Nia Thomas [00:00:04]:
Hello, and welcome to the Knowing Self, Knowing Others podcast, where we discuss self aware leadership with thinkers from around the globe. I'm your host, Nia Thomas. Join me as we talk to today's Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Sarah Langslow to

Sarah Langslow [00:00:18]:
the show. Sarah is an executive coach, leadership development specialist, and a seasoned writer on the nuances of leading with both power and humanity. She has over 2 decades of experience in building leadership skills, a unique perspective shaped by her background as a competitive grower, and more than 3000 hours of coaching senior leaders. Sarah is a sought after adviser in the world of leadership. She holds an MA and an MBA from the University of Cambridge and is a professional certified coach accredited by the International Coaching Federation. Sarah is also the author of Do Sweat the Small Stuff, a book that highlights the critical importance of micro interactions in effective leadership, and we're definitely gonna be talking more about that today. Sarah, we're delighted to have you with us today. A very big welcome to the show.

Sarah Langslow [00:01:10]:
Thank you. It's great to be here.

Sarah Langslow [00:01:12]:
So tell us, what is a microinteraction and what does it matter for leadership?

Sarah Langslow [00:01:17]:
Yeah. It's the it's a good foundational point to start on. Right? So the way I define microinteractions is that they are the moments of connection that we have with other humans that occur in their multitudes every single day. So it's every tiny interaction we have with other people. So it could be what we say, could be when and how we say things which also influences the interaction. It could be what we choose not to say, where we stay silent. It could be what we listen to, what we ignore. And of course, this is not only verbal communication but online.

Sarah Langslow [00:01:54]:
What are the Slack messages that we respond to quickly or the emails that we sit on for weeks or the ones that get a very quick response? But it goes beyond our sort of actual communications in terms of speaking and listening and it is also our microinteractions also encompass what we do, how we act, our habits, our behaviors, some of which are, of course, shaped and influenced by our emotions. And in some ways, it's our very sort of presence and impact which, you know, all of that adds up to that through these 100 and 100 and 100 of tiny little interactions we have with people every day. The reason I think they're important is because I think they're often overlooked. Quite a loss of these kind of interactions tend to happen almost on autopilot. They happen through habit. They happen without us particularly thinking about them or putting much intention into them or or necessarily being aware of the impact we're having through them, which means there's this whole raft of communication going on, verbal and nonverbal that that we're not really thinking about. And as leaders, I think it's a it's a part that we actually can't really afford to ignore.

Sarah Langslow [00:03:10]:
So I'm guessing the the the level of micro that we are talking about, one of the most difficult things is that I might interpret it in one way, but you might interpret something in a different way. And then the other 5 people that are in the meeting will hear something, feel something, sense something different. How do we, as leaders, even begin to understand all of those different responses that people are having to us so that we can make those decisions to of how do we want to behave?

Sarah Langslow [00:03:40]:
It's a great question because you're right. As as human beings, we're all meaning making machines if you like. We we take things that happen to us or that are said to us or that we read or see or observe and we add meaning to them. So one thing to be very clear on is we can't control that. This is not about trying to control exactly how others respond. But what we can do is begin to dial up our awareness and begin to notice the impact of things. So rather than just breezing through, rather than just not thinking about it at all, we can start to have an awareness of how things land. You know, does it generate some unusual looks on people's faces? Are there times when we hear silence when we're curious why there not be might not be an answer? Even the act of being curious and going, oh, that's interesting.

Sarah Langslow [00:04:32]:
I thought we might get some conversation after that and we didn't. I wonder what happened. So that's the kind of areas where where we can begin to notice. And one of the core themes through the book is that there's no right and wrong. There's no right way to interact. There's no wrong way to interact. And even in any given situation, conversation with any particular person, there's also no right and wrong. There might be more or less effective depending on what we're trying to achieve at that time or depending on the relationship we're trying to build or whatever we're trying to do through that interaction.

