Episode 22: What most leaders get wrong—and how to do it right

[00:00:00] Host: Welcome to Keep It Simple, a podcast where we’re challenging business and leadership experts to cut through the noise of the corporate world and get to the bottom of what makes the workplace actually work. I’m your host, Mina Vogia. Keep It Simple is brought to you by [00:00:30] TalentLMS, the training platform built for success and designed with simplicity in mind.

[00:00:36] Together, let’s uncomplicate what makes a winning workplace. You can find out more at talentlms.com.

[00:00:46] On today’s episode, 

[00:00:48] Neena: Companies also make the mistake of giving leadership development to people who need it the least. People may get identified as high performers, high [00:01:00] potentials. And they start investing in them while there are other people who need that level of investment who may be what you would call diamonds in the rough.

[00:01:11] So if they got some level of investment in them, they could really do well. 

[00:01:16] Host: We’re joined by leadership coach, CEO of Newberry Solutions, and former Deloitte exec Neena Newberry. Drawing on her 30-year career, she debunks the biggest myths about what it takes to become a good leader [00:01:30] and tells us why widening the pool for potential leaders is not only the right thing to do for employees, but also great for business.

[00:01:39] Stay with us.

[00:01:45] Neena, thank you so much for joining me today and being here to talk about leadership. So you’ve been [00:02:00] coaching leaders for over 15 years. And before that you were in executive roles at Deloitte for more than a decade. So you’ve got plenty of experience seeing the landscape of not only leadership, but business itself change.

[00:02:14] What do you think are the biggest myths when it comes to a good leader, and have these myths shifted over time? 

[00:02:22] Neena: Yeah, I think that’s a great question to start off here. And one of the myths is that leaders must [00:02:30] be outgoing or extroverts. You know, I think we’ve been living in a world where that is valued so much, but there are different books that have been published around this.

[00:02:41] And actually one of my favorites is called Quiet: The power of introverts, and I think some of the best leaders out there are introverts. And so we just have to be mindful of how we allow people to engage, how we allow people to think ahead of time, so they have [00:03:00] an opportunity to contribute in more powerful ways.

[00:03:03] And that particular myth, I think, has been there for a really long time. The other piece that I’d say that I’m seeing a shift in is that leaders have to have all the answers. Or in other words, they can’t be vulnerable. And I think with the pandemic and all the aftermath of that, we’ve seen some changes there for sure, where people are willing to step out, [00:03:30] say more of what’s going on, and it really paves the way for others to be able to do the same, especially when you think about the focus on psychological safety, mental health.

[00:03:42] If your leaders are not recognizing that vulnerability is a, uh, is a way to demonstrate strength. It’s really difficult. And so some of the most powerful and influential leaders, I think, are the ones who are willing to say [00:04:00] when they don’t know something or when something’s really challenging and or saying that they don’t have the answers and they need to open up the discussion to more people and get more input.

[00:04:11] Another one that’s been out there for a while is that, you know, leaders are born and not made, and I think that’s been evolving over time. And frankly, we wouldn’t have a leadership development company if we didn’t believe that people could change. And, you know, cause if you just have [00:04:30] your, your set of leaders, you know, who are born, it, that really keeps the pool fairly limited, and over 75 percent of our coaching clients get promoted after our work together. So it’s more about mindset, motivation willingness to learn, and to be able to take action because action is such an important part of growing and developing as a leader. And even if you’re taking action in the wrong [00:05:00] direction, but taking a step in any direction and seeing what happens.

[00:05:05] Host: You know I feel that all these three myths, they do have a common streak within them of sorts, especially when you’re talking about introverts being good leaders. I’ve also come across a few of them, and their quiet strength has made a major difference in, especially when it comes to working [00:05:30] with startups and entrepreneurs who have a lot of things changing up on them.

[00:05:34] Um, having that sort of steady, silent strength really helps anchor them. In a recent TalentLMS survey, 45 percent of managers feel their company isn’t doing enough to develop future leaders. Why do you think so many companies are still falling short when it comes to leadership development? 

[00:05:53] Neena: Yeah, there are so many different things at play here when you think about how the world has changed.

[00:05:58] And the first thing [00:06:00] you have to really look at is the environment that people are in. And what I mean by that is many organizations have restructured or reorganized or they’re running very lean, and they may have people in roles who aren’t actually fully prepared for those roles. So it makes it really challenging in terms of kind of overall performance and if they’re running very lean, not only do [00:06:30] managers have to manage the work and all of that, you know, there’s that need to really develop their teams.

