Perhaps you have something inside of you that wants to be expressed, and it's important that you take the time and the energy to express that thing. Toxic ambition is about thinking that you're inherently a better human being than someone else. Positive ambition is in believing that we can be better at who we are and how we do things.

We’ve all heard that feedback is a gift. But the best gifts are thoughtful, specific to the recipient, and intentionally given at the appropriate time. The best time to receive feedback is… any time at all. But giving or receiving - it requires a leader to be open and sometimes the most vulnerable. It requires an invitation - which is sometimes the hardest thing of all.

What if you could manage your worry and the worry of your team more effectively by both planning and trusting that you will figure it out? The ability of leaders to meet the worries and concerns of their teams with compassion and a sense of purpose makes the difference between a team that is built on self trust or one that's based on fear and control.

Being a leader means being uncomfortable most of the time. If you are avoiding that discomfort or if you're trying to manage your team away from discomfort, then you're going to create problems for yourself and others. In this episode, Ken and Seth dive deep into the ways that leaders can lean into change and discomfort with their teams and their organizations.

Career paths are rarely the straight lines that we think they will be when we're just beginning. Often, we started out with one direction, but end up somewhere a few years later in a completely unexpected place. Sometimes, we hit a barrier or delay or setback, and it turns into the next surprising opportunity.

At least, it does if we leave ourselves open.

In this episode, Ken and Seth talk about the importance of treating your teams, your employees, and your managers like adults so that they behave like adults. When we treat people like children, they tend to behave like children. Ken and Seth share their perspective on what it takes to build a culture of adults and cultivate an organization that's mature and responsible.

This week’s podcast is about what it takes to hold people accountable and invite them to do their best. If we can do it without shame or judgment, we can help them discover power and abilities within themselves that they didn’t know they had. Sometimes being a tough boss is simply having the courage to give direct feedback and let people know how you’re experiencing them.

Can we find the fun and the spontaneity in our work? Ken shares how he uses humor and playfulness with his group, and how these things help to create engagement and develop relationships. .

The more confident the organization is, the safer that they feel, the easier it will be to have fun and express ideas with honesty and humanity. Any job, no matter how great it is, can become monotonous or boring if it doesn't have some spontaneity and joy.

Can we be in competition with each other while also wanting each other to be successful? Want does it take to create a culture that celebrates the pursuit of excellence without the pursuit of the ego?

In this episode, Ken and Seth talk about the value of healthy competition in an organization and the negativity of unhealthy competition. When your sense of success is dependent on the idea that your victory has to come at someone else's cost.

Culture is basically just a set of behaviors and expectations that we have for the people in our organization. When we are aware of the anxiety that we have about whether our teams are actually doing the work, we can get much clearer about the ways that we want to measure and hold people accountable. Create a resilient culture and model behavior that shows self-trust and trust of others without ignoring what isn't working for the team.

What is a leader's job when you get right down to it? Is it just to have meetings and make decisions? Or is it about helping other people be successful? Yes, there are other things that you're expected to do, but your role as a people-leader (no matter what you do for the company) is to help people be successful. Ken and Seth talk about how leaders can see themselves as having the power to lift others up to see themselves as being more successful and to grow.

Leadership isn't always about position power. Often times it's about the ability to influence beyond your sphere of control. In this episode, Ken and Seth talk about the various ways that a leader can influence a culture and bring along peers and management so as to see different perspectives. The more aware you are of what you're trying to say and how people's emotions work, the easier it is to make an impact. Find out more at www.intsnotpersonal.net

When we make it okay for people to surface problems or concerns, then we make it an environment for them to engage with and work through problems or issues that they may have. The greater the psychological safety, the greater the trust. Ken and Seth talk about the norms and expectations that we can create in a team or an organization that allows us to use difficult conversations to become better.

What does it take to turn a group of people into a team? There’s a difference between having a group of individuals that work and communicates well together, versus having a group of individuals who have to coordinate and collaborate on a project.

What could we learn about collaborative teamwork from a Jazz band? We all know what the goal is, but we all might interpret how to contribute in our own ways.

We all feel self-doubt in our work and especially as leaders, but it's important to recognize that it's never helpful.

Self-doubt fundamentally questions the value of who you are, whereas doubt of our ability can sometimes be helpful, doubting that you're enough gets in the way.

Whenever we put our value as a human being in doubt, we make it harder for others to trust and work with us.

What is different between being sorry and being accountable? Listen to Ken talk about the advice he gives his team about sorry. When we apologize too often, we forget to be accountable for our own actions and instead feel responsible for other people's feelings.

Be aware of how you use "Sorry" and the impact it has on those around you. It can steal authority, create a sense of blame, and a distance in the relationship.

Description goes hereThe power of story in communication, influence, and collaboration. Ken shares a little bit about how he's used storytelling in his own work as a CIO, and together we talk about how humans are able to better understand information when it's in story form. Just knowing the data isn't enough.

We can also learn how we see ourselves as characters in our own stories, and how difficult it is to see clearly when you're stuck in a victim, villain, hero framework.

The difference between waiting for someone to finish speaking and actually listening to what they're saying. When we listen to someone, we give them our whole presence.

Ken and Seth discuss the value of listening with the intent to understand rather than to be understood. How listening can broaden our understanding of a problem and open us up to diverse solutions.

Every expression of gratitude that is specific, timely, and genuine is like placing a small deposit in the bank of organizational resilience. You feel valued. You feel seen. You feel supported.

In this week's 'It's Not Personal' podcast episode, my friend Seth Rigoletti & I talk about what this looks like, and what to do when you're not feeling valued yourself. We called this episode: 'What's it mean to be Thankful?'

Much like trust, respect is something we seem to want to be given, but ask often ask others to earn.

As a leader, what would happen if you started with the assumption that anyone who's in the room has a reason to be there, and value to offer? What if you created space for different perspectives, by ensuring that each voice is respected?

Have you ever had one of those moments in your life when you knew that you were about to make a decision that would change your life forever? In this episode, Ken and Seth share their moments when they woke up to a new way of looking at their careers and themselves at work.

In this episode, we talk about the ways that we can become dependent on the various technologies to do our thinking for us. Whether it's communication through email, Slack, PowerPoint or even the telephone, it's important that we stay intentional in what we want to say and how we're impacting others. There are a lot of great tools out there which make our work easier, but they aren't a replacement for intentional communication and connection.

Creating meetings that matter is one of the most useful ways you can spend your time and energy as a leader (along with getting rid of the ones that don't matter for those on your team). 'What is a Meeting?' is such a fundamental question that we generally forget to ask it - or assume that everyone already knows. But do we really all know why we're gathering together?

How ego and self-centeredness gets in the way of creating a collaborative and productive environment. When in doubt, know that it’s not about you.

Description goIntroducing ‘It’s not Personal’ - how making leadership less about ego can create a better workplace, a better culture, and a better you.