Sarah Langslow [00:05:06]:
But it's not about right and wrong. And so a lot of this is about just an experimentation and curiosity and being willing to go beyond what might be our habitual ways of interacting and being with people where we're not really thinking and kind of just picking up when maybe something's not quite working, being curious, being willing to try something different. As I say, if we're not doing that and see such a kind of right answer, that in a way frees us up because it's saying that we can be clear on the kind of impact we want to have or the kind of result that we're trying to get through an interaction or a set of interactions. But there are lots of different ways to get there, but we have to be willing to to go beyond what's habitual and normal to experiment to see if there might be better ways.

Sarah Langslow [00:05:52]:
So as far as you're concerned, where does self awareness fit in this definition? And I'm interested in your answer because for my for me, the definition of self awareness and self aware leadership is reflection, recognition, and regulation. So it is about that making sure that you understand how you are received and perceived and then making choices about how you want to be received and perceived and changing your behavior. So where does self awareness fit for you?

Sarah Langslow [00:06:20]:
It's I mean, it's very strongly aligned to that, I would say, because it's for me, it's about understanding the the impact we're seeking to have as a leader. Like, what do we want? What kind of leader do we want to be? What do we want to be known for? What's important to us? What are our values and beliefs? What's what does success mean to us as a leader? And how do we build our relationships and hold our conversations and have all of our interactions that as far as possible aligned with that. It's never gonna be perfect. But the awareness is the bit for me which links our intention and our impact and allows us to sort of iterate and feedback on that and learn and adjust. And, as you say, recognize and and and and adapt where the impact we're seeking to have isn't in fact the impact we're having. But without without any self awareness or without a willingness to be curious about that, we'll never know. Right? We'll just breeze through the world and go, oh, everything's fine. Everybody's great.

Sarah Langslow [00:07:20]:
You know? That's where the self awareness piece comes in for me.

Sarah Langslow [00:07:25]:
In your experience, what are the common blind spots that you're seeing that leaders are having? And I guess that's it's almost a $64,000,000 question that if you tell me what my blind blind spots are, then then I can go and fix them. But, of course, everybody has different ones. But what are you seeing are the common ones?

Sarah Langslow [00:07:41]:
I think a hard question to ask because on one level, it's obviously, as you say, different for everybody. But I think one of the commonest areas where people get tripped up or get stuck is forgetting the forgetting, like, all of the interactions that actually happen around what they say. So it's like, well, I said this or I communicated this. Was that not clear? And they don't understand why the behaviors or the actions or the things that follow don't actually align with what they say or, you know, people go and do something else entirely. There's a a great example of this which which I I talk about in the book which is this idea of being busy. So you have those leaders who say, I want to be there for my team. I want to be available. I want to support you, to coach you, you know, my door is always open, that old, you know, that old chestnut.

Sarah Langslow [00:08:33]:
Now that leader can say that until they're blue in the face. If their calendar is booked wall to wall with meetings all day, If that same leader in this world of hybrid working is almost never seen in the office to be caught for perhaps an informal conversation. If that same leader in every conversation they have starts it with an undertone of, gosh, I'm so busy. You should see my to do list at the moment. Wow. I'm absolutely flat out at the moment. All of those interactions, you know, their calendar is a form of interaction because the team can see it. Or if they're 5 minutes late to every meeting, you know, reinforcing a sort of, oh, I'm flat out.

Sarah Langslow [00:09:12]:
I'm so busy. I've got so much to do. All of that is sending a completely contrary message to the my door is always open. I'd like to talk to you. In fact, that is probably sending a set of messages saying, I'm really busy. Leave me alone. I don't have time for you. I know I say my door is always open, but I'd really rather you didn't come through it because frankly, I've got too much else to do.