[00:06:38] And so it, you know, the pressure’s higher, more is at stake, you know, in, in the current environment. But there are a few things that have just been part of the whole leadership development challenge all along, and part of it is the misconception that more content equals more learning, and that’s just not the [00:07:00] case.

[00:07:00] So when you look at the approach that many organizations have, it is either, you know, we’re going to give you access to libraries of content through digital platforms, or we’re going to put you in a meeting, you know, a training session, for a day, two days, maybe three days, it could range somewhere around there.

[00:07:24] And then that’s it. Great. Now you’re trained. Now you can go do all this stuff. And the reality is [00:07:30] that you have to be able to apply the learning. Learning comes from doing. So you need exposure. You need exposure to content as well as the opportunity to practice because I mean, even think about it in sports, think about all the practices you have, right?

[00:07:48] But when it comes to the business world, we don’t really think about that as much. And it’s such a simple thing. But the focus is on how do we help expose you to something that’s [00:08:00] going to either increase your self-awareness or give you insight about a specific strategy or thing that you should be thinking about or different best practices, and then help you reflect about what does that really mean for me?

[00:08:14] And then what’s the action that I need to take? So just giving you suggested actions and items to help you determine how to move forward. And then the other piece that I want to mention is that sometimes the content isn’t [00:08:30] necessarily the most relevant content. And what I mean by that is there’s a need to step back and say, what are our people really

[00:08:38] struggling with? Or based on how our environment is changing, what do we want to emphasize in terms of different leadership skills? And the final thing I’ll mention is that companies also make the mistake of focusing on giving leadership development to people who need it the [00:09:00] least. And what I mean by that is there’s a leadership development paradox, which is that, you know, people may get identified as high performers, high potentials.

[00:09:10] And they start investing in them, and then they continue to do that. While there are other people who need that level of investment, who may be what you would call diamonds in the rough. So if they got some level of investment in them, they could really do well. So one of our things that we’re really [00:09:30] passionate about is being able to make leadership development more accessible to a much broader audience.

[00:09:37] Host: You brought up some really interesting facts, and if we have to boil it down to a simpler explanation, I guess it’s a case of quality over quantity and that personalization aspect, which is something that we found that a lot of employees are really looking for to get that tailored learning and that opportunity to [00:10:00] apply their learning, as well as, of course, relevance.

[00:10:03] Now, one of the questions we asked in a recent survey to employees from 600 managers across companies was what qualities are lacking in your already existing leaders? And a big one that came up was a willingness to accept feedback and learn from mistakes. It really topped the list. So firstly, is this something that you feel resonates with what you see and how can leaders actually work on this?[00:10:30] 

[00:10:31] Neena: Yes, and I would say for the feedback piece, it’s, it’s both things accepting feedback as well as being able to give it effectively. When I was at Deloitte, I led performance management for HR for a few years at the tail end of my career there. And one of the things that we did was completely revamp that whole area, both in terms of systems process.

[00:10:59] [00:11:00] And one of the things that I personally learned from that experience was, it doesn’t matter what systems and tools you have in place. The biggest thing is how do you drive the right kind of conversation between people that open feedback, that clarity around expectations, helping people make career choices as well.

[00:11:18] So I think when it comes to feedback, there are so many different things that come into play. One is people being concerned about [00:11:30] the, the relationship, you know, with, with the individuals. Some of it is people being so stressed out or moving so quickly that they’re not fully listening or hearing. You know, what’s being said and sometimes not pausing often enough to ask others for feedback, you know, in larger organizations, you tend to see more mechanisms that are in place, whether it’s 360 tools or something else, but in smaller organizations, you know, there, [00:12:00] you may not have those things formalized.

[00:12:02] So at a minimum, being able to ask people, what should I be doing more of? What should I be doing less of? Can be super powerful. And that’s less about feedback, but feed-forward, Marshall Goldsmith’s approach, you know, which makes it a little bit easier to not looking in the rearview mirror, but you’re really giving someone advice and counsel around the things that they should be doing.

[00:12:26] So the, the model that we actually use is from the Center for Creative [00:12:30] Leadership, the SBI models, situation, behavior, impact. And it is very simple. So what was the situation where, you know, the behavior occurred? What was the behavior and what was the impact and really identifying three or four impacts related to that, but that’s something that I tend to, or we tend to coach leaders in is the SBI model because it’s so simple to use, but the biggest thing around feedback is [00:13:00] clarity.

