Welcome to the New Manager Podcast. I'm your host, Kim Nichol. Hello and welcome. I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well. If you already follow me on LinkedIn, then you might have seen the story that I am about to share with you. If you don't yet follow me on LinkedIn, then I invite you to
connect with me over there. So last week I had an incredible opportunity to meet one of my clients in person for the first time and she we took a a photo and she posted it along with this short story onto her LinkedIn page. And so the photo is of the two of us standing in a Blue Bottle coffee shop in San Francisco, and she is holding a copy of my book. You might not know that I am an author and that I have written books because I don't often talk
about them here. But it's it's a it's a true thing that I've done. And this book is called Every Day Meeting Life in a Mindful Way. And Miriam received this book in Paris when she went to the award ceremony for the Cartier Women's Initiative. She's one of the fellows in the cohort this year, and some of you might know because I mentioned this a while back, but this year I've been working with the Cartier Women's Initiative to support the well-being programming for the cohort of
entrepreneurs. And it's a really cool program. I definitely recommend seeing what they're up to, learning more about them. And so Miriam and I connected through this program. She also received a copy of my book. And oh, and also, Miriam lives in Armenia. She is at Armenian. She lives in Armenia. Her company is based there. Her company is called Safe U and she is working to help people who are experiencing gender based violence in the world.
She's creating more safety for vulnerable populations of people. And she had come to San Francisco for a conference. And that is why, even though we met online, you know, while she's been in Armenia and also traveling for work, when it I learned that she was coming to San Francisco for this conference, I thought, Oh my gosh, what an opportunity we have to meet in person. So we met, we took this great photo, we had a coffee, we had a great conversation. And then this is what Miriam had
to share on her post, she said. This morning in San Francisco, I had a truly inspiring meeting with Kim Nickel, my incredible coach, a great author, and a podcast host. Kim specializes in empowering leaders to master the art of nurturing life and fostering growth, focusing on the profound human aspects of life and work. Being in her presence is an immediate source of serenity and tranquility.
It's a powerful reminder that women like Kim bring invaluable gifts to our world growth, humanity, and peace. I'm thrilled to have her book Every Day, Meeting Life in a mindful way, personally signed for both me and my daughter. I'm thankful to Kim for her support during my leadership journey within the Safe U mission. Her wisdom has been important in our shared pursuit of positive change. Grateful to Cartier Women's Initiative for this connection, and I loved that so much.
I love the way that she described this work. And I'm gonna include you in this work, too, because you're listening, because you're part of the, you know, my, my
listening community. And because the way I think about leadership and the way I think about the opportunity that we have when we step into higher levels of responsibility, higher levels of visibility and higher levels of power in our organizations, which is what happens when we become new managers, is that this is also how we nurture life and foster
growth. When we remember that we are humans first, that we are working with humans and we are being very intentional in the way that we do that. And this is a perspective that I hold. It's the way that you know everything that informs what I share with you here and the way that I coach and work with my clients. And I want to tell you that this is also, this is, this is not a requirement.
It is entirely possible to be a leader and to be seen, as I'm going to put this in air quotes, effective. You can be seen as an effective leader without holding this perspective. And the reason this matters is because so much about leadership is within and up to your individual discretion, how you lead, how you manage. You are the one who is making decisions about that.
Now. I think at at its worst, when we see this in ways that have us feeling really discouraged or seeing kind of the the way things work out in a very disappointing or sad way in the workplace is when we see people who are being just simply arbitrary, when leaders seem to be making random choices based on personal wins. And it's really frustrating, right? So arbitrary is when things are based on random choice or
personal win. And I think we've got examples of that both in the real world where we see people, people in leadership positions making decisions and we think what are they doing Like that is that does not seem to be based on anything other than this person's individual random, you know, decision, random personal win. And then on the other side of it, though we have the idea of things being within your discretion, discretion is a
little bit different. Discretion is the freedom to decide what to do in a particular situation. And for example, last week I had to bring my car in to be serviced. And the person who helped me was so helpful, was so wonderful. And at the end of the service, when I came back to pick up my car, he said, oh, and we've also decided to give you a 10% loyalty discount today. And I was, I mean, honestly, just very delighted and surprised. And it was.
