Charlotte Ward: 0:13
Hello and welcome to episode three hundred and nine of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. Today, Nadia Ivanova talks about servant leadership. Today, welcome Nadia Ivanova. Nadia, it's so lovely to have you on the podcast. Welcome. Thank you, Charlotte.
Nadia Ivanova: 0:40
I'm very grateful to be here and I'm in it. Thank you so much.
Charlotte Ward: 0:45
So it's your first time talking to me on the podcast, but not the first time we have spoken in our professional lives. Would you like for the benefit of the listeners to introduce yourself?
Nadia Ivanova: 0:57
Absolutely. Well, we are talking about servant leadership today. I found myself promoted into a people leadership position during the pandemic lockdown. We had one of the most strict lockdowns of the world here in Melbourne. And so I found myself at the head of a team of three people that I grew to 12 in just two years. And this is when I discovered my passion for servant leadership.
Charlotte Ward: 1:25
Okay. So you're based in Melbourne. And uh we have known each other in a past life, haven't we?
Nadia Ivanova: 1:31
Yes, I'm based in Melbourne, and I have a unique blend of uh applied linguistics, language teachings, uh search, semantic search, servant leadership, and now mental health with a freshly uh finished diploma of counselling.
Charlotte Ward: 1:50
Yeah, yeah, quite a mix. Um and I hired you into um a support manager role at my current place at Snowplow. So you came and worked for me last year, um, and uh and now you're seeking past is new, but um bringing all of those skills that you just mentioned to bear on um quite a quite an array of projects as I understand it, but but we're here to talk about leadership, um support leadership specifically, because that's the uh professional facet of your many facets that I know best about you. But uh but I guess would would you say that when we think about servant leadership? I'm gonna open with a question. Um when we think about servant leadership, I I was almost straying there into answering this question, but I decided to ask it instead. Um do we do we just mean like team situations? Are we talking about quite formal team leadership, team management situations, or let's just open up with is this a set of practices which uh I'm sure you'll lead us through over the next 30 minutes or so, but but like that we can apply to other parts of our other relationships, for instance, or when we're working one-to-one with somebody?
Nadia Ivanova: 3:01
Yes, so in my experience, servant leadership is one of those things like uh, you know, Monsieur Jourdain, who did pros without knowing he was doing pros? It's similar to me, like I discovered that I was doing servant leadership that was so natural to me that I didn't even think of it twice. But I came up with a definition that I'm happy to share, and you will give your take on that. It only just requires two elements. The first one is competence, and the second one is care. Competence is you know what you're doing, obviously, and care is you genuinely care for your team. So you're here to remove obstacles so they can do their best work. That's my definition.
Charlotte Ward: 3:44
So it can I think I think that's great. So it can actually apply both to individuals in the team as well as looking at the team more holistically and how they are how they are functioning, how they are feeling, how they are executing, um, and growing, I guess.
Nadia Ivanova: 4:01
Absolutely. It's the dynamic within the team, it's the dynamic with the stakeholders, the team positioning in the company. It's also the dynamic between you and each one of them. Yeah. It's it sounds simple, but there is a lot to unpack here.
Charlotte Ward: 4:17
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you said you kind of came across this, you realized you were doing this somewhat organically, and then came across that definition or or or defined that um on your own terms, somewhere between the two, maybe. I I know that there are other kind of notions of how different types of leaders function. So um that definition, is that entirely your own, or is that kind of drawn from uh literature and you know, other other leaders that you follow? Because I I feel like servant leadership is something that I've heard, but I love your definition of it. So where does that begin?
Nadia Ivanova: 4:55
I came up with it myself, uh, but really when I think about it, I didn't have a lot of good role models before you. I did have a lot of bad role models though. Like I learned from negative role models, yeah, things I knew I didn't want to do to repeat. And I had to to kind of grasp, remember, I was so happy when I found that you love the Kipling if poem. Oh, yeah, that's actually the description of somebody who is a mature adult and at the same time who can serve other people. Right. So to me, you know, this is just an expression of who I am as a human being as well, not just in work, but in general.