[00:13:00] Do not confuse the message. And so one of the other things that I ask people to really look at is when there are performance issues, either their own or someone else’s, what’s really going on? How much of that is around unclear expectations, or the learning curve being too high, or them not having the skills, or them being too stressed out, right?

[00:13:24] So a lot of times we don’t remember that stress has such a huge impact on [00:13:30] people’s performance, and sometimes, you know, when we’re saying that people aren’t willing to listen to feedback, it’s more that they can’t hear. Especially, you know, when you’ve given feedback multiple times to somebody. And you feel like you’re just saying the same things over and over again, that is the red flag to pause and say, can this person actually hear me?

[00:13:52] And maybe I’ve been giving them the feedback and giving them the strategies, but just because I said something doesn’t mean they heard me. 

[00:13:59] Host: [00:14:00] No, I love that. Cause at the end of the day, again, you come back to clarity and awareness. So I want to take us back to that survey we, we talked about a little bit before.

[00:14:10] The second and third qualities on that list were inspiring trust and empathy and awareness, which were essentially interpersonal skills. And you talked about awareness just now, but people have a lot of different terms for these skills, human skills, soft skills, and notoriously they’re the most elusive skills to [00:14:30] train.

[00:14:30] So what are your tips to L&D professionals that are trying to cultivate those skills in their organizations? 

[00:14:36] Neena: Yeah, I think it comes back to some of the things I was talking about earlier, which is really giving people an opportunity to practice, to practice and role play around different scenarios and scenarios that are common.

[00:14:53] In their type of work environment, and those aren’t usually difficult to figure out, it’s like, here’s some [00:15:00] patterns that we have or situations that tend to come up or common issues. And that may vary depending on the career level of the person. But I think those are really important. So there’s an element of being able to take some of these and sharing.

[00:15:15] What do these particular skills mean? And why do they matter? And what are we really trying to do as an organization? So connecting the dots to the bigger picture, but then bringing it down to earth and saying, okay, these are the kinds of [00:15:30] situations. You can really apply these in. Let’s create an opportunity for you to actually be able to practice some of those things and also have discussions with others.

[00:15:40] So, you know, when we were talking about developing future leaders and some of the approaches, you had talked about customization, and that’s absolutely something that we’ve seen. But the other part of it is looking at how you enable collaborative learning the peer-to-peer learning, I think, is one of the most [00:16:00] overlooked opportunities that’s out there.

[00:16:03] So everyone doesn’t have to be a master at everything, but the kind of discussion that opens up and happens when individuals are you know, talking to others who can relate to the kinds of situations that they’re in, and some of those individuals may have mastered some of these skills and have some great approaches in the culture that you are working in, right?

[00:16:28] The culture, the [00:16:30] context, and then others may not have mastered that stuff, but it’s a great opportunity to understand what are other people doing, and it’s a safer environment when it’s peer-to-peer. 

[00:16:40] Host: I’m really glad you brought up peer-to-peer because there’s this idea, and you talked about it a little bit earlier, that leadership is lonely.

[00:16:51] And when there’s this peer to peer mentorship and this guiding of each other and that collaborative spirit, I feel that it can [00:17:00] combat that sense of loneliness as well. 

[00:17:02] Neena: Yes, absolutely. Because, you know, I think when we’re struggling, sometimes people really do feel like, oh, my gosh, I’m the only one. And then if we come back to what I was talking about earlier in terms of vulnerability, like, how much of that is okay to show?

[00:17:19] Like, what kind of culture and environment am I working in? And is me reaching out to other people viewed as a sign of strength, meaning I [00:17:30] am smart enough to know when I need to bring some other perspective into the mix, when I need to compliment my skills and strengths with other people’s skills and strengths.

[00:17:40] So sometimes we’re just so worried about the optics that we don’t think about it. But you know, the more you step back and say, what is my positive intent behind what I’m doing? And that is something I am coaching on all the time, is when it starts to feel [00:18:00] too risky, too vulnerable, step back and say, What’s my positive intent for the organization, for the results, for the goals, for my team, and for myself?

[00:18:15] Host: We’ll get back to our chat with Neena in just a second, but first, we wanted to share TalentLMS’s two cents on taking leadership training to the next level. First off, democratizing leadership means training a diverse [00:18:30] range of candidates, which, of course, means a diverse range of learning styles and preferences.

[00:18:35] So it’s important to curate each course as close to a learner’s desired style as possible. Secondly, crafting simulations to represent real-world problems is a great way to confront would-be managers with the challenges that great leaders must overcome. Think realistic scenarios, characters, and images.

