Steer Through the Storm - Sales Leadership

In this episode, Nicky Miklós and Leah Mether explore the evolving landscape of leadership, particularly in the context of rapid change and uncertainty. They discuss the importance of human skills, emotional intelligence, and effective communication in navigating challenges, especially with the rise of AI. Leah emphasizes the need for leaders to model desired behaviours, create a speak-up culture, and set clear expectations with their teams. The discussion also highlights the significance of building trust and psychological safety within teams, as well as the necessity of consistent communication during times of uncertainty. Ultimately, the conversation serves as a guide for leaders to steer their teams through the storm of change while fostering a positive and productive work environment.

Check out Leah's work here - https://www.leahmether.com.au/

Leah's YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@leahmetherspeaker

Connect on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahmetherspeaker/

Previous episodes with Leah - Bringing Humanity to Leadership with Leah Mether

Red Brick Thinking episode - Let's Red Brick It! Cutting Through the Clutter with Donna McGeorge

Learn more about Nicky at nickymiklos.com

Grab The Growth Code™ here!

Get your a copy of Healthy Hustle: The New Blueprint to Thrive in Business & Life at www.healthyhustle.com.au

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Contact: 0403 191 404 | hello@nickymiklos.com

Music by Jules Miklos-Woodley

Transcript

Nicky Miklós (02:30)
Hello beautiful listeners and welcome to this week's episode. I am super excited. Leah, here we are. Welcome.

Leah Mether (02:38)
Yay!

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you to everyone listening and watching. I am excited for this conversation.

Nicky Miklós (02:46)
Now, this conversation came about because we were having dinner ⁓ at our amazing business retreat we were at earlier last year. And we had this incredible conversation about leadership and steering through the storm. Now, everybody knows a little bit about you already And we talk a lot in this podcast about smart business growth. And fundamentally that comes down to really smart leadership.

you know, when we look at it through the lens of sales and even beyond that, of course, but truly we can run workshops, we can do training sessions, we can do coaching for the cold face people. But at the end of the day, it's how the leaders are following up, nurturing, supporting, being consistent that will truly make an impact in the business. And we're so aligned with this and we started this great conversation and thought, hold on a second, we need to record this ⁓ So here we are.

Leah Mether (03:35)
Yeah.

Yes!

Nicky Miklós (03:40)
So I would love, know, some of the challenges that I'm seeing at the moment, ⁓ particularly with the introduction of AI, longer sales times, pockets of high performers, you know, there's a real need for, and look, that is not a new challenge, you know, trying to get consistency of results and behavior and ⁓ effectiveness across the board. But I feel like that's a bit heightened these days with trust at an all time low, scamming, spamming,

Leah Mether (03:47)
Yeah.

Nicky Miklós (04:09)
introduction of AI. So I really want to delve into a few different areas around this with you today. But to start with incredible book highly recommend make sure you grab a copy copy and a coffee. What has changed you wrote this book a few years ago now I believe what has changed do you think in terms of the need as a leader to effectively steer through the storm.

Leah Mether (04:25)
Mm.

Yeah, and so much has changed in terms of it has only been become more important. So everything that is in that book, all of those concepts dialed up to like a hundred. I actually had that idea for the book just before Covid hit. So it was already

Nicky Miklós (04:47)
Mmm.

Leah Mether (04:56)
you know, front of mind for me about, you know, the pace of change, we've got industries in transition, that's all ramping up. Then COVID comes and smashes us all over the head, you know, talk about steering through a storm of change and uncertainty that none of us saw coming. You alluded to some of those other changes now, whether it's the explosion of AI, that's not going back in the bag, it's only going to just accelerate at a rapid, rapid rate. ⁓

If we're on the front foot and we're aware of that and we're eyes wide open, there's a lot we can do in that space. But you know, the pace of change, the rate of uncertainty, you know, I don't have to tell, you know, the people listening or viewing the world is a pretty crazy place right now. And I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on this podcast, but you know, look, I would say it's actually crazy right now. Like you just.

Nicky Miklós (05:48)
I think go for it. I say go for it. Yeah.

