Welcome to the new Manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim Nickel. Hello and welcome. I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well. Today's episode is going to help you when you are feeling overwhelmed, when you feel like you're taking a lot on your shoulders, and especially because you care a lot. You care about doing well. You care about doing a good job with your team. You're probably tracking the people around you and their different levels of emotions and
you want to do well. And when you start to feel a bit overwhelmed or that sense of stress at the end of the day where you can't quite let your brain have a, a break from the work thinking, then come back to this episode because this will help a question I want to ask you. What is your role? Not what is your job, not what is your title? But instead think about it like
this. What is your role when you ask yourself that question in the context of your work environment, when you're thinking about the different relationships you have with your team, with your colleagues, with your manager, and even with your skip level and the folks above. When you ask yourself what is, what is the role? What is your role here? You might get different answers and it will help you to focus and get a little bit more clear.
And one of the reasons why I think this is so important is because you have had decades of experience trying on different roles in your family, in your friend group, in your community, and in the job in the workplace as well. And whether you know it or not, you've started to absorb an internal sense of which role you are responsible for and what it takes to be successful in that role.
It's one of those things that I think it's so subtle, you don't realize it. And then when you see it, you can't Unsee it. It can really have a powerful effect on how you understand the context of the workplace and the way that you are experiencing the different challenges and opportunities and, and all of the different things that are kind of happening that are hidden in plain sight. So for example, I, I am the eldest sister. Well, I'm the only, I'm the only sister, but I'm the eldest
child. And in my family, you know, I, I definitely took on this role, a sense of responsibility, both for my brother as the eldest child. I got a lot of, you know, take care of your little brother, look after him. You know, you're the eldest, so you have to set a good example and very, very early on really identifying and taking seriously this role of what it meant to be the big sister, to be the eldest child.
And if you also were an eldest child or the big sister or even the Big Brother, then you might also understand what comes along with that role in a family. If you've ever seen the movie Encanto, but if you've ever seen that movie, there is an incredible song that is sung by the eldest sister. And it's all about the responsibility that she feels as the eldest child as the big sister. And when I saw that in the theaters, Oh my gosh, it just,
it hit me right in the heart. I could feel the the tears down my face just because that sense of resonance, because she was singing to a dynamic that really made sense to me. Even though, you know, in the in the movie, it's, it's quite at extreme intensity. But there was that understanding of wow, you know, in your own family there is a role that you have stepped into that you have taken.
And it's very possible that that then has continued to be a kind of foundational way of interacting and relating with others. Now, if you were the middle child, different situation, if you were the youngest child, different situation. And of course, depending on your specific family dynamics, then, you know, that particular role can also look different depending on the personalities and depending on the circumstances that you were, you
know, living in as a kid. But this idea of what is your role, it's something that starts way before we enter the workforce. And it's one of the ways that we think about, you know, what is my responsibility here? What is it that I'm in charge of? What does success look like? And so when we remember that the idea of identification around a role is something that has been present in you for years and years and years, long before you
entered the workplace. And realizing that there are some ideas of what it means to be successful based on that role, based on what you've been rewarded for, what you've received positive attention for, all of that can feed into the workplace because we bring our communication skills, we bring our background and experience with different interpersonal dynamics. We bring all of that into the
workplace. So if you are a person, for example, who feels a pretty significant sense of responsibility to care for the people around you, whether that means your colleagues or your team, or even sometimes we get a little bit oriented around, oh, it's my job to take care of the people in higher positions of power. Whether we do that because we fear what happens. And if I don't take care of the people in a position of power, the fear is something bad will happen sometimes, whether we're
aware of it or not. That might be the dynamic, that might be the the role that you are taking on. That's one of the reasons why we can feel overwhelmed and feel that sense of kind of low key ever present stress and anxiety. So ask yourself, OK, what is your role? We want to take a step back and we start to ask and explore this question. So is your role to fix things
like are you a fixer? Is your role to have the right answers and kind of demonstrate accuracy in giving answers or to be the best and have the the perfect level of performance? Is your role here to amplify something? Maybe your role is to help give more voice or kind of clear the way for someone else who's trying to accomplish something or speak something. Is your role to protect or to shield in the situation? Is your role around building
trust? Maybe your role is around being more of a coach rather than someone who's super good at just executing and operating. Maybe your role here is to give direction so that other people know what they should be working on and what they can let go of. Maybe your role is to help
connect the dots. When we start thinking in terms of what is your role here, it can give you a way to be very flexible and adaptive to changing situations, to different personalities and to different relationships. You know, let's say that you're managing a team and you have someone new who gets hired and then they start and they join
the team. What is your role both in respect to the new hire and helping them get on boarded, helping them perhaps feel welcomed or feel reassured that they made the right choice and choosing to accept the offer? What is your role with respect to the existing members on the team and helping them understand who this new person is and how they're going to now fit into the picture?