[00:18:55] Next, as Neena emphasized, leadership can be lonely, [00:19:00] so we need communities. That’s where webinars can come in. They’re a simple but effective tool for bringing team leaders together to share insights and tackle challenges both big and small. And finally, to make sure new skills actually stick, use certification programs.

[00:19:18] These help leaders master one skill at a time, reaching a level of confidence before speeding along to the next task, ensuring that knowledge is nailed for the long haul.[00:19:30] 

[00:19:34] I want to take us back to a comment you made earlier when it comes to leadership that usually we tend to provide opportunities for leadership to high performers. So how important do you think it is that employees across the organization get a chance to train as leaders? 

[00:19:53] Neena: Yeah, our belief is that leadership development should be offered at all levels, and [00:20:00] we really focus on those Foundational skills that are going to help people be successful at every level The reality is we never stop learning, and growing unless we decide we don’t want to right and so as an organization though, I think it’s really critical to align this development with the overall goals, the business strategy, like really connecting it to the so what, but also to the [00:20:30] individual needs and desires and what they’re wanting for themselves.

[00:20:34] Like both of those things have to be part of the mix for it to work. If you’re just focused on the business. It’s not as engaging. If people are just focused on themselves, then, you know, it’s tough for the business as well to really think about this as an investment like we never think about leadership development as a cost.

[00:20:55] It’s truly an investment in the future and building [00:21:00] capabilities. So that’s the other piece here is our focus is more around building capabilities versus just focusing on discrete skills, because at the end of the day, that’s what really translates into the impact.

[00:21:16] Host: I want us to talk about the argument for equipping more employees with leadership skills.

[00:21:22] We’ve seen sort of this phenomenon of the accidental manager, where people are promoted to fill an operational need [00:21:30] rather than because they are ready. So what’s your advice to these people that are in the situation without a well-tailored leadership program and what kind of skills can they start to focus on?

[00:21:42] Neena: So I think part of this is to really think about having a conversation internally in their companies about their organization’s willingness to invest in them. And so there’s a bit of that, um, case study, I would say, or business [00:22:00] case, I should say, that would be helpful. Meaning, what is it that they’re actually trying to be able to do more effectively?

[00:22:09] And how will that benefit the organization? Because then, when we, do talk about dollars, it feels like less of a cost and more of something that’s going to yield a benefit to the organization that they really care about. I mentioned this earlier, that we did some reverse engineering and looking back at [00:22:30] what’s helped our clients continue to advance and grow and be successful in their careers.

[00:22:35] And I’ll mention to you the eight areas that we came up with. And so, and I’ll just touch on them very briefly in terms of the kinds of things that are within those, the first one is strategically stand out. And this is really thinking about what you truly want to be known for as a leader, whether that’s for the capital L or a little L. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a big leadership position. [00:23:00] We all bring leadership skills to the table. But when we want someone to describe us, what are the kinds of things we want them to say? And what is our purpose and our passion? So it’s really connecting all those pieces together, as well as you know, how do we stand out in the wrong way?

[00:23:17] So that all gets kind of bundled in, in presence, if you will, focusing on the right work, you know, that’s another piece. So really looking at where are you [00:23:30] really putting your time, energy, and effort? And are you working in a way that’s sustainable? So we don’t really talk about work-life balance, but the reality is you can have the best skills in the world.

[00:23:40] If you are not able to work in a way that’s sustainable and you’re constantly burning out. It doesn’t matter, you can’t bring all of that to the table. So, you know, this one is about impact as well as looking at how you approach things. Communicating with influence and impact. That’s an important one. The expectations [00:24:00] shift as you continue to move up in your career.

[00:24:04] Another one is building visibility and credibility. So think about all the people you know. Who do great work, but they’re just putting their heads down and getting work done. You have to shine a light on it so that other people know how to tap into your strengths and capabilities. Navigating politics.

[00:24:25] This is more about power. And how do you think about power and how does that affect [00:24:30] how you show up and whether you engage or whether you don’t engage. Building a powerful network. This is not about you just standing on your own. When you think about your network and how much we rely on others to get work done.

[00:24:47] It is tremendous. So the quality of that network really matters. That’s informal and formal, but also to affects your growth, your learning. We talked about the peer to peer piece, but there are other [00:25:00] dimensions of that, that network as well. Building leadership, courage, and resilience is another one that is huge because you being able to stay grounded and centered and being able to work in an agile environment, especially as we think about AI as well, is really critical.