Sarah Langslow [00:09:34]:
And I think that incongruence as I talk about it between what we say and then how we act or the other sometimes subtle, sometimes not very subtle messages that we give off through our behaviors and indeed our other communications. That that's a place where where it gets missed, you know, or where where leaders find that they're missing their teams and they they're like, why does my team never asked me for you know, they've been struggling with this or they didn't tell me about this problem or they didn't. And I was like, well, are you actually creating time to see them? You know, do you actually are you actually available? Would you just say it, but then everything else you say doesn't back that

Sarah Langslow [00:10:14]:
up? Oh, I love that. So the 7th direction of my self awareness compass is behavior, and essentially it's about modeling behavior. And that's exactly what you're saying there. It's that you've got to you've got to talk the talk and walk the walk because if you're saying one thing, but you're behaving or the tone of voice or the diary doesn't live that, you've got that incongruence, haven't you? And and and yes. Absolutely. I I love that description. It's so real. And you do see that.

Sarah Langslow [00:10:44]:
Something that somebody said to me in my research was that they had a line manager who very rarely came into the office and was then really surprised when their direct reports were hardly there and they got quite annoyed about it. It's interesting, isn't it? People don't get it. They don't see that.

Sarah Langslow [00:11:00]:
And I think there's even simpler examples I had. I had one client who used to despair that their team would never ask them for help, and she had definitely trained them that she was very busy. But the other thing that she would do is so at the end of meetings, she would leave literally in the last 30 seconds of a meeting. She would sort of be like, any questions? Anybody? Any questions? Okay. Great. I'll leave you to it. I was like, right. You know? Or or even worse than that, sometimes she did everybody understand? It takes a really brave person to go, actually, no.

Sarah Langslow [00:11:32]:
When there's 30 seconds left, you know your leader's busy. They've got other you know, they're all of course, they're all gonna say yes. And then they all go away not really understanding or in fact did have questions. And so the simple the simple act of her working on how she facilitates those meetings of leaving 10 minutes at the end for questions, of saying, what questions do you have for me Rather than does anybody have any questions. Like, it's a tiny tweak in language, but it sets an expectation that there are questions and that's fine. Alongside the, oh, by the way, there's 10 minutes left of this meeting, sets a tone of this is important. I want you to ask me questions. I want to be here to help.

Sarah Langslow [00:12:13]:
I want to, you know, I've intentionally left this time and space to give you support. And so, you know, even in even in that sort of micro way can be the difference between does your team disappear off and not really understand what they're doing and go and try and figure it out on their own and then only really let you know when it's too late, which was very much her pattern. Or do they actually get the support they need upfront?

Sarah Langslow [00:12:37]:
That very subtle nuance between closed question and open question has such huge implications, doesn't it?

Sarah Langslow [00:12:46]:
Yeah. It has. Yeah. It's it it makes Amazing. Just changes the tone and the, yeah, the whole intent behind the question is is actually different.

Sarah Langslow [00:12:56]:
Definitely. And I'm just thinking I've got a team meeting tomorrow. I'm gonna ask that question at the end as I often do. I'm gonna ask it differently. Something that I'm interested in is how are leaders able to balance this need to tune in, reflect on the responses and and the impact that they're having on others whilst doing the work and the to do work at the to do list, I guess. And it's something that has become a a a topic of conversation with health care leaders because often they are so busy doing the do that they don't have reflection time, and that is a a big issue whether you're clinical, whether you're management. What are your thoughts around finding that space?

Sarah Langslow [00:13:41]:
It's it's a really tough question, and you're right. I think it's it's one that rears its head for a lot of people. It's one where I think the answer I tend to give lots of people don't like, and can at times feel unrealistic, but it it does come back to what you prioritize. And we have to be willing to to me, it's never about finding the time, but it's about creating the time. Because if you look to try and find it, everything else will fill the time of it or available. But if if you know the, or if if your listeners have come across the Eisenhower matrix, which is the urgent versus important, It's a 2 by 2 quadrant of urgent, not urgent, important, not urgent, not important. A lot of this reflection sits in the quadrant that is important, but it's not urgent. It will never be urgent.