Charlotte Ward: 5:40
Yeah, yeah. I and I think um I I I know there was a moment where I uh I quoted that poem, good old Kipling to you. Um maybe, maybe our listeners can go and look it up. It's Rajyard Kipling's If, which is, you know, it's a poem of its time. It has aged well and not aged well in some ways, but uh just for context, I grew up with uh in my family home with that poem on the wall, like so many children of the 70s and 80s in the UK. I'm sure it was like mass printed on posters and things, and my parents got a copy of it and it was there. Um, and so I sat probably for about 20 years looking at that poem over dinner. Um, and so I learned it. But it also, yeah, it became deeply internalized to your point. Like it's not it, it was already internalized before I knew what support was, before I knew what I would be professionally, before I it became a kind of representation of many of the qualities I felt I had and certainly wanted to develop. And and you're right, it's just about being a grown-up, really. That's really all it is in my mind. But uh being a grown-up eludes quite a few people in my experience.
Nadia Ivanova: 6:52
The only thing is missing in this if poem is his addressing a son, but obviously it applies to daughters as well.
Charlotte Ward: 7:00
Yes, yeah, that that's the element that I was referring to, being of its time. Um I I I kind of brushed away the last line every time I read it. I was like, that's me anyway. I it's just a grown-up. So I think replace the last line with grown-up, fully functioning adult human, and you're doing all right. Uh otherwise, it's generally very good advice. And it's generally very good advice for support leaders in my experience. I mean, the opening line: if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, was there ever a day in support that wasn't like that? Exactly right, yes. So, um, so I love that context. So, um, and thank you for setting up the idea that this is um uh, you know, the the the question I was kind of feeling around the edges of as we started this conversation that this is about the team as a whole, it's about how we conduct ourselves professionally as individuals and as how and how we relate to the individuals on our team in any moment as well. What um so having having that definition and having that kind of inspiration and and let's say lack of inspiration in those negative role models as well. Um if you could distill you so you use the words competence and care, what what do um if you could distill this like um into some really core um qualities or even ways that it might manifest day to day in a professional environment?
Charlotte Ward: 8:31
What do what does I mean I guess the simple question is, how how do I know that I'm working with a servant leader? What do they look like?
Nadia Ivanova: 8:41
Well, they are both wise and humble, they don't pretend to know more than they do know, they are happy to always learn, but at the same time they have their discernment to understand the situation, they are not naive. And uh since you we were talking about grown-ups, we are all in evolution, right? The humanity is still evolving, obviously. When we look at the history books, when we look at uh current news, we are all evolving. So to me, one of the most important lessons was not to mix up compassion and complacency, you know. Uh so servant leader is not a yes man or yes woman. Uh they know when to set boundaries, but they set them compassionally, if I can put it this way. And another element would be, as I already mentioned, competence. When you are promoted from within, this comes without saying. But when you come from outside, like I did for snow plow, obviously I didn't know all the technical part of the job, and I was very transparent about it from the day one. And I still remember actually the conversation with one of my team members. I told her I couldn't do your job, and she told me, and I couldn't do yours. Yeah, and that was really interesting.
Charlotte Ward: 10:06
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I mean, I I had almost a parallel experience coming into SnowCloud too, um, and into other roles before that. It's a it's a type it's a conversation that I've had a lot. Like, you know, I I I have been promoted from within and so also uh in several leadership positions hired externally. And increasingly as the years have rolled by and I, you know, my my technical execution has dis like disappeared into the dim and distant past. I always retain this kind of idea the or the uh this the narrative I tell everyone, and and it's true that I know just enough to be dangerous, so it's probably better that I don't like don't don't give me access because I will fail at something and I will, you know. So I I actually can't do their jobs, and that's okay, because to your point, um I'm I've got a job to do as well, and uh I will do my job and I'll do it well, and uh I I will help them that do their jobs well. Um which is which is really why we're in these positions. This is why these kind of leadership roles are necessary still.
Nadia Ivanova: 11:17
And this is where many first-time managers make the mistake, especially when they are promoted from within. What what you have a saying in English, what got you here won't get you there.
Charlotte Ward: 11:30
Yes, yeah.
Nadia Ivanova: 11:31
So the perfect execution as an individual contributor is not no longer what is required when you become a people leader. You're now doing things through other people. So your job becomes to manage them and help them grow and organize work, both within the yeah.
