Sabina Nawaz: Becoming the Manager Others Need

Episode Recap:

In this episode, we dive into Sabina Nawaz's new book You’re the Boss: Becoming the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need), which offers fresh insights for managers looking to thrive in today’s high-pressure world. Nawaz, a global C-suite coach, shares her 20+ years of experience coaching top executives at companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and the United Nations. With proven strategies backed by thousands of 360° reviews, Nawaz reveals how pressure and power can derail even the most well-meaning managers. She explores key topics like managing yourself first, overcoming pressure pitfalls, the power of "Blank Space" for creativity, and why self-care is crucial for success. Tune in for actionable advice on how to be a more effective, balanced, and impactful leader.

Guest Bio:

Sabina Nawaz is the author of You’re the Boss: Becoming the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need). She’s an elite executive coach who advises C-level executives and teams at Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, nonprofits, and academic institutions around the world. Sabina teaches faculty at Northeastern and Drexel Universities. During her fourteen-year tenure at Microsoft, she went from managing software development teams to leading the company’s executive development and succession planning efforts for over 11,000 managers and nearly a thousand executives, advising Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer directly. She has written for and been featured in Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, among others.

Quotes:

• "It is not power but pressure that corrupts—where we act out, raise our voice, yell, and scream under pressure."
• "I am sufficient. Not all the garnishes and varnishes. Just show up with the mindset that you are sufficient, and it will work."

Key Takeaways:

• Micro-habits matter: Start small—one push-up, one minute of meditation, 0.1 miles of running—to build consistency.
• Invite perspective first: Ask “How do you think things are going?” before offering feedback.
• Talk less, listen more: Be the third or fourth person to speak in meetings to allow space for other voices.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction and Book Announcement

01:20 The Role of Managers in Today's Economy

05:17 Sabina's Origin Story

08:09 The Inspiration Behind 'You’re the Boss'

11:51 New Rules for Modern Managers

17:02 The Toxic Boss Myth

21:11 The Power of Micro Habits

24:58 The Danger of the Singular Story

26:32 Pressure and Power in Leadership

30:07 The Importance of Multiple Perspectives

31:11 Effective Communication and Feedback

37:12 The Shut Up Muscle

38:55 Handling Pressure with Blank Space

39:34 Speed Round: Personal Insights

Conclusion:

Modern leadership is less about control and more about clarity, care, and courage. Sabina Nawaz shows that managing well under pressure starts with knowing yourself, creating room for others to be heard, and leading with presence and empathy. The strongest teams are built on daily habits, honest conversations, and a leader who shows up with both confidence and humility.

Resources & Links:

📘 Book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Youre-the-Boss/Sabina-Nawaz/9781668023181
🌐 Website: https://sabinanawaz.com/
📰 Newsletter: https://growthroughpressure.substack.com/
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabinanawaz

Transcript

Marcel Schwantes 00:00 

Marcel, hey, it's Marcel. I am geeked up about my new book that just got released worldwide. If you haven't heard it's called Humane Leadership: Lead with Radical Love, Be a Kick-Ass Boss. Now, if you love the podcast, you're gonna love the book. I spent several years researching the best skills and behaviors of people leaders that engage employees and drive results through a humane approach of empowering humanity, developing trust and getting the best out of people. It's out now. Get it wherever books are sold. Humane Leadership: Lead with Radical Love, Be a Kick-Ass Boss. Check the link in the show notes and grab your copy.  

Welcome to the Love in Action podcast. I'm your host, executive coach, speaker and author, Marcel Schwantes, I believe that when we show up with our full humanity to work and lead from a place of love, joy, purpose, care and inclusion. It's going to make a radical difference in your leadership, your business and your bottom line. This is a show about actionable, practical, love, the verb as a leadership and business strategy. Let's get rolling. Hey guys, welcome back to the show. Glad you hear millions of managers in today's global economy. They steer firms toward greatness or failure. It's a given you're going to go either one way or the other, and a lot of that depends on managers skills, right? What did they bring to the table?  

And I'm talking about a lot of leadership skills as well, because manager managers these days have to juggle both the managerial side of the equation, but also the leadership and the people side of the equation right, and too often, bosses are turned loose without a roadmap, only to discover that the traits that launched him to be to get to The top are now the same things that are blocking their success. So how do we quickly become the manager? I know many of you are managers listening to this show.  