Leah Mether (05:54)
talk about a storm, we don't know, you know, we're turning on the news in the morning, like what crazy thing has been said overnight, what's happening, it's shaken everyone, regardless of your politics or anything like that.

feels in flux at the moment. So when I wrote Steer Through the Storm and what it's about, there's a whole lot out there on change management.

You know, how do we, how do we lead change that we're instigating? And you know, it might be a sales leader going, I want to do this new thing. ⁓ that's leading change or change management. That's not what I'm talking about. When I talk about steer through the storm,

steer through the storm is about how to communicate and lead courageously through change. And that's the difference because a lot of what's going on around us at the moment.

We're not in control of it. It's happening, whether we like it or not. We don't even know really sometimes what's happening.

And as leaders, whether you're a sales leader, a leader in general, or just leading yourself, we have to have the skills to steer ourselves through this uncertainty and change in a way that means we can still be okay. We can still be doing great work and

The fact that we don't have all the answers while unsettling, we don't get bogged down in trying to control things that are outside our control. the skills, the strategies in the book, the strategies I talked to in this space have just been dialed up. And I would say that not having these skills, in the past it might have been

you won't be as effective or you know, we want to be be effective. We want to be doing good work.

But what I would say now with the explosion of AI is the option of not developing these skills. I'm talking about the human skills,

the ⁓ emotional intelligence, the emotional regulation, the self-awareness, the being able to communicate effectively with others and bring people with you.

to deal with the feelings of people who might be scared and uncertain and they're looking to you as the leader for answers.

The option of not developing your skills in this space and it's okay if you haven't got great skills at the moment, everyone can learn and improve. But it's not optional anymore, it's essential.

If we just quickly look at AI, for example,

If AI is going to be doing a lot of the technical parts of your sales ⁓ into the future, if it's going to be doing a lot of the back end admin, what sets you apart?

It's this people bit. So if you want to future proof your career, if you

want to build trust with people, if you want to stay relevant, these skills are not nice to have. They're absolutely crucial.

Nicky Miklós (09:02)
⁓ I love that there's so much in what you said, even around that reflection of you said the word ourselves a little while ago. And it's it is that reflection on ourself first so we can show up and be great leaders for others. And I also feel like, when you talk about we don't have all the answers and that can be settling, I feel like the illusion of control has now disappeared.

Leah Mether (09:10)
No, no, no.

Yes. And I love that you said that because ⁓ it is an illusion. It's always been an illusion. We were ourselves, right? We were kidding ourselves, but we could get away with kidding ourselves until, you know, if

Nicky Miklós (09:33)
Yes, it has.

Yeah.

Leah Mether (09:41)
something happens in your personal life, it might be an unexpected death or a health diagnosis.

It might be that your

Nicky Miklós (09:47)
Yeah.

Leah Mether (09:48)
organization has done a restructure and you're, you've become redundant. Those sorts of

things that come out of the blue have always been there and been part of life. ⁓ But there were other things that were kind of just the norms we had come to expect.

But as always does through history, you know, there's been pandemics before, there's been world wars before, there's, ⁓ you know, things happen.

You know, to quote our, you know, our great slogan from the 90s.

Nicky Miklós (10:18)
Yep.

Leah Mether (10:22)
shit happens like it does it always has but but it has been ramped up now so for those listening going yeah but it hasn't felt like this before yes change has always happened yes things have always been uncertain but you're not imagining it when you think it has accelerated the pace has just it's been exponential the times of

Nicky Miklós (10:24)
Yes!

Yep.

Yeah.

Leah Mether (10:52)
developing technologies. It's shortened, you know, we're going through a new revolution now. At the pace, it's unsettling a lot of people and that's really normal. But that's why developing these skills is crucial because otherwise we all start panicking,

running around like headless chooks, which doesn't help anyone.

Nicky Miklós (11:17)
Yeah. And particularly if I think about, you know, sales leadership, high pressure, chasing targets, it's always that high pressure, fast pace in environment. And yes, we've got these incredible tools, but we're also in a, ⁓ I guess, juncture at the moment where we're still learning what are the right tools. So we've got these tools to help us manage time or have more space. Yet it's not actually having that effect yet. If anything, we're more busy, more

Leah Mether (11:22)
Mmmmm

Yeah.