Charlotte Ward: 11:51
Yeah, I I I suppose it's just worth recognizing that that isn't always like there's no there's usually not a cut over moment where you say, right, I'm putting down all of the things that I did before, and now I'm a people leader and that's all I'll do. Because I I think there is a um, you know, whether it lasts months or years, um, and a lot of it depends on the structures inside which you're working, there are a lot of, you know, um more blended roles, particularly now as organizations get flatter, where people are required to sit both somewhat in execution and somewhat in leadership. Um, and so for me, I think you're you're absolutely right. Like the skills that got you to the leadership role are not what you should sit in when you're executing that role. But I think there is, and I think the onus is on the individual to recognize what they're doing in any moment. Am I a leader now or or am I an operator or an IC now? Because in those kind of blended roles, you never completely lose the other half, but you do have to be much more aware of what your priorities are, and actually, if you can, almost almost schedule that, right? So if I'm gonna spend time in the queue still, because I'm a team lead who has 40% people leadership responsibility and 60% queue, then I have to recognize I'm working in the queue here and I'm gonna do the IC job really well. And now I need to put that down. And my task over here is to take my learnings as an IC, but actually execute differently, use different skills. It's not to get back in the queue and fix problems for people, like fit, you know, pick up their tickets, do their work for them, it's then to enable them and help
Charlotte Ward: 13:31
them and operate on a different level. And I think that those split roles becoming increasingly common.
Nadia Ivanova: 13:37
You're right. I always had this hands-on part in my roles, yeah, leadership roles. But when I think back to this Q triage task, I didn't do it, I didn't do it as I see, I did it as a manager because my role was to spot priorities that they might have missed, or to prevent things from falling through the cracks. I didn't look at the queue as they did, I believe. I also realized, as you know, that there was an SLA missing, for example, all this uh bigger project uh synchronizing it from Salesforce that none of them realized was there.
Charlotte Ward: 14:19
Operating at a different level, right? Exactly. It's and it's knowing there is a connective tissue between those two levels, which is you and your brain, and the fact that you're fully informed about two different two different work streams, effectively, one should influence the other, but but it just happens to coexist in the same person, which which in some ways is a huge enabler. Like you can help your team and solve solve more operational leadership problems more quickly in some ways, particularly in a a smaller environment. And I think this is where like in huge teams, huge support teams, huge organization, huge organizational structures, that's where you get much more pure leadership roles because 100% of the task is is managing the people and managing the ops. There is no time to get in the queue. And I'm not saying either is right or wrong. I just think they're they're largely a function of the size of organization more than anything else.
Nadia Ivanova: 15:18
Yes, you're right again. And uh I remember wearing these uh kind of role modeling modeling hats when I was running running IPIR, for example, uh, for one of more junior team members. And he said after that, like, I couldn't have done it that well, even though I didn't have the technical expertise that he had. It was the structure, it was the stakeholder management, it was the like uh extrapolating it, do we need to look into it for other clients? For example, this kind of higher-level thinking that they don't necessarily have. But I also know from my kind of early days into the leadership role, there was this temptation I saw inside myself with the self-awareness that doing things gives you the impression that you are busy and you're productive, but that's not what is required after you have been promoted into this role.
Charlotte Ward: 16:17
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. Um, so go back, go back then just for a moment to the the um earlier leadership roles where you had some less positive examples of what good leadership looks like. And I'm not comparing them to me, but but like you did specifically say you had some negative uh some negative some negatives on which not to model your behaviors, some things that you definitely didn't want to see and actively um actively tried
Charlotte Ward: 16:49
to grow in a different way, actively tried to behave in a different way, actively tried to have different outcomes. So without naming individuals from your professional past, what are some of the what are some of the things that you saw that were the negative, if you like, of servant leadership? What does it not look like?
Nadia Ivanova: 17:09
Lay in favourites is one of them. You might have heard of organizational justice. This clearly goes against it. It creates a big feeling of unfairness within the team, even if it's just perceived unfairness, you know. Uh so that's what I tried not to do. And I actively prevented this from happening when I was promoted. As I said, I had a very small team and I had the mandate to grow it. So I had one senior team my bike and tell a story about that if you wish. Uh I had a senior team member and I had to do the succession planning to have kind of right hand somebody in the team who would help me with coordination tasks and be there just in case I'm absent. So I conscientiously involve the senior team member into the hiring process, not just because I wanted his um expertise, but also to make sure he was part of the decision-making process and he would be on board with this new person. And this helped um really this worked out really well. Uh not only he helped hire this new person, but he also onboarded this new person, and uh they worked really well together instead of competing with each other. So even though I was kind of planning different roles for these two people, I discussed it openly with them. I asked what they wanted in the team, whether they were interested in people leadership or tasks coordination, like transparency in my experience really helps.