What is your role in helping connect the dots between some of the other people in the organization or some of the other reasons why things happen and helping the new person see and understand that? Thinking about what is your role here can help you to identify what is it that needs your attention now and what is it that is actually not required Because there's always going to be more work, right? There's there's always more work you can do.
There are always going to be more demands for your time and attention and care. And so part of what your job is in this leadership role and as the manager is to begin to discern where to put your time, your attention, your energy. Am I asking this question, OK, what is your role today, this week, this month, in this moment? It will help you find the answer that will be most useful in that moment. It will also help you to identify where you've gone off track.
So, for example, if you know that you are the kind of person who has high empathy, high compassion, and you just want everyone to be happy, you might realize when you ask this question, what is my role? You might realize, you know what, even though I really like everyone to be happy, that is not my role right now. My role is not about bringing everyone's emotion into the same room.
It might be, you know, my role is to give clear direction and maybe my role is to be safe for people who are going to be frustrated and unhappy with the direction that we are going. Now, maybe my role is not to make them feel better, but maybe the role is, you know what, I get it. I understand that this is not the direction you would have chosen, but this is the direction we're going. And so how can I help you with what we need to do now?
And that ability that you have on the inside to be OK when other people are feeling angry, frustrated, disappointed, that is a skill, especially if you have lots of experience caretaking the emotions of the humans around you. And a lot of us have had to do that in one way or another throughout the early part of our life. So ask yourself, what is your role here? Be mindful of your own experience in your own family, in your own community, in your own career history.
There's a often a change when we move from being an individual contributor to being the manager, where there is the mindset shift that happens when you realize, oh, when I was the individual contributor, my role was about being very skillful at executing on this task or function. That was my role to be really good at doing this thing. When you shift into a manager role, your role changes and now your job is not to be the best at doing the thing.
Now we start thinking differently about what is the role and again, this is different from what is the job and it's different than what is your title. So be mindful, right? The idea of what is the role is something that will change, something that allows you to be both flexible and adaptive to different situations. A good time to ask this question when you're feeling overwhelmed,
when you are overworking. Often times with overworking, that often is a place where we forget like wait, what is my role here? Am I overworking intentionally? Or is this coming from a place of I've let go of my boundaries. I have put everyone ahead of myself. I have started to, you know, feel like I have to fix things and I'm afraid to ask for support or ask for change or I'm trying to avoid the uncomfortable conversation.
Sometimes our role is in this moment, I'm going to be the one who brings that uncomfortable conversation. So add this question to your tool kit because there are lots of times when you're asking like, what am I supposed to do right now? Like, what do I do? This is new. I don't know what to do. What's the right choice? Take a step back, take a breath and ask yourself, OK, what is my role in this? What would be of greatest service you know, to the team,
to myself, to the organization? What is the role? And see what comes up. And from that, allow yourself to make a choice that feels grounded and responsive to what is happening in the moment. That is what I wanted to share with you today. Thank you so much for listening. If you want to learn how to do more of this work, the, you know, professional development and the personal growth that comes with growing as a leader and as a manager, then make sure
that we connect. You can join the wait list. There's a link in the show notes to the mailing list and you'll find that also on my website, kimnickel.com. Go to the new manager page and you'll see the link to sign up. If you are feeling like, well, I want to also do one on ones I
want to work with. You know, if you want to work with me individually to get that thought partnership and create a plan for how you're going to lead and learn and grow in the next quarter or the next half year, then go to my website, kimnickel.com and schedule some time to talk with me and we'll talk about one-on-one coaching and how I can help. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a wonderful week and 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 Kim nickel com and sign U for a coaching consult. It can get better.