management development.

 That went great. Initially, when I was eight months pregnant, my boss left and I took on her job responsibilities in addition to my own at eight months pregnant, and then the first day I’m coming back from parental leave, Melody, I’m putting on lipstick for the first time in five months. My assistant Lori calls me frantic.

Where are you? Steve expects you in 30 minutes. This is Steve Bomber, the CEO of the company. I’m hitting warp speed on the freeway to Microsoft. Lori is reading me the memo I’m supposed to discuss with him and that set the pace and tone for my return to work. Inbox overflowing. Calendar jam packed. Infant at home.

No sleep, no peace, no patience. Guess what, what you said at the beginning. I morphed overnight from caring and nurturing to snippy and short. Still five foot, three short, but now also short-tempered. I micromanaged, under crushing deadlines. I don’t have time to provide you with detailed instructions, let alone repeat them.

Figure it out. You’re big boys and girls. When someone would come to my office, I would leave all 10 fingers and my keyboard look over my shoulder. You know that gesture. I’m very important. More important than you. I’m super busy. Spit it out. Move on. Here’s the kicker. I thought I was crushing it. I was doing a great job.

I was being very efficient. Until my colleague Joe stops by and here I am, you know? Yes. Joe. Looking over my shoulder and I take a look at Joe’s eyes and I swivel around, hands off the keyboard. I know he’s about to say something where my shoulders are already tightening and Joe says, zach is crying in his office because of what you said. My gut falls to the floor. My whole body turns hot with shame. And I think, how did I go from being caring and nurturing to this somebody people apparently are afraid of and really don’t like?

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Sabina Nawaz: And I take a beat. I drink a glass of water, walk over to Zach’s office, knock on his door. Can you go for a walk with me?

And I say, I am so sorry for how I behaved in that meeting. There is no excuse. Zach’s eyes brim with tears. And it is in that moment I realize this is what I want, is to treat people with humanity. And somehow I had lost that. Trying to navigate that intersection of pressure and power had left my brilliant team feeling bruised, feeling unmotivated. I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t sleeping. I sure wasn’t leading at that time. So this is why I also wrote this book, melody, because. I don’t believe there is a thing as a good boss, purely good boss or a purely bad boss. They both reside in us. It’s how we manage the conditions that shape our behaviors. So we are not falling victim to them.

We’re not getting trapped in them and acting out because look, when, when people talk to me about managing up, and I’m sure you do the same thing, is I say, you are not special. Your boss doesn’t have you in their sights. They’re not the, they’re, the reason they were frowning is not because they’re trying to fire you or they hate what you did, it’s something else that’s going on.

So let’s figure out what that is together and, and then get more strategic in how you, how you navigate this power and pressure dynamic.

Melody Wilding: Yes. Oh my gosh. What a story. And what I notice about it though, is you, you had to have enough self-awareness and enough integrity to say what my behavior caused for that other person is not acceptable to me.

Sabina Nawaz: Hmm. Hmm.

Melody Wilding: Sometimes what I see happen is people will continue to give external reasons to justify their behavior.

But I, I am under pressure, but if I wouldn’t be so snappy if I didn’t have these 10 other initiatives that I’m overseeing. And maybe that person needs to be tougher in order to, there was just an article in the Wall Street Journal that came out, I think last week that was talking about how bosses are basically saying, toughen up.

You need to get more competitive to work here, and, so how do you, uh, I love that idea of the, the good and the bad bosses. They are both within us, but how do you help people get out of the external blame and actually see that this is, this is something they, navigating that intersection of power and pressure is something they need to take ownership of within themselves.

Sabina Nawaz: Absolutely. There are four. The book opens with four myths. One of them is that the myth that there’s a good boss and a bad boss. Another myth is, “yeah, but” is a justified stand. Says you were going, but this, but this, but this. Yes. That’s a flag. That’s a flag right there. Pause if you use, yeah, but a lot, it’s a flag that you’re about to go into dangerous territory.