Charlotte Ward: 18:55
Yeah, yeah. Um, and and it breaks down the idea that there is favoritism going on. I I completely agree. Is servant leadership then best manifested in transparency? I mean, is it about being completely open and bringing your uh
Charlotte Ward: 19:16
your team into almost like an inner circle, even if that inner circle is the entire team?
Nadia Ivanova: 19:24
Well, uh transparency in my experience again must come with discernment because you cannot tell them everything. I'm not sure whom I had this expression from. The manager sometimes has to be sorry for the expression, the shit umbrella. Yes, so yes, you need to protect them from some news or from some anxiety-provoking thoughts, and that's one of our roles. So, transparency within limits, I would say. So, yes, it they all can feel like they're part of this inner circle, and at the same time, they feel like you are advocating for them outside of this circle.
Charlotte Ward: 20:08
Yeah, I I I think that's right, and I love the term shit umbrella, I've heard that before somewhere as well. Um, I uh, you know, one thing I always say um to my teams, um, all of them, is that I will do my best to um solve their problems um and be their biggest advocate. But I but I do have high expectations that go with that. And I think that that is for me something that if we're not careful, we miss from just the headline of servant leadership. Because I think if we just look at servant leadership and assume that this is a person that is like wholly and fully at the service, literally, of their team, then it can it can seem to some degree like lacking the leadership part, which is the person who sets the pace, the person who sets the direction, the person who um sets the strategy, for instance. And uh I think for me that's a that's a balance, and that's why I often use that language around I'll be I I will I'll be here if you are, you know, if you need me. So I will protect you from some of that shit um as much as I can reasonably. But also that does come with a it's it's a transparent shit umbrella. Like I will tell you when things are going off the rails. Sorry, this is not a good picture. Um but also and I will be their biggest advocates, you know, but that's the reason why you need those standards. That's what that's why you say, I think, in partnership with that, in and among that, I need you to engage with me. I need you to come with me on this journey because we're going in that direction. This is the pace, and this is why. And I think for me, a big part of the transparency is the why. Because we do have we do have responsibilities to the organisation as well. Right, not just to our teams. And I think that's sometimes lost in the kind of the headline idea of servant leadership.
Nadia Ivanova: 22:07
Absolutely. The risk is here really people pleasing. And if you have this trend, uh leadership jobs are perfect for you to work on that. Uh speaking from experience, but I also think it's kind of a false dichotomy because as a grown-up, you also help them grow, and that's your role as a leader, right? So you're again not going to put up with everything. This is where complacency versus compassion uh plays out.
Charlotte Ward: 22:37
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Nadia Ivanova: 22:40
I still remember that was for me personally one of the hardest things to learn, how to be firm with them, even though that's not my natural trend. I had to learn that.
Charlotte Ward: 22:50
Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, I I think that's fair. I um I loved what you said earlier about as well. It's like, and part of that firmness is like knowing when to say no, you know. Um, and I if if people know one thing about me, it's that I know how to say no. Um but but it's it's it's so critical, isn't it? Because otherwise it becomes about uh complacency, it becomes almost borderline negligence to your other responsibilities, to the organization, for instance. Um, it means you're not setting the pace and direction and tone and strategy, all of which I think is a lack of leadership. Um and uh and essentially being a doormat to the team.
Nadia Ivanova: 23:38
Yeah. Uh I don't have really examples where such a person would be in a leadership position, do you?
Charlotte Ward: 23:48
That's a hard question to answer. Uh certainly not a snowplow, that's all I'm gonna say. Right. Uh I have encountered, I would say, I would say, I would say a politic answer to that question is that I've definitely seen people in leadership roles because they are people pleasers, because the uh because on the surface level they they have like it's almost like a populist vote somehow, even though they don't get there by a democ by a democratic process. It's uh it's kind of they are seen to be the one that people gather around, they are seen to be the one that everyone agrees with, and so they are seen to be the one that therefore has the good ideas or has the competence, when in fact what they probably have more is the ability to uh sell, or the ability to, you know, make friends and influence people.
Nadia Ivanova: 24:41
Right, but they don't make people grow.