So how do you become the manager who gets things done and people want to follow? In other words, how do you recognize what's holding you back, your blind spots that's affecting the people side of the equation. Because you may be great at strategy, hiring, firing and all that good all the nuts and bolts of management, right, but you may be suffering when it comes with building a relationship with your team and engaging and collaborating and inspiring. So that's the conversation we're going to have today.  

And to help me out, I'm bringing in global C suite coach Sabina Nawaz, and she's going to give us some surprising answers, and even I would say, some contrarian views that come from her brand new book, which is called You're the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need). Sabina distills insights from her over 20 years of coaching CEOs and executives at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Motorola, Nordstrom and even the UN so the backbone of this book draws upon over 12,000 pages of proprietary data from 1000s of 360 reviews of her fortune, 500 global clientele. And I'm honored that she is going to join us shortly to share some of those findings and some of those case studies and really a lot of great practical tools that you can take away with you.  

So Sabina Nawaz is an elite executive coach, and I've already mentioned she advises C level executives and teams at Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, nonprofits, academic institutions all around the world. She just told me that she's on the plane to Munich next week. Sabine also teaches faculty at Northeastern and Drexel universities, and during her 14-year tenure at Microsoft, she went from managing software development teams to leading the company's executive development and succession planning efforts for over 11,000 managers and nearly 1000 executives advising, guess who, Bill Gates, and also Steve Ballmer directly. She has written for and been featured in Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Forbes Inc, Fast Company, and she's all over the place, okay? And I'm honored that she is here right now, and Sabina Nawaz now. Enjoy. Joins us. Sabina, good to have you. Welcome to the show.  

Sabina Nawaz 05:04 

Thank you so much, Marcel, I'm excited to talk about love in action. 

Marcel Schwantes 05:07 

Can't wait! So, we start traditionally like this. You ready?  

Sabina Nawaz 05:13 

Sure.  

Marcel Schwantes 05:14 

What's your story? 

Sabina Nawaz 05:17 

Marcel, how long do we have? Because I have so many stories. And I thought about this when you had first warned me this was coming. The story I'm gonna start with is when I was nine years old. So as close to an origin story, I guess, as you can get. And that story takes place in Calcutta, India, where I was born, and I spent the first 20 years of my life, and at nine years old, on 100 degree day in April, I was standing on the stoop outside our home with a knife to my throat, and that knife was stuck to my throat by my own hand, because I grew up In a household of physical violence, of domestic violence, and it was so painful that nine year old self thought maybe it's easier to push the knife into my throat and not have to witness another beating of my dad, of my from my dad, of my mom.  

And as I was standing there with sweat dripping from my forehead onto this slightly warped, slightly rusty knife, which I'm not even sure would have done the job. I was reminded of a voice that encouraged me that morning not to push in the knife, but to say, you work so hard, you study so hard, you are going to go far. And this voice belonged to somebody who had no education, no traditional training whatsoever, who lived in our building. His name was Jahlil, and he ran errands for my family, and then sat in the morning on the stoop eating breakfast while I sat there studying. And when I thought about Jahlil’s voice, I thought, what would be easier to trust that he was right and I would come out through this on the other side, or to push the knife and end this pain once and for all. Thank goodness. I decided to tap into that voice of encouragement, that voice of Jalil.  

So from an origin standpoint, the thing that shapes me, or one of the things that shapes me, is the importance of that voice in our lives. Our lives, especially these days, are hard in so many ways. We have pressure coming at us from so many different directions, which I write about in the book and how you deal with pressure, one of the most underutilized resources when we're beating ourselves up about how we're not enough in dealing with all that pressure, are those voices of encouragement?  

Marcel Schwantes 07:50 

Wow, I don't think I've had a more powerful way of somebody introducing their story than that one. So thank you for that. That's incredible. So let's bring the book to the forefront of this discussion, You're the Boss. What would you say was the inspiration behind writing this amazing book?  

Sabina Nawaz 08:10 

Are you up for another story? You've already shared the data behind it, the 12,000 pages and all of that. But Marcel, it starts with me again, and writing a book is a deeply personal journey, in addition to the expertise and experience we bring to it, as I'm sure you know as well as you've written your book, yeah, and for me, I was a lousy manager at Microsoft. Now that wasn't always the case. At first, I managed teams that build software. People told me I was the best boss they'd ever had. I coached them, I cared about them. Those were great years. Then I moved on to running Microsoft's management development again.  