Now. What is your ultimate goal as a manager? Your ultimate goal as a manager is to have an organization that hums well together people who are motivated so that they do a great job and they produce the right business results. When you recognize that your “yeah buts” are actually tanking business results, not creating more productivity, you might start to do something differently. No one wants to be a boss who acts out under pressure or abuses power, in the name of productivity. It’s understanding that research shows that when bosses treat employees poorly, employees not only turn around and play video games, but they deliberately insert mistakes into their work.

Think about that. They’re willing to sabotage themselves, just to get back at the boss. So that’s, so? We need to be clearheaded as we approach this with speed and with enough spaciousness to have that clear headedness. So now I’m not jamming you with 50 messages in an hour.

I’m also carving out that spaciousness to think the big thoughts.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Yeah. And you, you were talking about the, so we went through the, those first two myths. What are the second two?

Sabina Nawaz: Uh, another one is that authenticity is singular.

So a lot of people I coach, and I’m curious, Melody, to hear if, if you get this as well, like in an initial discovery session, let’s call it, uh, whether coaching is the right thing and what they wanna do about it. So we might say, what is it that you want? And they’re like, well, I want to make all these changes, but I gotta be me. I have to be authentic. I don’t want a coach to come and change my authenticity, my authentic nature. And you know, if you think about that, which part of you is authentic?

Is it the part for you and I, the person who’s showing up in, in this podcast. Is that the authentic you Melody, or is it the authentic you when you’re relaxing at the end of the day with your partner binge watching Netflix? Is it the authentic you when you’ve done your fabulous LinkedIn Learning class?

Is it when you’re hanging out with girlfriends? Or even better if you’re really authentic? Shouldn’t you remain true to your five-year-old self? And when you don’t get your way, maybe have a little hissy fit. So authenticity is role dependent. What often people say about authenticity is about their values.

 That’s what they’re talking about. And even our values are not totally black and white. There’s a hierarchy of values. Let’s say my value to keep my child safe is more important than my value to speak up about an injustice. If we are getting attacked by somebody, I’m, I’m going to first make sure my kids are, um, in a safe space instead of stopping and, and picking that battle.

In other situations, I’m gonna pick that battle, when somebody’s treating someone unfairly. So, so authenticity is multiple. It’s not a singular.

 The other myth is that business is not personal. And, uh, this is particularly important right now in this world of restructuring reorgs, uh, reductions in forces, um, all sorts of things.

People are worried. Everybody is worried. CEO on down. Around the macroeconomics uncertainty, a big divide in the United States politically, that comes into the workplace as well. There are all these fears and managers who go and say, you shouldn’t worry. Immediately, people go, well, I wasn’t worried before, but maybe I should be worried now.

Or if I am worried, it feels like you’re discounting my feelings. Business is personal. We pour our heart and soul into work. We push through tough conversations and impossible deadlines because we are looking for meaning. We’re looking for significance. So learn ways to honor the emotions that come along with the production of the work that happens.

Melody Wilding: I love all of these. I love these are, these are such helpful just mindset shifts to take on board even, even if the, this is just the introduction of the book, which is fantastic. And so talk to us about, um, we’ve been exploring this idea of navigating that intersection of pressure and power. So how do we build a greater capacity to meet the pressure?

Instead of just being consumed by it and going to that place where we’re, we’re short, we’re snippy, we lose our humanity.

Sabina Nawaz: Yes. Beautiful. Beautiful question. Mm. The first thing I would suggest is when you find yourself under pressure, do nothing. Uh, this is counterintuitive because most of us under pressure, double our to-do list. We, uh, give up workout time. We give up that time binge watching Netflix with our loved one.

Because we think, oh, if I just hunker down and get one more thing done, I’ll have less pressure. Now, of course, this just creates more pressure because now you’re getting more messages, more responses, and are you really working on the right thing? A practice I have with my clients is called Blank Space. 