Sarah Langslow [00:14:29]:
I virtually never, you know, never quite say never. It it just doesn't fit into it. And but yet the stuff that sits in that area, important but not urgent, is that it's the activities that give us the long term return. They give us the bigger return on our investment on time. And we have to make the time. We have to create it. We have to set it aside by prioritizing it. The thing I always say that sits alongside that is for leaders is to be willing to tolerate like a little bit of mess.

Sarah Langslow [00:14:59]:
Because the result of that is something will fall by the side, like something will not get done. I had one client who said, I just gave up inbox 0 because I wanted to. I absolutely wanted to and it was incredibly hard to do, but there were other things that were more important. And I realized that if an email was really important and I missed it, somebody would email me again or would call me. And she trained her team of different ways of communicating with her, of different ways of getting in touch with her for things, of providing reminders where she needed them rather than relying that she would always go to the end of her inbox every single day. And, you know, that freed up time for her because there was a chunk of time spent doing that. She had to let something go. In other words, something has to give.

Sarah Langslow [00:15:44]:
But it if we relate to the reflection time and the self learning and the curiosity about ourself as as important and ultimately as valuable as it is, that's where we actually create the time by making it a priority, I think. I guess the other argument I always have with it is reflection time. The thing for me that it is leading to in a leadership perspective is ultimately it's about enhanced performance of your team because you're you're figuring out how to get the best out of yourself so as to get the best out of others. And so the time you spend on self reflection is often something that magnifies because it's not just you that it impacts, it's those around you and how you work and how they work and the skills and capability they might build. And so while it might not be an immediate return, it might not make your day to day or tomorrow or next week more efficient and effective. In the short term, it may create some mess because something else has gotta give. In the longer term, it's actually what makes the difference or can help to make the difference if you're then acting on what you learn from from reflecting.

Sarah Langslow [00:16:48]:
That real thinking time. There was something you mentioned there, and I'm hearing this as it feels like the new management buzzword, inbox 0.

Sarah Langslow [00:16:58]:
Yes.

Sarah Langslow [00:16:58]:
What is inbox 0?

Sarah Langslow [00:16:59]:
So inbox 0 is where you effectively clear your inbox at the end of every day. So there is nothing left unaddressed or, not dealt with. Just so just for clarity on that. You get people who are very strong proponents of it and are very keen and, like, no. I want this clean. I want this. And then you get people like me who are very much not that and have different ways of managing their inbox. My view was always that if you are doing that, you are managing your life to somebody else's priorities because I can't control who sends me email and when.

Sarah Langslow [00:17:30]:
What I can do is control how I manage my inbox and when I spend my time and invest time and prioritize on it. But if as, you know, there are tons of emails in there which probably never need to be read or dealt with by me. You know? So so, yes, that that's what inbox 0 is.

Sarah Langslow [00:17:45]:
So it's something new to think about leaders and managers out there. Absolutely. In your book, you invite leaders to answer this question, which is who are you as a leader? Where do you begin to help leaders answer that question? Because I I quite like asking it, and I sometimes ask it in in job interviews. Usually when I'm the little person sitting on the other side of the desk. And often I get blank faces and and I get 30 seconds of tumbleweeds rolling by whilst people are thinking about it. How would you find people manage to answer that question?

Sarah Langslow [00:18:19]:
I mean, I think that's a good part. I think that's a really tough interview question. Because for me, this is this is one of those questions that you sort of plant in the back of your head and let it marinate for a while. It's it's it's a really tough one to answer sort of on the spot if if it's not something you've thought about before. So I think it's one that you can, you know, it's one to use reflection time on. I think there are also some quite structured ways and that again, I've made some suggestions in the book about how you might approach this. There's 2 I would quite like to highlight. So one of which is to imagine there was a documentary crew following you around for a week.