Nicky Miklós (11:46)
more, more, more, more. And if you know, we've referenced Donna McGeorge's work and we both love Red Brick Thinking, I'll pop a link to the podcast episode there.

Leah Mether (11:48)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Nicky Miklós (11:55)
So, you know, for those leaders, business owners, even salespeople, people that are listening and watching that are in that high pressure, fast pace, it's just adding, adding, adding more, more, more. The uncertainty is building, the pace is building.

What tips do you have for us to kind of pause

ground and cut through that noise. So we still can show up and be, you know, because what you said, I so, you know, agree with your future proofing your role. Like those of you that are listening and watching your future proofing your role, you're keeping yourself relevant. So what are tips that you have then to cut through all of that chaos to come back to how am I adding value but being effective for myself and those around me?

Leah Mether (12:38)
Yeah, and I love what you said there because part of the answer is in what you've just said. The very first step is recognizing it starts with you. So before you get out there and try to lead your people and tell them what to do, you have to make sure you are modeling this behavior yourself. ⁓ Our mutual friend, Reaper Patel, who does brilliant work around mindful leadership. She talks about the

importance of being the river, not the rock.

that, you know, if we resist the water, if we resist all of this change, you know, it gets frantic and we get

stuck and we get fixed and we get reactive. When we are the river, we chart a new course. We go, OK, this is the reality. We are in the middle of the storm at the moment. That that just is what it is. We can't change it. We can't control it. So how do I choose to respond to it becomes the question.

and recognizing that it starts with us.

So, you you said how do we pause and how do we ground? That first step of recognizing we do need to pause. And to do a bit of a stocktake of how

am I showing up? You know, I know we've had conversations on the podcast before and I will draw back to those questions around... ⁓

What do I want to be known for as a sales leader? Like who do I want to be? Not what do I want to do? Who do I want to be?

And then you got to really look at yourself in the mirror and go, and how am I showing up? Now, this is really front of mind for me at the moment, because I, at the time of recording this, I have just come off school holidays with my three kids and I have two teenage boys and one preteen.

and they've all hit puberty at the same time. It's like a, it's a hot bed here. And the reason I draw on that is because it's really easy to get sucked into how other people are behaving. Now we know what teenagers are like. It's a developmental phase. They're pushing boundaries. They're challenging me. They're being a bit defiant

and it's really easy for me to get sucked in. Even though I teach this stuff for a living and go and just lose my cool.

And what I've had to do is remind myself that I'm the grownup in the room. And what I mean by being the grownup, it's not an age thing. It's not an experience thing. Again, it's me asking myself, okay, this is the reality. I've got these kids at the moment. Teenagers are great, but they're going to push buttons. We're in the middle of this ⁓ world that in this crazy ⁓ flux of change and uncertainty.

And it's really scary for a lot of people at the moment.

back to but what can I control? Me. So this is where we have to pause. For some people they've already got the skills to do this and the answer is in the pause and that reflection of who do I want to be? How do I want to show up? What do I need to do to regulate my emotions? To model the behaviour they want to see in others.

So some of the listeners

that will be enough to ground themselves to find a way forward and then we can talk about you know what it actually looks like to lead people through it but for others they will do that pause and they'll go I don't know what to do no one's ever taught me how to regulate my emotions no one's ever I don't even know where to start with you know okay I would like to be more calm or I would like to

⁓ not get, ⁓ you know, chicken little

the sky is falling down, but I don't have the mindset tools or the the communication tools to do that. And that's where for the first first port of call for some people is acknowledging their those gaps and then being willing to seek out and learn the strategies for them, the skill gap that they need to develop. And the reason I'm

I'm not being deliberately vague here, but the answer is different for all of us depending on what it is for us. So it has to start with that reflection and that understanding

that we have to choose how we show up and we must, must, must, must take personal responsibility for our own communication and

behavior. If you don't want your team running around like headless chooks or being abrupt with

⁓ clients or not picking up the phone and just sticking their head under the blanket because it's too big and scary out there. You better make sure you're not modeling those things yourself.

Nicky Miklós (17:32)
It's so true. Often we see the behavior reflected back to us, don't we? Which is, which can hurt sometimes. Like that takes, that's grown up. That's being a grown up to actually own and go, ⁓ this isn't a one-off that's happening. This is a pattern of behavior within my team. So how am I modeling the desired behavior and what needs to change there?