Blank space is taking two hours a week back to back where you unplug. You don’t talk to anybody. You’re certainly not online. You don’t read. You are not in your office space, sometimes, not even at home. And you go back and step back and think the big picture. Think about the bigger thoughts. There are specific tactics on how you can set that in place.

I have a template for it. And, what we found is, again, through research, that our biggest insights come when? When we’re in the shower, when we’re commuting, when we’re exercising, where we cannot multitask, when we can switch off parts of our prefrontal cortex, what we realize. The answer is already there, just waiting for the noise to die down so the signal can get amplified.

When do we feel high pressure? When we think, I don’t know how to work my way out of this situation. I don’t have an answer. If you simply stop and do nothing, the answer might reveal itself. The other benefit to this blank space practice is some of the smaller things will fade away. They’ll take the, their appropriate place, which is priority number 100 as opposed to priority number one, where it’s waking you up in the middle of the night.

You’ll realize these things are, are things I really don’t need to sweat. Here’s the bigger thing I need to put my attention to.

Melody Wilding: That, that idea of taking the pause is something I am learning, I am learning still every day. I am one of those people where when there’s, when there’s a problem or when stress comes, yeah, my first impulse is to do more, respond quickly. And like you were saying, that only creates, sometimes I try to work ahead of myself, as well, but then I end up redoing work because I was anxiously like anticipating something and I didn’t wait to see how it would play out or come together, and then I have to redo what I did. So you actually end up creating more, more stress, more work for yourself if you just had, if you just allowed yourself to sit with the discomfort of this is hard, and just let the overwhelm be there without taking action on it.

Sabina Nawaz: Exactly, exactly, yes. And sometimes recognizing it doesn’t even need to be done. This one person who had asked me to do something for them and I thought, oh gosh, I really do wanna help this person, but I’m so strapped this week, it’s gonna be really difficult. So I said, I would really like to help you, and I am really pinched for time this week.

When would you like some thoughts and, and she said, oh, by the end of the month. And I said, great. Then do you wanna send me an updated document at the end of the month so I can send you my thoughts? Guess what? It’s been a year, she hasn’t. Because she needs to do some work herself. So people love to put things on your plate too.

And if you pick it up, you’re doing work that you don’t need to do until they do their part of the work.

Melody Wilding: I am so glad you said, said this. I’m telling my clients that all of the time do not, do not pick up the ball, put it back in their court. If someone says you sends you something and you can’t get to it for another week or two, put the onus back on them to say, Hey, can you circle back in two weeks? That’s when I’ll have bandwidth for this.

And, and as you said, magically, many times they don’t, and the situation just resolves itself, which is great. Yeah, yeah.

You, you have this concept of the Yes List. So tell us about that, because, you know, we’re, we’re talking about giving yourself space and giving other people back responsibilities. So where does the Yes List fit into that then?

Sabina Nawaz: Melody, as you were talking about, you wanna practice some more blank space. I thought, oh, I, I wish Melody would put that on her Yes List. So this is perfect timing.

The Yes List goes hand in hand with something called a micro habit. A micro habit has two components. It is micro, it is minuscule. It is really tiny, ridiculously small, so that you will actually do it, and it’s done every day.

The yes list then has two or three micro habits you might be working on. And at the end of every day, perhaps while you’re flossing your teeth, you go, did I do it or not? Yes, no, sometimes are not applicable. But if you have too many not applicables, you might wanna question that as well. Let me give you a concrete example.

Uh, let’s say you are trying to. Do some blank space time to insert a pause, but the idea of two hours a week back to back when you don’t do that at all is not only daunting, I guarantee you, you won’t succeed. At first, it would be the idea of telling someone who’s hasn’t gone to the gym in two years. Uh, yeah.

Go to the gym for half hour every day. It’s just not going to happen. This is why many of us don’t even make New Year’s resolutions anymore. We know how that take place. So if in your case to insert the pause, it’s not two hours a week, it’s not half an hour, it’s not even five full minutes. It’s even smaller, but something you would do every day.