Sarah Langslow [00:18:56]:
It's kind of access all areas. Like, no, nothing nothing is off limits. You know, they can see how you behave with other people. They can see how you spend your time, what you prioritize, maybe how you make decisions, you know, what the balance of how how you approach different problems or challenges or people or situations. And it's to think it for that sort of impartial observer. I don't realize they're never completely impartial. But for that impartial observer, what would they say? Like, how would they, you know, what would they say about who you are? What would they say about what's important to you? How might they describe you? What words might they use? What, you know, what would they say you do or don't care about as a leader? It's not a complete answer, but it's a way of sort of sometimes separating ourselves and looking in from the outside and thinking, well, what what would somebody say? You know, if I look at my diary and I look at how I spend my time, what does that what message does that send? You know, what what how do I behave with others? What might the fly on the wall say? The parallel question is sometimes to to think about it's an interesting one. It's to think about what frustrates you about your team.

Sarah Langslow [00:20:12]:
So if you're sort of saying that, oh, it drives me mad when x does this or I really wish they wouldn't do that or they go again, you know, they've they've done this again or why did they never you know, those sort of the little complaints that, let's be honest, we we kind of all have. We may never voice them and that's great, but they sort of noodle around in our head and there's a the level of I wish they would. If we flip that around and say, how did my behavior cause that to happen? You know, what did I do or not do that caused it to go that way? Again, that's another place where we can get signals about how we behave as a leader, what what are what impact our actions may be having, perhaps where the gaps might be in terms of, you know, who we actually are versus who we might want to be because that is, of course, the the second part of that question which is equally important. It's not only who are you as a leader but who do you want to be as a leader because closing that gap is is kind of really the core of it. But it it gives us hints to where there is a gap to where we think, oh, actually, I'm doing this, but maybe I could be doing this because that's the impact I want to have and I can be responsible for that element of my team's behavior. So, you know, to go back to the example of being busy, to say, well, actually, do I prioritize my one to one meetings? For example, how do I talk about them? How do I behave in them? Do I turn them into a glory glorified task management thing about what's on someone's to do list for that week? Or do I actually create some time to talk about them, what they're facing, what challenges they're having, what skills they might want to build, what support they might need from me. You know? That that can be a that's that sort of where that reflection process could lead if you like. You know? My team member's not doing this.

Sarah Langslow [00:22:04]:
How am I well, I have another one to 1 with them for 6 weeks because I keep canceling it because I'm so busy. What if I so that's where we start to it's one area where we can start to understand our impact a little bit more in terms of who we currently are.

Sarah Langslow [00:22:18]:
Oh, Sarah, you've really made me think now. There were a couple of things that I thought I'm gonna do things differently tomorrow because of what you've said today. Yes. Definitely. That that separation and helicopter view to give you that understanding of your impact on others and that micro impact that you have or don't have, if you think about where where you want to go, what's your end goal here Mhmm. That definitely does change the way you think about how you operate and how you communicate, how you behave to get there. And, I really like that. I think that some people are definitely better than others at thinking about, by the time I get to the end of this meeting, I want to have achieved x, but lots of people are in it, and they're they're thinking on their feet.

Sarah Langslow [00:23:08]:
So I think that's a real challenge, isn't it?

Sarah Langslow [00:23:10]:
I think it's both. It's I mean, it's one of the reasons in the book I the sort of foundational part for for making any changes to the way we interact starts with who do we want to be as a leader. Because it's really easy to get overwhelmed by this. Right? When you start when you actually start laying it out and you think about the number of interactions you have, the number of emails you send, the number of little conversations you have, or different parts to any given conversation, you know, each question you ask. If you think about them individually, that's, I mean, that's sort of brain melting territory. It's incredibly hard to do. But if we're starting with that with a sort of high level definition of the kind of person the kind of leader we want to be, which is also the kind of person we want to be, which might be our values, our beliefs and assumptions, what's what's really important to us, our goals, our our version or our vision for success. If we're committing to that and saying, right, as far as I can I want to be working towards that all the time, then you can start to break it down? Okay.