[00:25:18] And the last one that I want to mention is developing a high-performing team. And so with that one, it’s there are things that you should be doing [00:25:30] as a team member as well as someone who may be leading a team. And, you know, so feedback we’ve already touched on as being an important part of it. We’ve talked about expectations as well, but really looking at how are we structuring things in our teams.

[00:25:46] So those are the areas we are focused on. Because we see people get stuck in those time and time again. And we also see people underestimating the importance. And we recognize that those are some of the biggest [00:26:00] levers of high performance.

[00:26:02] Host: I think those eight guidelines are going to be really helpful for a lot of people.

[00:26:07] I do want to ask you about diversity. There’s a lot of talk about diversity in leadership, but research suggests that in 2024, less is being invested in initiatives that are designed to advance women in organizations. How do you see the progress of diversity in leadership when it comes to women and what are some steps companies can take to actually make a difference in this [00:26:30] space?

[00:26:32] Neena: Yeah, I’ve been focusing on women for a long time actually even back in my Deloitte consulting days so I was there when the women’s initiative started there back in 1993, and I will tell you it’s been a slow journey it really has been a slow journey, and I think you know, whether we’re talking about women or any other underrepresented group in leadership positions [00:27:00] it has to come back to What are we really trying to accomplish?

[00:27:05] And so the reframing the conversation so that the focus is less about trying to elevate a group and also in a way that might be viewed as giving others preferential treatment. You know, that’s, that I have never really seen that work effectively. It’s got to come back to what are the results that we’re trying to drive?

[00:27:29] Who are [00:27:30] our customers? Because a lot of customers are women you know, you look at the buying power who’s influencing decisions? So changing the conversation to focus more on who are we trying to serve? And who do we need to have in our company? And at what levels in order to make sure we’re bringing the right perspective.

[00:27:54] We’re bringing a range of ideas to the table and frankly, you know when [00:28:00] you look at the data on women and leadership skills relative to men, I mean, there are multiple studies that show women outperform in so many ways, and so this is really about how do you benefit? How do you benefit from a wider range of perspectives and skill sets?

[00:28:21] Host: Everything just seems to be coming back to impact and just being aware of what your impact is, what you want it to be, [00:28:30] and it, it goes from what we teach our future leaders to how we affect our, our professional community. Overall, now it’s really interesting. I read an HBR article which says leaders today need to improve their skills on just about everything, which is obviously a challenge from finance and digital literacy to emotional intelligence.

[00:28:57] Is it harder to be a leader now more than ever? [00:29:00] 

[00:29:00] Neena: It’s definitely challenging. It absolutely is, but one of the things that I tell people is you don’t have to tackle all of that all at the same time, meaning identify a couple of areas that are going to drive the biggest impact and start there. Sometimes we start off just trying to solve the entire giant problem, and we can get buried under the weight.

[00:29:25] Of all of that the complexity of the business world [00:29:30] and managing people, especially You know, whether it’s a hybrid workforce or a remote workforce I mean that adds complexity too and additional challenges But it certainly is highlighting the need for more of that emotional intelligence as you were mentioning As well as that agility and empathy, especially since you may not be in person with the individual, but really creating some mechanisms to be able to pause and understand.

[00:29:58] What’s going on for this [00:30:00] person? When issues are coming up, what are the questions I should be asking before I jump to conclusions? And some of this truly is just taking time to personally connect with people. 

[00:30:11] Host: Perfect. We always have this tradition where we ask our guests to give us a one sentence answer on how to keep things simple.

[00:30:21] So in one sentence, how can we keep it simple when it comes to creating more effective leadership programs? 

[00:30:28] Neena: Let me think about this. In [00:30:30] one sentence, keep it simple to how can we create more effective leadership programs? Okay. I’m going to come back to what I said before, which is focus on impact. 

[00:30:43] Host: Amazing.

[00:30:44] Thank you so much, Neena. It was lovely talking to you.

[00:30:48] Neena: Thank you. I’ve really enjoyed this.

[00:30:55] Host: Thanks for tuning in. In this season’s finale, we’ll be talking [00:31:00] to HR strategist, Brent Skinner, about the workplace trends of 2025. You can find Keep It Simple on all podcast platforms. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. This episode of Keep It Simple was brought to you by TalentLMS, the training platform built for success and designed with simplicity in mind.[00:31:22] For more resources on today’s topic, visit [00:31:30] talentlms.com/podcast.

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