Leah Mether (17:36)
Yes!

That's right!

Absolutely. I'm giggling as you said that because look, I have been guilty of yelling at my children to stop yelling. Like seriously, again, I'm the communication expert here. I'm yelling at my children to stop yelling. And in my head at that moment I've gone, you idiot. What are you modeling here? You want them to stop yelling? So you're yelling at them to stop yelling?

Nicky Miklós (18:02)
Yes!

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Leah Mether (18:19)
And here's the thing, we've got to have some self-compassion. We've got to be able to laugh at ourselves like I did there. It's not about beating ourselves up, but

Nicky Miklós (18:20)
Yeah.

Yes! Yes! Yep!

Leah Mether (18:27)
you know, we've really got to get brutally honest with ourselves right now because we can't expect other people to do it if we're not leading the way. You are human. You're going to get it wrong

at times and that's okay. But the key is to be looking out for it and not just

apologizing when you get it wrong, which is important to do anyway. But it's apologizing and trying to do better because some people just get really good at apologizing. And if I come into work and yell at you every day, Nicky, I might be I might give you the most heartfelt apology. But if I come in tomorrow and yell at you again, very quickly, you start going, Leah, I don't care about your apology. Can you just stop yelling at me?

Nicky Miklós (18:59)
Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. And then also the behavior can come out in different ways. So it might be obvious yelling or it might be, you know, diff different sort of patterns of behavior.

Leah Mether (19:21)
Mmm!

Nicky Miklós (19:53)
So one thing that I'm noticing is because there's a lot of change on all levels. And one of the things, you know, that I'm having a lot of conversations around at the moment, we've got teams and businesses that are established, and they're at this growth set point. And

Leah Mether (20:00)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nicky Miklós (20:12)
they're growing the business. The business is growing, so there's more sales people coming in. Maybe the leadership team is also growing. And in the past, it kind of has been anything goes. I call it cowboy culture, or think about it like pioneers. You if we think about the cowboy movies or Netflix series we watch and the pioneers and they come along and they do anything, but they're setting it up. And so they're finding out what works and there's a lot of freedom in that.

Leah Mether (20:25)
Yeah.

Nicky Miklós (20:39)
And then as the business grows, we put more structure in place. The team grows, we need even more structure in place. AI becomes more of a common tool. We're now recording calls and then creating call observations and scorecards. So it's a much more ⁓ controlled environment. There's a lot more transparency and there's this real shift with some people struggle with it and some salespeople struggle with it to move from the cowboy culture or the pioneer culture to a more

Leah Mether (20:44)
me.

Yeah.

Nicky Miklós (21:08)
elevated, sophisticated in terms of the systems and the structure, which is what's needed for growth. What tips do you have for leaders? Because I think what I then start to see is a couple of different behaviors come out as leaders. So it might be a little bit of tiptoeing. I don't want to upset my highest performer. I don't want to put constraints on them. I don't want to even introducing things like KPIs.

Leah Mether (21:15)
Mm-hmm.

Nicky Miklós (21:33)
There's a risk if we upset that person and rock the boat, but they're in the old world and they don't want to come along necessarily. Or maybe they do, but it's early days. So tiptoeing behavior, bit of people pleasing, or it can even, the extreme of that, just completely ignoring and very dictatorship kind of leadership. Like this is the way it is and that's just it. What tips do you have for people that are listening or watching that might resonate with this shift?

Leah Mether (21:36)
Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm going to elevate this upper level because I can answer that. Ooh, how would you, ⁓ you know, deal with that person who's being a bit defiant or, we can get into that nitty gritty, but I actually think the mistake a lot of leaders make is they focus on that one person who's being difficult or they focus when they re and they don't realize that they've missed one of the most important pieces here. And that is

to set really clear shared expect.

with the team, not as a dictator, but when was the last time you as a leader had a conversation with your team, whether you've got new people in or not, if you've got a pretty stable established team, that doesn't mean you don't have this conversation, right? I like to have it at least once a year, encourage leaders to like,

what are you actually here for? I gave you the question before to ask yourself as an individual, what do you want to be known for?