Sarah Langslow [00:24:12]:
Well, what does that mean in this meeting? Okay. Maybe the predictable thing for me in this meeting is, again, to use the same example, I'm really busy. I just wanna get through it as fast as possible. Let's just get this over with and get out the door or get off the Zoom meeting. One of our values, say, as a leader is around developing others or around being generous with our time and attention or around supporting others. I don't know, you know, whatever it is. If we have a value or something that's really important to us or it could be in the form of a belief or an assumption of saying, well, actually my team's success is my success. Then we might start a meeting saying, well, actually this isn't about getting it done as fast as possible.

Sarah Langslow [00:24:53]:
This is about how do I run this meeting in a way that my team learns the most. What does that look like? And in each interaction, oh, wait. I can pause myself and say, no. I'm not just gonna immediately give them my top of the head answer because that's the quick thing to do. I'm gonna say, okay. What are your ideas on that? Look. Sure. I have some and I'm willing to put them in but I'm curious to hear your thoughts first.

Sarah Langslow [00:25:17]:
Right? It's can be as simple as that in that moment that if we are if we have that vision of who we want to be and how we want to behave and the kind of leader we want to be, we can then break that down in each day, in each meeting, in each interaction. And we won't be perfect. This is not about being perfect. But the more we can stay present to that and be thinking and slow down a fraction just so we can interrupt our automatic way of doing it. Just get out the door. I'm busy. And then to, no. I'm gonna pause, and I'm gonna ask a question instead of just solving this problem.

Sarah Langslow [00:25:52]:
Listeners and watchers, there are some really good questions that Sarah shared throughout the podcast so far. There is a transcript. You might wanna go back and read through it just so that you can pick up those questions, but there'll also be a link to Sarah's book in the show notes as well. What happens if you're a leader who is new to this? It's something that you want to do because it's something you know will help your professional growth. But if it's something that's new to you, where do you start when it's a bit fearful? Because feedback can be pretty nasty if unless you're careful and you ask the right people, where do you start?

Sarah Langslow [00:26:29]:
Yeah. It's it's a great it's another great question. I I think few things I say. One is you just have to start. There's always that myth that it'll be better when or I'll feel comfortable if or well, I'll wait until this pattern. We've got to start. Now if you're feeling uncomfortable with it, you probably start with the inner reflection first. You might not start by going and asking absolutely everybody for feedback, for example.

Sarah Langslow [00:26:55]:
That might be a tough tough beginning. I think that probably the biggest piece of advice I would give when starting that self reflection, if it's something you're a bit wary of or a bit uncomfortable about is as far as we can to try and reflect from a place of curiosity, not from judgment. It's very easy to get unless we start thinking about our behavior and reflecting that, like, say we decide to reflect for a few minutes on a meeting that maybe hasn't gone as well as we hoped. It's very easy to jump into a kind of, well, what did I do wrong? Where did I mess up? Oh, I did that terribly. Oh, well, that was embarrassing when I said that or or or I really shouldn't have done that. All of that is in a place of judgment and is coming from a sort of I was bad, I was wrong, I messed up version of that. If we can through an awareness of our tendency to do that, we can actively nudge ourselves towards curiosity, which is simply asking things like, what could I have done differently? Or I wonder why that landed that way? Or, how might I think about this differently for next time? Or what options would I have for preparing differently that might lead to a different outcome? Or, you you know, if we feel like asking feedback, great. But we can do a lot of that through self reflection just from being curious.

Sarah Langslow [00:28:15]:
And especially because we've got some of these, there isn't it's not like there's a single answer. This happened because of x. It can just be, oh, I could what if I tried that next time? You know? Not from I did it wrong this time. I am bad. Just from, oh, that didn't work very well. Why don't I try something different? So that that coming from curiosity can lower the stakes almost. So it doesn't feel like we're starting a process where we'll just highlight all of our flaws. You know? Don't get me wrong.