So it might be, I’m thinking 30 seconds. 30 seconds. And you would piggyback it to something, for example. Mm. Before I shut down for the evening, or first thing in the morning, I’m gonna take probably first thing in the morning before everything else starts coming at you. I’m gonna set a timer for 30 seconds and just stare off into space and do nothing.

So that, and if 30 seconds you find yourself not doing it, you reduce it further. 15 seconds or five seconds. I like to say I have a daily meditation practice. You know how long my meditation practice is? One inhale and one exhale, but I do it every day. And now of course, over time I’ve actually, I have many days with way longer meditation practice.

So you would put that on your Yes List. The Yes List then has these two or three things that you’re working on. By checking that every single day and looking at it over the course of a week or the course of a month, you start to see patterns as well. Oh, I tend to do my blank space just fine ex every day except for Wednesdays.

I wonder what goes on on Wednesday morning. Maybe you have a, a particular neighbors stopping by on Wednesday mornings that distracts you, or whatever it is, right? So, so it gives you some themes and the idea of the Yes List being that what gets measured gets done. But not making it an onerous task, something that takes about 20 to 30 seconds to do.

Again, in thinking in small increments, because you’re simply saying yes, no, yes, no. And because the micro habits are so small. You’re about to fill it out and you’re going, no, well actually I could just take the 30 seconds right now and do it so that I can give myself that gold star.

Melody Wilding: Mm. Yeah. And you’re setting yourself up to win, right? And, and, and also not give up on yourself to, to not let the pressure win because it’s very easy to, like you were saying, justifying, well, I have all these things I need to get to. My inbox is filling up. Well, I’ll just, I’ll do that meditation tomorrow.

But then, then the pressure wins. And so I love the idea of, I think it might be James Clear who has that phrase of never post two zeros in a row. It’s okay to skip a habit for one day, but don’t, don’t make a habit of doing that. Make it so micro that it’s achievable.

Yes. Which is

Sabina Nawaz: Exactly. Exactly. Because it motivates us to go do it the next day versus, oh, I didn’t go to the gym for 30 minutes now it’s a huge impedance to going the next day.

Melody Wilding: Right, right.

You also have this concept that I think you call Multiple Meanings. And what, what does that mean? How do we use it? Where does that come in?

Sabina Nawaz: Hmm. We talk, we’ve talked quite a bit about pressure. The other dynamic in the book is around power. So if pressure is the silent, corrupter, power is the great divider, it separates us and we lose sight of how we’re coming across in our position of power under pressure and the impact it’s having, but more importantly, the damage it might be doing because nobody wants to tell the person in a position of power what they don’t wanna hear.

You have a boss who’s unaware of her impact, and you have an employee who’s unwilling to speak up. Power creates this gap, this separation that makes it hard to see things clearly. One of these power gaps is being caught in the trap of a singular story. Now, as a manager, you didn’t get there by being unsuccessful, by being wrong all the time.

You are right most of the time, and therefore you immediately jump to some assumptions, some conclusions. Your employee is speaking, you cut, you’ve cut them off, and you’ve, you, you’ve, you’ve gotten to the bottom line. Not realizing, first of all how that lands on them and secondly, that your assumptions might be outdated, incomplete, or incorrect in this particular case.

But if you, if you start acting that way, you train people not to speak up. Multiple Meanings combats that singular story. It provides multiple. Ways to look at the same challenge. I noticed I, I can say more about that, but I noticed he was smiling and I’m wondering, melody, what was that about?

Melody Wilding: I’m, I’m smiling for a few reasons because this, it, this, this goes the other way as well when people are making assumptions and have one solitary meaning about their boss’s behavior as well. Right. And, and I have a similar tool that I teach that’s called the Rule of Five, which is what are five other possible explanations for this person’s behavior?

Yes. And.