Charlotte Ward: 24:43
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Nadia Ivanova: 24:45
That's the difference, yes. One of the difficulty for me personally, and possibly for other people coming from those societies where you know community is more important than the individual is that you don't know boundaries from your upbringing, like enmeshed families. I learned the term recently. It's just where it's just your natural environment when you grow up. And uh you're always told and taught that you need to put others before yourself.
Charlotte Ward: 25:20
Yes.
Nadia Ivanova: 25:20
So sometimes we have to learn boundaries and we have to learn how to say no when we are already grown up, but it's never too late.
Charlotte Ward: 25:28
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Putting your oxygen mask on before those of your children sometimes is a really good analogy for that. I stare at that on the safety card sometimes and think, must remember that one. Um, yeah, yeah, it's it's good advice for life. Maybe that should have been pinned on my uh on my uh parents' dining room wall next to if. Um, so in terms of um growing the habits, growing the mindsets then to people that are coming to their first leadership role or aspiring to their first leadership role now, um what are the things that they should um, and I know we're talking to individuals to some degree here, so it's gonna vary person by person, but what are some of the habits that people could foster if particularly if they're just in that first role? What are some of the um, you know, the the um red flags, you know, the little red blinking lights on the dashboard that they should look out for that maybe suggest they're heading away from being a servant leader? What what are the what are the early things, the early good habits and signs that we should be picking up on?
Nadia Ivanova: 26:38
I would say two things. One that I would start before even becoming a leader, which is self-awareness. That really helps. Yeah. And the second one is early delegation. I'm so glad I started doing it from day one. I stopped doing things myself and I started asking people and delegating things to them. And so that would be a red flag for me. If you are if you keep doing things you used to do as an individual contributor, now that you are a manager, that's not what you should be doing. You should be thinking about career progress for your direct reports, you should be thinking about the team positioning, uh, you should be thinking about how you implemented the company strategy specifically. What's next? What are the important stakeholders outside of the team to speak with, to understand their point of views? All these kinds of things.
Charlotte Ward: 27:33
Yeah, for me, a stakeholder management is a big one. I think learning to connect to the business um because you do have those two responsibilities. And I think I think that's a really good muscle to build because it stops you going too far into the complacency and like agreeing to everything and like understanding that you have the two responsibilities is uh is um is a key part of leadership for me, I think. And it it it allows you to, to your point earlier, discern what to expose to the team and what not to expose to the team.
Nadia Ivanova: 28:09
You make me think about statement of support. Yes. This this reference document that we refer to every time we had a question about the scope of support or somebody promising things they shouldn't be promising to the client, it's so important. It's again about boundaries, right? As a team.
Charlotte Ward: 28:29
Yeah, yeah, 100%. Boundaries are really important, absolutely. Uh, which comes back to you know when to say no. Um, and how to say no. How do we I I think that's actually a really good follow-up question. And I just thought of it. When we are servant leaders, we do have to say no, uh, sometimes quite a lot. To our team, I'm specifically talking about teams here rather than using leveraging the statement of support with customers or or talking about you know how we connect the business internally to stakeholders. So, how do we, as servant leaders, how do you say no to your team, either as a collective or or to an individual? What does servant leadership no look like?
Nadia Ivanova: 29:09
One example came comes to mind in my very first days after the promotion, it was actually part of a bigger team restructure. So it was a tough time for the team. Many people had this kind of uh bitterness or you know, questions about um why seniority wasn't recognized, why some people were promoted but not others, and all these kind of things. And so I had to really say set the boundaries from the first one-to-one with some of them, saying, like saying this is this wasn't my decision, and going forward, this is what I am accountable for. So when you say no, at the same time, I said like I understand your feelings, uh, and I did. I totally understood that how unfair it could have felt for them, and uh that's what you need to do first, probably before saying the no. Like you should acknowledge exactly you acknowledge how they're feeling and you show that and they are being heard. That's what I also learned during my uh counseling studies, active listening and um validating their feelings, essentially, before stating this is the situation, and unfortunately I cannot, whatever they asked for, give you this promotion or give you this salary increase or whatever it is.