Sarah Langslow [00:28:44]:
I'm a big fan of understanding our strengths and weaknesses, but I think sometimes it leads us into a conversation where all we look for is weaknesses because we tend to be very bad at acknowledging strengths. So if we actually just almost make it neutral and say, well, it's just a stuff a set of things I did that Yeah. Some of which worked well and some of which didn't. Okay. Great. What can I learn from that? What can I be curious about about that?

Sarah Langslow [00:29:07]:
So really leaning into that growth mindset and probably learning about the fixed mindset and actually that you have a choice that you can move from fixed to growth, and and that helps you move into that space of curiosity.

Sarah Langslow [00:29:20]:
Yeah. And it's it's also the piece which, which very much relates to confirmation bias in the sense that if our mindset is telling us that we think we might have done something wrong or we're sort of judging ourselves for where we've got things wrong, then we look for evidence of that. So when we're reflecting back on a meeting or, you know, whatever it might be, we're reflecting on our week. We look for all the instances that match all all the evidence that fits our story. If our story is I haven't been a good week, I've not led this team very well, whatever it is, we'll just find all the evidence for that. Whereas so if we can take the confirmation bias out of it, if you'd like, so we're not looking for that. So we're just curious. It's just yeah, I'm just interested in what happened to see what I can learn from it.

Sarah Langslow [00:30:07]:
Something I'm interested in is microaggressions, microincibility, and I maybe listeners will be more familiar with those terms than than micro interactions. What are your thoughts, experiences, or words of advice, for our listeners and watchers who are in a position where they are noticing microaggressions, micro incivilities, and often they are so micro. It's very difficult to explain them to somebody else.

Sarah Langslow [00:30:36]:
Yeah. I I would preface this by saying I'm I'm not a DEIB expert. So this is very much from my personal experience and where that interacts. I

Sarah Langslow [00:30:43]:
think DEIB?

Sarah Langslow [00:30:44]:
Sorry. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging. So I'm I'm sort of I'm not an expert in that space, which is often where particularly the microaggressions conversation can emerge. But what I would say is a couple of elements to this. I think coming from the leader's perspective, one of the biggest things we need to be aware of is the power dynamic that is in any space. Now what I mean by that is if you are a team leader of any you know, whether you're anything from CEO of an organization down to simply a a manager in responsible for a team, when you are interacting between those different levels between a manager and their team, there is a power dynamic in place. Because you as the manager, as the leader, have at least to some extent the power to reward or punish. And, you know, power dynamics can they can power can exist in many forms.

Sarah Langslow [00:31:39]:
Sometimes that's a a literal, I can give someone a bad performance review or I can give them opportunities. Sometimes, you can even just have power not even through authority simply because you're a more confident person or you know more senior level people in the organization, so you have relational power. You know, there's all sorts of different power. If there are power dynamics in the space, we have to be sort of extra aware of how we interact because they will impact it. They will impact whether people feel safe to speak up, whether people feel safe to give us feedback, how they respond, but also the level of importance they place on what we say and do and how we act. So there's like an extra level of significance because of the power. And I think where this interacts particularly with, microaggressions and micro incivilities is understanding that we might think something is completely neutral, unimportant. It's like a throwaway comment or a, you know, something absolutely teeny tiny.

Sarah Langslow [00:32:43]:
But to the person who is hearing it on the receiving end, the the power magnifies the significance of that. It magnifies the impact of it. And so, you know, for me, it comes back to self awareness, but it also links to that curiosity and a a real willingness to hear and be open to feedback. Because and and sometimes to do that, we have to be able to create space to hear that, not rely on, you know, well, someone will come and tell me if. There was a there was a post on LinkedIn I saw the other day of someone basically saying, one to ones are pointless. They've lost oh, we had far too many of them. Like, well, we don't need them very often. And it it got me thinking about it because it's like, well, is it that the one to one's a pointless or is it that the way they're being run is ineffective? I would probably argue the latter.