Things were going great until everything changed, which is the first day after parental leave and putting on lipstick for the first time, my assistant, Laurie, calls me frantic. Where are you? Steve expects you in 30 minutes, Laurie starts reading me the memo I'm supposed to discuss with Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, as I hit warp speed somewhere on the on ramp, and that set the pace and tone for my return to work. Inbox, overflowing, calendar, packed. Infant at home, no sleep, no peace, no patience. So I became morphed from caring and nurturing overnight into sleepy and short still five foot three, but now also short tempered. I was rushing to meet deadlines. I had no time to explain things, let alone repeat them.  

I started to micromanage when people would come to my office, I would put all 10 fingers on the keyboard. Look over my shoulder. I'm very busy. You're less important than me. Spit it out. Move on. And the worst part of this Marcel, I thought I was killing it. I was being efficient. Look at how I'm juggling everything. Yeah. And then my colleague Joe stops by, and here I am, yes Joe. And Joe says, Zach is crying in his office because of what you said. No longer fingers on keyboard, but it's hard for me to now make eye contact with Joe, because I feel so ashamed. My whole body is flushed with heat of that shame. My gut falls to the floor, and I think to myself, How did I go from being caring and nurturing to this someone people apparently fear and really don't like and the truth is, I wasn't a bad person. I was a boss behaving badly.  

And the worst part was I had no idea. And how many of us, anytime I sit on an airplane next to somebody and say, I'm writing a book, or I've written a book, they're like, Oh yeah, I've got that boss. That bosses us sometimes, because we don't wake up with ill intent, but we have no idea of the effect we're having on others, and that is why I have written this book. Yeah, because I have walked in those shoes, and I have so much empathy for managers trying to lead amidst tremendous pressure and completely unaware of the impact they're having, because I have been in those shoes myself. 

Marcel Schwantes 11:28 

That's a great segue for my next question, because there are so many managers you and I are both coaches. So we see this because we're in the we have that seat at the table, but as a third party, we exactly. We can be very objective and speak truth into their lives, right? But here's what I see. I see a lot of managers still hanging on to old rules, and come from relics of the industrial age, going back 5060, 80, the whole Jack Welch kind of way of managing, and we are in a new era. And I love that you established the new rules. And in fact, the chapter of your the first chapter in your book, is called New Level, New Rules. So as we move up the corporate ladder and take on more responsibilities and our team grows, what are those new rules?  

Sabina Nawaz 12:20 

Yeah, one of the biggest rules and cautionary tales is that in getting promoted is often the riskiest time in your career. Now, this sounds surprising to people often, isn't that time for celebration? Sabina absolutely break out the bubbly, but once the bubbles have fizzed out, you might recognize that the very things that are your superpowers that have gotten you promoted are now seen very differently. From the necks that are creaming up, they're seen louder, harsher and completely differently than what you had imagined. So it's not about changing that. It's about reframing, communicating, setting expectations appropriately. For example, Marcel, if I told you that one of your clients got promoted with a great attention to detail, how might they be viewed now and then elevated role. 

Marcel Schwantes 13:21 

Somebody that pays attention to detail knows really about my role, my job, and understands what I do. 

Sabina Nawaz 13:28 

Yes, and if there's a less charitable version of that, what would that be? 

Marcel Schwantes 13:33 

Oh, oh, yeah, you're just on your own, and I expect you to do what you were told. I hired for a reason. 

Sabina Nawaz 13:41 

I hired you for a reason. Or I then, and then, when you don't do it, I start to micromanage, because I'm in the details too, right? Yeah, and, or something even more surprising, let's say you're really strategic. Suddenly you can be seen as manipulated. I had a client who very strategic. They didn't tend to speak in the first part of the meeting to watch where things were, understand what people's concerns were. Now people started calling them manipulative. Oh, they go where the wind blows. They don't stay say their point of view, because they don't have one. They can flip flop to what the most senior person is saying. So that strategy becomes a burden, not a liability, for the people that they're managing and they're working with once you're in that elevated role. So you haven't changed, but your position has changed, so then the rules are different once your position has changed. 

Marcel Schwantes 14:34 

Oh, so there are still myths that we you talked about a few myths. So can we talk a little bit about that? Maybe, yeah, maybe bring one to the surface. What is a common boss myth that stands out for you?  