So I thought, Oh my gosh, that's so thoughtful. You didn't have to do that. My guess is that it was within his discretion. He had the freedom to decide what to do in a particular situation, and this is true for you as well. Throughout your career, whether you are in a formal leadership role or not, you are always making decisions. You always have different, uh, freedoms to choose what will happen and when.
You are stepping into this leadership role and the decisions that you make will have a ripple effect on many, many, many other people. Then it really is in your hands to decide how do you want to do this, What kind of leader do you want to be, What kind of manager do you want to be? And so I think of this also as a bit of an art.
Like, you know, there's there's a little bit of getting to decide how you want to approach things, what your underlying philosophy is. You know, like the way that you perceive and think about people and challenges and the work you're there to do will absolutely inform the decisions that you make that will affect your team and the work and the way things get done and why. And so remembering that that number one will be helpful if you find yourself going into
comparison mode. Like if you're trying to decide, oh shit, I is it OK if I manage people in a way that, you know, is really kind? Is it OK if I have a generosity of spirit? Or is that considered being, you
know, like a pushover? Like being able to feel into the distinction between how it's entirely possible to be kind, to have a generosity of spirit with people, and also be really clear, be really direct, be really upfront about what the expectations are, about how individuals fit into the bigger picture. All of that can be true at the
same time. And that's one of the reasons, for example, when I teach about giving feedback, I make this distinction between we don't need to be brutally honest because I believe there is no need for brutality in our relationships at work. I don't think it solves anything. I don't think it helps anything. I I just don't think it's necessary.
So there's no need for for brutal honesty and at the same time we don't need to be around the Bush or kind of talk about things in a sideways kind of way. It actually takes a lot of respect and a lot of courage to turn toward someone and to name the difficult or the uncomfortable thing to say, OK, this is might be an uncomfortable conversation or this might be difficult to hear.
But the reason I'm telling you is because if I don't make it clear, if I don't help you understand or see this, then it's going to end up just, you know, being more protracted and difficult down the road. Like, if I don't tell you this thing now, then how can I expect you to learn or adjust or change or grow, right? The sense of the reason I'm being direct is because I have so much respect for you and I don't want to keep this information from you.
So we can really approach giving feedback in a way that understands and really respects the human experience part of it. And we're doing it not through being brutally honest. And we're also not just kind of, you know, trying to avoid hurting someone's feelings by not telling them something that is actually quite important, especially if it's about their performance or especially if it could potentially affect their
career growth. So you have so much discretion in how you choose to be a leader, in how you choose to manage people. And a lot of the time, I see my job as helping you to learn how to trust your own voice and judgment, because you are the one who is in your position and like needing to make decisions on the day, right? And it can be so easy to try to look to others and try to understand like, oh, like, what's the right answer?
What's the right approach? But really, I I want to help build in you an internal compass, like an internal sense of what is it that guides your decision making? Can you understand what your decisions are based on?
Can you make room for yourself to do things in a way that maybe hasn't been modeled before, meaning other people might question or challenge or say, Oh well, that's not how we do things here and yet still offer you that sense of internal confidence where you say, I know this is not how we've done things in the past and yet this is how I would like to approach things now For these reasons. And it might be the reason of I think it's time for us to change the way that we do things.
I think the shape of our business or the situation that our clients are experiencing or something happening within our organization, I think it's signaling it. There's it's time to perhaps approach this in a different way. And so we can work in a very collaborative and very kind and very supportive way, even as we are looking to perhaps do things differently than they have been done in the past or than they have been role modeled for us.