Sarah Langslow [00:33:34]:
Because for example, one to ones, that one to one time and space goes far beyond what you might actually discuss in a one to one meeting. It is a demonstration of your commitment to be with and listen to that person to build a relationship.

Sarah Langslow [00:33:47]:
Yeah. I agree.

Sarah Langslow [00:33:48]:
It creates time and space to hear feedback. And you might not hear it in the first one, the second one, the 5th one, the 10th time, the 20th one. But if you are consistently providing space and showing an openness to hear feedback and then responding positively and effectively when you do, you're much more likely to understand those things that you miss. The the microaggressions or the microinstabilities that you're not even picking up on. But you create that space with your team, that safety, that trust that they they can reflect these things back to you. And you can seek feedback from others. You know, it's if you're open to and hearing feedback from from other people as well is is, you know, is also an important part of it. When you layer on the power dynamics and the microinteractions and and how that all connects up to microaggressions and microincivilities, it's yes.

Sarah Langslow [00:34:36]:
It comes back to self awareness, but it probably goes a step beyond. And how are you creating the space where you will hear the feedback about this? Because they might be things that you are genuinely unaware of. You know?

Sarah Langslow [00:34:49]:
Yes. And that, I guess, it's that big blind spot in it that we all want to uncover and understand, yet we don't want to be emotionally wounded and hurt by it either. So it it's a tricky business, isn't it? I really liked your phrase power magnifies impact, and I'm probably gonna use that in lots of places. I really like that. Sarah, before you go, where can people find your book and what will they read about in your book?

Sarah Langslow [00:35:18]:
You can find it, you know, all good bookshops. So, yeah, it's available via Amazon, via, all the independents, so via Waterstones or Foyles or the other, you know, other independent publishers. Also via my publisher's website, Practical Inspiration Publishing. You can there is also a companion website which is linked. It's on the book page of my own website where you can download lots of companion resources and workbooks to work through the exercises. And that's really what it is. It's a really practical guide to help you, firstly, understand your own microinteractions. Understand the impact you might be having through what you say, what what you listen to and how you listen, and how you act, which includes not only your habits but your sort of the all the nonverbal interactions and stuff we've touched on today.

Sarah Langslow [00:36:08]:
And then gives you a framework to start to say, well, okay. Where does that not match the impact that I want to have? Where does that not match the leader I want to be? And what can I do about that? So it takes you through, again, lots of exercises, lots of ideas, lots of suggestions, lots of ways to think about it So that whichever areas of your microinteractions might be your blind spot or might be the area that you want to work on, there's material for you to take and get out there and practice. That's really what the last part of the book does is it it draws that together and say, well, how do I make this? Like, what do I do with all of this? Because, you know, lots of ideas, but breaks it down into how you can practice it, how you can start to build consistency, and how you start to make this sort of sustainable for the long term So that it's not just a, oh, this was interesting for a few weeks. And then, you know, 4 weeks down the line, you're going back to all of your old habits, which arguably might do more damage than if you haven't changed anything at all. So it's it's intended to be really deeply practical and and support and guide leaders through that that journey.

Sarah Langslow [00:37:12]:
Amazing. Well, I'm wondering, listeners watchers, if you do my self aware compass quiz before you read Sarah's book, Read Sarah's book, follow the very practical examples that she shares, and then in 5, 6 months' time, come back and do your self awareness compass quiz and see what differences you find. Very interesting. Sarah, I've really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Sarah Langslow [00:37:39]:
Thank you. It's been fascinating.

Nia Thomas [00:37:42]:
Thank you for joining me on today's episode where we aim to develop self aware leaders around the globe to generate kinder, more respectful and creative working relationships through reflection, recognition and regulation. Head over to my website at knowingselfknowingothers.co.uk to sign up to my newsletter to keep up to date with my blog, blog, podcast and book. Looking forward to having you on my learning journey.