Sabina Nawaz 14:53 

One of them is that, yeah, but is a justified stance? Mm. Yeah. Here's what that means when, as a manager, you are doing things that are not necessarily great for the health of your team or the health of your business, and somebody points that out to you, including an executive coach, and your immediate response is, yeah, but yeah, but here's why, yeah, but they don't get it, yeah, but I can do it faster than them, yeah, but I've told them that once already, but they didn't hear it, and clearly they're not capable of it all those Yeah, but are not justified stances for what you need to do. Here's why. First of all, it doesn't matter whether you've told them once it might be on you that you didn't communicate clearly enough, consistently enough. Maybe you change your mind all the time and have a flavor of the day. So even though they heard you and the message was received clearly, they're not believing it, because they know tomorrow will be something different.  

So instead of Yeah, but what if you said yes and yes, I told them this yesterday, and I need to repeat this today, so they don't think this is the flavor of the day. The other problem is that we are we get less and less used to people disagreeing with us or giving us the truth with love, the higher we go. And so the yeah buts come out more easily because everyone surrounding us is cushioning us in praise, buffering us often, managers say my job is to buffer my people from stuff that's coming from up above the employee's job, the unwritten employee's job is also to buffer their manager say things milder than what they're experiencing and cushioning it in praise, because nobody wants to tell the person in a position of power, what they don't want to hear.  

Marcel Schwantes 17:02 

Yeah, and there is a very wow, extreme example of a, what I would call a toxic boss that is in your book. And I thought I'd read an excerpt from that. This is what you say. This is straight out of page 31 when I told Victor. Victor is, I'm assuming, is one of your former clients, right? His 360-degree feedback, you name, unanimously crowned him an asshole. He leaned back in his chair, lifted his feet onto the coffee table, interlaced his hands behind his head in the universal symbol of I'm completely unfazed by what you're saying and said with a smirk. Sabina, please. I've been called an asshole ever since I was five. That's what makes me successful.  

People don't listen to nice people who do that touchy feely garbage. My HR director keeps trying to get me to do I'm smiling, I'm laughing now because I have actually heard the these things in my own stories as a coach. Okay, all right, I'll continue. They listen to me when I yell and curse and call them out. That's when they pay attention when I deliberately lose my shit in meetings. Managers like Victor aren't oblivious or ashamed of their bad behavior. They wear their noxious traits as a badge of pride. I've lost count. I've lost count of the number of people like Victor who take quote, you're an asshole, end quote feedback as a compliment, with the result he was raking in and the high profile attention he garnered in the business press, Victor had earned the right to be an asshole, right?  

You end with a question, but then you also say in the next sentence, dead, wrong. Sorry, Vic, we're still in this day and age where we see Vic, the VIX of the world, rise to the top. And so I find this fascinating, because it's this old mentality that still prevails that says, I may be an asshole. These may be toxic behaviors, but this is what got us to the top and helped us to win. And Sabina, it may be the whole leadership culture that behaves this way because it's contagious. And my point is, the higher up you go, the harder it is to distinguish those great leadership traits from those toxic leadership traits. You become blind to them. 

Sabina Nawaz 19:38 

You do. You do. And what Victor doesn't realize and didn't realize is that when people act out of fear versus motivation desire, fear is a motivator too, but Gen fear versus love of what they're doing, they're not going to be doing their best work. In fact, research shows that. When bosses treat employees poorly, not only do they go and play video games or shop on online, they deliberately make mistakes. Think about that. They deliberately sabotage their own performance just to get back at that asshole boss. So what is it that you want? And it doesn't survive in the long term, the amount of time people were spending in each other's offices talking about Victor versus talking about what they need to work on was a phenomenal waste, especially with the high-pressure, high-profile work that they were doing and the deadlines that they were under. 

Marcel Schwantes 20:36 

So I want to transition to we've established this reality that here we are still in the year 2025, we're still dealing with this kind of management style. So let's talk about maybe some solutions, and introduce some of your tools and techniques, the things that I mentioned, the proprietary stuff, and all of the data that you have gathered and you've turned into coaching programs, coaching techniques and all that, you mentioned some foundational tools that really can pave the way for you to become becoming an effective manager. And one of those tools I wanted to put the spotlight on is to create micro habits. I love that. I'm I coach on micro habits, but our listeners may not really understand what that is. So explain the concept of micro habits. What is it? How do we do it, and why is it important? 