Charlotte Ward: 30:38
Or change this process or give you that time off or any number of smaller things. I I think also like the the why is a key part of um why you're saying no. It's it's it's not just about if this is a decision that's been made, and I no longer have any agency or never had any agency in making this decision, because again, this comes back to the leadership half of servant leadership, I think, which is you have responsibilities to the rest of the business. And sometimes you are making those decisions, you know, not everything is foist upon you. So while the narrative might sometimes be, I understand how you feel, and I understand, you know, this isn't ideal, but I can't, and this is a business decision that's been made around hiring or budget or letting people go or whatever. The the fact is that there are a ton of smaller, everyday decisions that we make as leaders that we do have agency over, and we should claim that agency, you know. And I think it's I think it's okay to say, I understand this isn't ideal for you, but these are the parameters in which I'm operating, and so this is the decision I've made to get there. Or, you know, that there these are the constraints. And so, in order to deliver this service, we have to operate in this manner. Um, this, you know, whether it's schedules or um, you know, uh time off, you know, uh um approvals or whatever, or or anything in between, you know. I I think there's can they have a day off or do they keep their job? But there's a whole load of ops in the middle, which we do have agency over as well. This is how I want ticket assignments to run. This is uh how we commit things to customers, and this is, you know, I think we need to set some of the stage and and take ownership of that because there is a lot that we do have ownership and agency over as well.
Nadia Ivanova: 32:28
Absolutely, and I was actually thinking about again a concrete example you mentioned uh leaves. So you might remember Christmas leaves planning. I spent several days on it and I started doing it very early, probably in August. And the way I did it was I told them I want this to be as fair as possible for each one of them, but we also need coverage. So I gathered all their wishes. Uh, they all told me what they wanted ideally, but they knew that might not have been possible for them. So, and then I played with the schedules multiple times on assembled, and I've done it and redone it and redone it and spoke to my peer in Colombia, and uh eventually I think it worked out really well, uh, provided that they knew my intention, which was to make it fair for them, but they also understand we needed coverage, right?
Charlotte Ward: 33:25
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's a good example of like the operating constraints. You know, we still have to deliver support to our customers 24-7. We still have to be capable of responding to an incident and so on and so on and so on. 24 by 7 is not a game. We don't just get to pick the pieces we want and move on, unfortunately. And uh yeah, that's the leadership half of servant leadership. But but saying no, you know, trying to uh achieve fairness and compromise where you can within those constraints is is really important. Um if you were to um sum up the uh first thing you would want people to go and think about having listened to this podcast, what would it be? Would it be a particular resource? Would it be a you know, a way of thinking? You you called out self-awareness earlier as like something that it you know is a a mindset, uh almost in it a psychological awareness that people should be building regardless. I I I I couldn't agree more. I think that's um a deeply uh important part of growing up, um both professionally and personally. What what would you send people away with as we sort of close out this part of the of our conversation?
Nadia Ivanova: 34:49
I would probably say that being a leader or being a manager is not necessarily a specific career choice, it's more that the live gives you the opportunity to help people in this specific way, being a leader for them in this specific role. It's a role. You're not born manager, you can become a leader or manager if you have this opportunity, and it's a learning experience.
Charlotte Ward: 35:19
Yeah, 100%. Like all life is a learning experience. Um, I heard somebody say recently that you know that it was on actually a very, very old British TV show um from the early 80s called Tenko, which I'm watching again at the moment and can highly recommend. Uh, a beloved British actress uses this line in that show. She says, Do you know the day I realized I'd finally grown up? It was when I realized I wasn't always right. And I love that line because I think so much of what we've described today is about growing up, uh, mostly professionally, but like there is a an evolutionary arc to us as individuals. And I think, you know, I'm not the leader I was five years ago or 10 years ago or 20 years ago. I think we this is a continual exercise in self-awareness and learning, but it's an important one. And I think that, yes, maybe we never are fully grown up, um, but we certainly need to achieve a level of maturity that has that self-awareness that there is more to learn, um, that it's okay to be wrong, that it's okay to take on board feedback and wishes and desires of the people around us and um and respond to those accordingly, but be grown up enough to say no sometimes.
Nadia Ivanova: 36:37
And I would say to finish up, that in the best moments as a leader, I would feel this paradoxal mix of both dignity and humility.
Charlotte Ward: 36:48
Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. That's uh that's a heady mix. Um, thank you so much for joining me today, Nadia. What a delight to uh to explore this topic with you. Um I hope you've enjoyed it. Will you come back for another chat soon?
Nadia Ivanova: 37:06
My pleasure, yes, absolutely. Thank you so much, Charlotte, for having me.
Charlotte Ward: 37:13
That's it for today. Go to customersportleaders.com forward slash 309 for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.