And this really is, in my mind, one of the essential examples of what it is to be a leader. Because sometimes being a leader means going first. Because you see a vision of what's possible but doesn't exist yet. You have something in mind. You have a vision of how we can work together to accomplish these goals or to achieve these results. And maybe nobody else can see it
yet. But from who you are and where you are and the way you see things, that's that leadership place and then the discretion to decide based on that vision. Here's how I will manage this situation. Here's how I will manage this person, this relationship, right. This is how I will manage this moment. All of that is something that you can initiate, that sits within you, and that is definitely a mindset shift. You know, often for us, early in our career, the job is about learning the job.
What am I supposed to do? And someone will say, here's the thing I need you to do and you need to do it in this way, Great. But that changes the longer you're in your career and the more that you grow into higher levels of leadership. Because often what happens is you'll find yourself in situations you've never been in before, and you might find yourself in situations that no one has been in before. So there's no pre written guide to how you are supposed to do things.
It is a lot of making decisions in the moment based on your discretion, your perspective, your underlying reasons, the vision that you see of what's possible. And then part of that job is to communicate to others what they need to know in order to be on board and in order to know what they are supposed to do now. I think we all want to have an understanding of how we fit into the big picture.
And we want to have clarity about what is expected of us and what we need to be doing now so that we can feel successful that we're doing the thing we're supposed to be doing and that we are not going to, you know, be scolded or, you know, have someone say, like, that was not what you were supposed to be doing or you did it all wrong. It's like if you want me to do a certain thing in a certain way, please tell me clearly so that I
can get to it right. And this is a lot of what that job is now as you move from that individual worker contributor role into this new mindset. So these are kind of the main concepts I wanted to share with you today. The awareness of the way that being a leader can be very
arbitrary. But when we come back to this idea of it's in your discretion, every decision, if you have the freedom to decide how things will be done, then that's something we want to understand and to identify and feel comfortable with the basis for your decisions because they might look different than someone else's. And the perspective that I hold, that I'm guessing is also true of you. Otherwise you'd probably be listening to some other show that being a leader is about
nurturing life. It is about nurturing growth. It is about helping not just, you know, the people on our teams to grow in their careers, but it's also about how do we contribute to, like, life and growth in the organizations and the people that we are connected to. One of the things I've written in one of my books is this idea that as a human, you were born and you were gifted with a life and you do not get to keep it. You only get to choose how
you're going to give it away. Every day and in every day, we're making decisions about how we're directing and giving our attention, our energy, our talent, our skills, our time. That's some of the most important decisions that we make as people. And then also in our career and in our profession, you're gifted with a life. You do not get to keep it. You only get to choose how you want to give it away. So seeing yourself as a leader and as someone who is here to help make things better.
And and and this is my, perhaps my last note for today. Realizing that sometimes it is the smallest decisions, the smallest choices that can have the biggest ripple effects and in ways that you may not even fully appreciate, You know, I mean simply by taking a few moments to really be present with someone at work can make such a big difference. So that is what I wanted to share with you today and I want to invite you to work with me. There are a couple ways to do
that. I am taking one-on-one clients so you can go into the show notes, book a time on my calendar for a consultation, gives us time to meet to talk about what is going on with you and what would be the plan for us to support you and help get you where you want to go and to have the leadership experience you want to have. So that is in the show notes Book time on my calendar and let's talk about one-on-one coaching. Or if you want to know about my group program, make sure you get
on my mailing list. I will be talking more about that and when you can sign up and that is also in the show notes or you can go to my website kimnickel.com, you'll learn all about that. Lastly, if you are curious about my books, if you're still thinking, wait, she wrote books about mindfulness and life. If you want to know more about that, I am on Amazon, but I will also put a link to my books in the show notes. All right, Thank you so much for listening. I will talk to you next time.
When you're more effective at work, you're happier in your life. And when you're happier in your life, you're more effective at work. I can help. Go to my website, kimnickel.com and sign up for a coaching consult. It can get better.