Sabina Nawaz 21:32 

I'm so glad you chose micro habits with us thinking, please choose micro habits. Please choose micro habit. It is one of my favorite tools as well, and it has made a life changing difference, not just for my clients, but for me, not just at work, but in our personal relationships, our marriages, our parenting, our friendships, our health and well being. You name it. Micro habits can be incredibly helpful. So what is a micro habit? As you can guess from the name, it has two components to it. It's micro. It's really small. And most people, when I say that, they go, yeah, really small. Okay, I got it. That means I can work out for 20 minutes a day. I'm like, No, that's not what I'm talking about.  

I'll give you a specific example in moments. It's really small and it's habit, which means you do it every single day. Now it's very hard in our busy lives, with all the pressures that we're under, to add yet another thing that we're going to do every single day. So the bigger the habit, the less likely you are to do it, the less likely you are to do it on day one, the more you're going to feel like a loser on day two, and you're not going to do it again. So it's the idea is to build on successes. So let's say, if physical fitness was a goal of yours, it's not 20 minutes, it's not even five minutes. And guess what? It's not even two minutes, it's not even a minute. Keep going down. This is one push up a day, one squat or one jumping jack. That's it. You get your gold star with one.  

If you want to do more, feel free. But success is one, and you do that for a long time, for several weeks. I am living proof of this, if I'm lucky, in 10 days from now, I will be running my very first marathon. I started running three years ago, and my micro habit was to increment the running, not by a mile, not by half a mile, but by point one miles. Point one miles. It was excruciatingly slow, but that's what got me in three years from zero to marathon. And guess what? For 20 years prior, I kept aiming big. It never worked. This book is for people who are successful and want to be successful. And by definition, we then set big goals. We have big ambitions. You absolutely have that big ambition, and start in a micro way. 

Marcel Schwantes 24:08 

So did you run that marathon? About to Oh, yeah, okay, okay. Where are you headed for that one? Washington State? Okay, that's great. Yeah, I came very close to running a marathon once I was on that incremental path as well, not as small as yours, but yet, they build us up to eventually 12 miles in one day, where you were supposed to run 12 in one day. But yeah, I started with very because I was not a runner, so like you, I had to stop start very small. Yes, that's a great illustration as great illustration for acquiring leadership habits the same way through those micro actions and nudging your people also in the same manner through micro actions of Yeah, micro coaching habits.  

And start small, exactly, okay. So I love this one because I've seen it happen with a lot of my coaching clients. There is a tendency for senior leaders and managers to create the story in their heads about what is true for them or what is right for them. And many go down this path of only hearing their own voices and then become convinced that their version of whatever story they're telling themselves is the only version of whatever it is why the project failed, or why this key employee quit, or why this our month's numbers are low, and they start to shift the blame in different directions, because, after all, I'm the senior leader. I wrote the strategy, I wrote the playbook on customer retention, or whatever the example is.  

So my solution is the right one they think inside that little box that they live in. But it turns out that your story may not be the right one. It may even be the wrong. It may be a false story that your phone false script in your mind, and that there are other stories that we must hear if we open up our perspective. And you talked about this, and you call it the singular story, right? So I wanted to ask you if you could break that down even further. I gave some illustrations, but like maybe in in previous client sessions or in your day at Microsoft, what did you see and why does this happen so often?  

Sabina Nawaz 26:29 

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Let me start at a 50,000-foot view level and min with a specific example to illustrate this. Marcel, the there are two key concepts in You're the Boss. One is that it is not power but pressure that corrupts Okay, where we act out, raise our voice, yell and scream under pressure. Even Victor, who was proud to be crowned an asshole, was under tremendous pressure with the publicity that his work was getting with the funders who were paying to do the work that they were doing. So it's pressure that corrupts and then power separates us. It isolates us. It creates a gap where it's really hard to see things.  

So that singular story that we arrive at, because, again, we've been successful. We have a track record. We've got experience. We go, we connect the dots super fast and go, boom. It's because of this, or it's because of that. And of course, that's dangerous, because it could be outdated, incomplete or incorrect. Here's how it could show up. At work, I had a client come to me, let's call him John. And John comes and says, I am so upset. I'm so upset at my colleague, David. Okay, what's wrong with David? So John and David are both C suite executives for a fortune 500 company, and John says David has proposed this agenda item on the C suite meeting, and that is in my area, so clearly he's gunning for my job. He's out to get me.  