Sabina Nawaz: Exactly.

Melody Wilding: I, I just, I love how we’re applying this to leadership or managing up, navigating your career, but this is also just, these are tools for life. Because you may do this in, you may do this with your colleague, people that you have a horizontal relationship with. You may do this with your spouse, and each of those, whether it’s pressure at home or it’s pressure at work, that, that, that adds to, or, or rather shapes how you’re showing up across all those different domains.

Sabina Nawaz: You bet. You bet it multiple meanings. I credit multiple meanings for improving my marriage and I created it as a game that my, uh, to play with my boys when I took them to school. So because I wanted them to build this muscle so they could automatically look at a situation and not immediately fall into that singular trap.

Or we can hold each other. Like I, you know, as human beings, we all do that. And now sometimes, well, I’ll get a full head of steam about, oh, that’s so and so, look at what they did. And my, my, one of my sons will go, well, but it could also be this or it could be that. So yes, it’s your rule of five. It’s multiple meanings.

It’s the same, same idea.

Melody Wilding: That’s right, that’s right. Now we’re, we’re coming up on the end of our time already in this, I, I, I want to encourage people to get your book because I mean, we’re barely even scratching the surface here, but I do wanna ask you about, what do you think people misunderstand about being a good manager in today’s environment?

Sabina Nawaz: Hmm hmm. Yeah, we do. We do live in unusual times, and who knows, maybe we’re just particularly narcissistic about our times and everybody says that. But we live in unusual times, at least in my view of the work worlds where I’ve been there for a few, couple of decades now, or three decades. 

Uh, it is, it is actually that they think, here’s my management philosophy and I’m gonna apply it. So it’s getting stuck in a, you could call it a singular story. Um, it’s also sort of a, a singular mindset. A fixed mindset of, and, and their philosophy is great. It’s not necessarily poor, but it doesn’t work.

It’s not one size fits all anymore. You’ve got, you’ve got, I mean, just start with hybrid workplace. Mm. Many organizations have tried to mandate going back to work. It’s not working. It’s just not, we can kid ourselves, but you know, the ones who are forced to show up under duress are either looking for another job or playing video games again.

Right. So, so, so it’s, it’s, um, you need a much more customized approach to managing than we have in the past. Now, how do you scale that up? There are ca you can still categorize them. You can still have buckets of, okay, if somebody needs to do this this way here, you know, but have like four or five ways to manage as opposed to the way you don’t have to have 500, but you’d need four or five different ways to look at things.

Melody Wilding: Yes, that flexibility. That adaptability, I talk about this and Managing Up, having that organizational awareness, you, you have to have that as a leader as well to respond to your people, the conditions around you as well.

So, Sabina, any final words you wanna leave people with?

Sabina Nawaz: Um, I’ll go back to power. The biggest thing you can do when you’re in a position of power is to exercise what I call your shut up muscle. There are a lot of smart people. If you’ve done your job well, you’ve hired smart people. You’ve grown smart people. Let them speak. Let them grow and develop. Be the third or fourth person to speak, not the first.

Not only is it helpful to bring out the smarts in the room, once power speaks, nobody wants to disagree. Nobody wants to give the full truth feedback. So if you truly want the best idea to go forward. Also use your shut up muscle.

Melody Wilding: Such wonderful advice. And in managing up I talk about how you teach people how to treat you, and in the case of being a leader with, with power, your behavior is also teaching people how to treat each other. Because you are creating the norms. So I really appreciate that reminder, and I just want to encourage everyone to get your book.

You’re the Boss and, uh, where can folks find you and connect with you further?

Sabina Nawaz: Yeah. Uh, the best place would be my website, sabinanawaz.com. They can also download templates and book bonuses once they order the book there and, uh, sign up for my substack there. Pressure proof, which is about how do you, you know, never gonna be pressure free. So how do you make yourself pressure proof?

Melody Wilding: Amazing, Sabina. Thank you.