He wants to take that portion and grow his empire. And his voice is elevated. He's barely breathing, really hot and bothered about this. I said, Okay, John, that could very well be true, that David is so what do you want? I want him to back the F off, right? And I said, All right, yep, maybe we'll talk about those strategies. But first, bear with me for a moment. Could we just explore maybe sort of that there could be other things at play. Oh no, I know David. I know he's out for my job. All right, yes, I know. But can we take the next 10 minutes? All right, if you say so, right. Of course, over the next few minutes, it didn't even take 10. In the next three minutes or so, we arrived at Okay, could it be that David doesn't know that this is a relatively new area under you and doesn't know that this is in your purview. He was out on vacation for the last three weeks.  

Could it be that David does know and he actually wants to support you in getting more attention, more resources for this, and therefore proposed it. Could it be that David is not the most interpersonally skilled person, and it didn't occur to him that he should first talk to you before going there, but he had all the right intentions. Now, as soon as these meanings started coming in, his voice calmed down. He realized that there could be many reasons or a combination of these reasons, and went and talked to David in a much more collaborative fashion versus a confrontational fashion.  

Turns out David is somewhat awkward interpersonally, and was trying to help get this project more limelight. So guess what? Now the two of them could work together and present a much more robust picture to the C team on the project and give it more love and attention. That's great. So by making those multiple meanings, and as you're saying, as human beings, we are meaning making storytelling machine. It is not productive. It is not helpful to say, okay, Marcel, stop jumping to conclusions. Stop making up stories. Stop making up assumptions. That's like saying stop gravity. Yeah, so instead of stopping it, what if I said Marcel, make even more assumptions, jump to even more conclusions, make up even more stories. Now, don't act on any of those don't act until you have at least three different stories. So that antidote to a singular story is making those multiple meanings. 

Marcel Schwantes 30:49 

That's that is great, and thank you for that story. I also, I would add that in this divisive age that we find ourselves in, we follow these narratives. Yes and often false narratives, and we operate from confirmation bias that leads us down the wrong path. Just want to throw that in all right, so I want to transition to vacation because I'm I would say I spend 80% maybe even more, of my coaching sessions dealing with communication issues between bosses and their employees, between C suite members and other C suite members, right? Let's talk a little bit about I want to even be even more specific when I see a communication that's a very large umbrella. Okay, so I want to take feedback as an example.  

So it's obviously every manager's role to provide good, clear, constructive feedback, right? But we have to do it in a way that doesn't like shame people or cause awkward moments where they will shrink back from you so that you're not now as you lecture them on whatever you know they're doing wrong, it has an adverse effect on them right? It doesn't build them up, it tears them down even further. So maybe it's maybe we can use the example of perhaps an underperforming employee, right, and you still believe in that person's potential, but you just don't know how to go about giving proper feedback. Or on the flip side of that, Sabina, I'm thinking like you have a super high performer, like the rock star of your office, right?  

But you notice Something's off? Well, something's off this month with him, he's not himself, or he's not as motivated as previous months, and so you need to give that person some feedback. A lot of my clients struggle with giving feedback and doing it the right way. So let's take a chapter out of your toolbox here, or what are some good techniques, some habits that managers can start practicing to give really good feedback. 

Sabina Nawaz 33:02 

The first thing that comes to mind is we assume a level of cluelessness when we set about giving feedback to our employees. That is that, unless I tell them, they have no idea that this is going on. Therefore, the very first thing you might do when giving feedback is to first start by asking them where they think they are, how they think they're doing, what might be going on for them. Often, clients come to me. I'm sure they come to you as well, Marcel, where they're really worried about providing tough feedback, and at the minute I say, why have you ever asked them how they think they're doing?  

There's a sense of relief, oh, that I don't have to carry the whole load myself. Yeah, you don't. So what if you said, Hey, how's it going in this in the last month for you, what's up? What? How's it going? And they might open up and share that they're struggling. Maybe it's something going on in their personal lives. Or it could be that in this new age of, say, AI, there's a whole paradigm shift, and they haven't made the shift. They're struggling with learning and getting up to speed there. Or it could be that there's a new coworker where things are tanking their productivity as a result of some tension there. Who knows?  

So they could tell you, and then you can build on that. Now, a common objection, a common Yeah, but I get from my clients when I say that is okay, yes. So that could work with my star performers, or people who are really self aware, but what about that employee who's really not doing a great job, but thinks they are, and that's a common phenomenon. It even has a name called the Dunning Kruger effect, where the people who are at the bottom end of performance think they're at the top end of performance. In that case, at the very least, it starts to help with alignment. Hey, I. Jessica, how do you think it's going? How do you think that meeting went? Or how do you think that project went?  

What are your thoughts about it? And let's say Jessica says she's done a fantastic job. It's your opportunity to say, okay, great. So I'm glad to hear that you feel proud of the results. I have a different perspective, so it might very well be that it's a question of perception versus reality, and perception is reality. So I'm going to give you some feedback that's really different from what you're experiencing, and then let's talk about how we address that gap. So you might be at that very disparate space, or you might be in complete agreement. Jessica's now made your job a lot easier, but she said, Yeah, you're right. I am struggling with this or that. Now you can go into coaching and mentoring while also creating clear boundaries and expectations about how things need to shift. 

Marcel Schwantes 35:58 

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that it's often so hard for us to be that that authentic and sometimes even give tough love in our feedback, but doing it in a way that gets people to respond yes and not shrink back from you from the feedback that you want to give. Yeah, that'd be good. Okay, so for those of you guys that you know are I wish I had a three hour podcast Sabina, because we get to talk on here forever, but for the sake of time, we're going to start to wind down here. So I'm going to point you to her book, because we're going to end here shortly. But get her book because it is chock full of strategies and road maps and checklists and prompts and journals and all kinds of stuff. So this is not a theory based book, okay, I'm here to tell you because I went from cover to cover. It is a book that is. It's just 100% practical stuff that you implement to improve your leadership skills. Okay, if I am a senior manager, what is the first step to begin my journey of becoming a great boss? 

Sabina Nawaz 37:08 

The first step, yeah, to shut up and sit. I call it exercising your Shut up muscle. Because here's the thing, once you start speaking, nobody else is going to disagree with you or bring in their own ideas. They're just going to go, oh yeah, what a great idea. Because as a boss, every idea of yours is now worthy of a TED Talk. Your jokes are funny enough to land you on. America's Got Talent, so you've got to be able to shut up and allow the space for other people, and a very simple, practical way to do that is be the third person or the fourth person to speak instead of the first person to speak.  

Marcel Schwantes 37:49 

Yeah. And I would imagine that also helps to protect yourself against the singular story.  

Sabina Nawaz 37:55 

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, yes. And not just the singular story, but also because people won't tell you things when you shut up. Now you can start to pay more attention to the room, read the room. Look at what's not being said. What is being said? What is the body language and sense a lot more.  

Marcel Schwantes 38:13 

Yeah, yeah. And it may not happen right away, because if you come from, say, a victor in a previous example I read that might take a few seasons for yes team to feel safe enough to open up to give you that kind of feedback. So absolutely okay, all right. So as we wind down here, I want to make sure that you got everything you need in here, as far as okay, if you forgot, or I forgot a question, or maybe you want to get in another point, and this would be the time to do. Is there something that we haven't covered?  

Sabina Nawaz 38:47 

Yeah, I the, because pressure, and dealing with pressure, and whether you're a manager or an employee, everybody faces that is so important. The point I'd make is, when under pressure, do nothing. Do nothing. And this is a practice called blank space. Again, there's a formula for it, or a set of steps that might be helpful for you, road tested by a lot of people, which is unplugging, stepping back, not reading, not talking, not certainly not being online, not being in your workspace, and stepping back to really think through the big picture. Because when you do, you realize often that the thing you're most struggling with, where you feel stuck, the answer is right there inside you. But because of all this noise, we have lost the signal. 

Marcel Schwantes 39:32 

Yeah, that's true. Okay, we have arrived at our speed round so strap on the seat belt. Here we go. I'm going to throw questions at you. You can just fire them right back at me. Okay, I know there are many lessons you've probably learned in life. Is there one that floats to the top? 

Sabina Nawaz 39:54 

that I am sufficient? Not all the garnishes and varnishes just show up? Put the mindset you are sufficient, and it will work 

Marcel Schwantes 40:03 

Someone that inspires you right now? 

Sabina Nawaz 40:09 

My husband, who because of his selfless giving, this book is dedicated to him, he stayed home with our kids so I could go to work and do the things that I've done, that absolute dedication to being generous and selfless, I learned so much from him  

Marcel Schwantes 40:28 

That would be Matthew, right?  

Sabina Nawaz 40:29 

Yes. 

Marcel Schwantes 40:30 

Okay, I was wondering who Matthew was in the acknowledgement. Okay, now I know. Okay, all right, something nobody knows about you, you're about to impart on a bunch of people here. 

Sabina Nawaz 40:44 

I don't know if nobody, some people probably know, but it's not well known that I am trained in stunt fighting,  

Marcel Schwantes 40:51 

Stunt fighting? Stunt what? Okay, explain a little bit about that. 

Sabina Nawaz 41:00 

My husband, Matthew and I actually started an amateur theater company in our younger years, and we had amazing mentors and teachers. And one of the drummer teachers trained us in stunt fighting, and I was actually I so loved it that I was now working toward getting certified in it. Then I got pregnant, so I figured it may not be safe to be doing stunt fighting, because there could be some accidents involved. 

Marcel Schwantes 41:25 

All right, for our YouTube audience that's watching that is there a move, a technique that you can show just. 

Sabina Nawaz 41:32 

I usually meet someone else with me, but a move is to slap somebody, and you're not slapping them. You just put up your hand, you slap the hand, and it makes that noise, and then you sell it with your body language and their body language.  

Marcel Schwantes 41:46 

That's interesting. Okay, name a person dead or alive you would like to have dinner with. 

Sabina Nawaz 41:52 

Oh, Lord, my dad.  

Marcel Schwantes 41:56 

Oh, okay, ah, that's good. Okay, your biggest hope for 2025? 

Sabina Nawaz 42:07 

My biggest hope for 2025 is people living in the world of “and” instead of “but”. 

Marcel Schwantes 42:19 

Love that. Yeah, okay, we bring it home with two questions, as we do with every guest, this has been a such a rich conversation. So here's the first one. It's the love question, sticking with anything we've talked about, or maybe a new insight you may have. How do I lead with more actionable, practical love, day in and day out? 

Sabina Nawaz 42:41 

Marcel, I was drawn to your show from the start because of this premise of Love in Action. In many ways, you could say this entire book is about love in action. Every single one of the 16 tools is about love. So first is self-love and self-care and the importance of that. Pick a micro habit and dedicate that to yourself, not 10 minutes a day, not a minute a day, just a few seconds. I like to say I have a daily meditation practice, one inhale, one exhale. That's love in action, because if you start by filling your cup, you are much more likely to be able to show up with love in action for others. 

Marcel Schwantes 43:18 

So good. All right, bring us home. What's that one thing you want people to take away from this conversation?  

Sabina Nawaz 43:26 

It's something I haven't yet shared, and that would be but ties in with everything we've been talking about, is and goes back hundreds of years to Isaac Newton, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and so every action has a reaction, whether you're a manager or an employee, navigating that boss employee relationship is so fraught these days. So are you aware of the reactions that your actions are causing? And how can you become more aware of that by shutting up and sensing more. 

Marcel Schwantes 44:02 

That's great. The book, again, is called, You're the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need). And there is the cover if you're watching on YouTube. Sabina, if people want to connect with you, find out more about you. What are some options that they can go to? 

Sabina Nawaz 44:20 

They can follow my Substack called Pressure Proof. The best way is to go to my website. You can sign up for the Substack there. But also, if you bought the book, you can download a number of tools and templates to put these into practice immediately for yourself. There's also a book discussion guide and many other resources. 

Marcel Schwantes 44:40 

Yeah, and no joke, and yeah, and the book is full of that as well. I just want to send as many people as possible to go get those resources and also get the book. Sabine. It's been so much fun, and this has been one of the best conversations I've had in a long time. Appreciate you being here.  

Sabina Nawaz 44:58 

Wow. Thank you so much. Mark. Marcel, thank you for having me! 

Marcel Schwantes 45:02 

All right, folks, keep the conversation going on social media with #loveinactionpodcast, and look for my show notes on my website, marcelschwantes.com I'll include all of Sabina’s information in there, as well as a YouTube link for you to watch this very episode again. All of that can be found at marcelschwantes.com. For Sabina Nawaz and yours truly, remember, in the end, love wins, we'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to the Love in Action podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it, subscribe and leave us a review until next time. Don't forget. The future of leadership is love in action. Believe it, practice it, and watch your leadership and business flourish.