Ask that of your sales team. Like, what do we want this team to be known for? You know, what's important to us? What's our point of difference?

What do we want people to say about us when we're not in the room about the experience of working with us? And then from that high level conversation.

So what does that mean for how we show up, communicate and behave? If we want to be known for that,

What do we need to make sure we're doing and not doing?

So that becomes the anchor under which you bringing in new ways of doing things. makes sense. And you always want to be asking yourself as a leader before anyone in your team has to, if I'm bringing in KPIs for what purpose? For what purpose? And if you can't answer that, you've got some work to do.

Nicky Miklós (23:55)
Mm.

Leah Mether (23:56)
before

you introduce them. And you don't just want to be asking for what purpose for me,

you know, ⁓ because I want to keep tabs on my staff and work out who's performing and who's not. That might be one of the answers, but that's your why. What's the why that helps them understand the benefit to them or the benefit to the team, the benefit to the business.

We always want to know what's in it for us. And I think

When we're introducing new things or change or new systems, and as you said, these things are important to growth. Sometimes the why is blatantly obvious to us,

because we've been talking about introducing that new system for the last three months at our management team meeting. But then we forget that we haven't brought the team along with us. We just say, here's the new thing we're doing. Here's some training in how to do it. Good job. want to expect everyone to be using that now.

And then we'd get surprised about why is there resistance? Why aren't people on board with doing that? Because we haven't done the foundational step of

creating clarity, explaining the why. And if you can't answer that, either you've got more work to do or the question I would be asking is, do you even need to change it? Because if you're just going, because it's the new thing, everyone else is using AI to do that bit. So

We should too, not good enough reason. Go back to what do we want to be known for? What does that look like? And then how does this fit? So you can see straight away if I build that out with my team and it doesn't have to be a full day workshop. These can just be seeded into the conversation that will help bring people with you and then invite their questions, invite their challenge.

You know, if you look at the model in steer through the storm, starts off with create clarity. And the second ⁓ piece of that model is connect with curiosity. Renee Brown puts it beautifully when she says you either leaders either have to attend to the fears, feelings and concerns of their people, invest time in that

or expect it to cost you time dealing with people problems. And this is the bit I think

Nicky Miklós (26:19)
Mm-hmm. I love that.

Leah Mether (26:22)
It's so good, right? It's the bit that a lot of leaders miss because some of the pushback I get to everything that we're talking about here is, yeah, but Leah, you've just said the pace of change is so quick. So I don't have time to do this. I just need to implement and people just need to get on board and we go, go, go, go, go. This is that concept of slow down to go fast. I'm not telling you to slow down a lot, but just

Nicky Miklós (26:43)
Yeah.

Leah Mether (26:46)
doing that groundwork of giving some more context, explaining the why it might be saying, you know what the world is changing so fast, we have to keep up or we become the next Kodak who didn't evolve. You know, and where are they now that I'm going to explain the why and then you've got some fears and frustrations. Well, I'm not going to bulldoze over the top of them. I'm going to try to understand what your concerns are because there's there are clues in the resistance.

Why are they resisting?

Nicky Miklós (27:19)
Yeah, I love that.

Leah Mether (27:20)
Is it that they're resisting because they don't understand the reason for the change? Right. That gives me a clue that as a leader, I have to dial up the why explaining the why. Is it that they have changed fatigue? In which case, as a leader, I really want to be looking at what I'm trying to implement and going.

Is it really necessary? And it might be, yes, it is. But that means I have to take some of the other things to use Donna's red brick thinking that I have to go some of my nice to haves. I have to get pushed out because this has to happen now. And people are tired. Is it that you've had a poor change experience before? In which case you have to do more than just tell people it'll be different this time. You need to show them how.

or tell them how. if I was saying to you, know, look, Nicky, I know that, you know, the way we implemented that last system didn't necessarily go to plan. We didn't spend the time getting it right. Instead of just saying, I can assure you it'll be different this time. I want to build on that and say things like, you know, I want to assure you it's going to be different this time because we've taken those learnings. And so here's what we've built into the process this time and then

show them.

actually do the thing. I know there's a lot in that, but essentially what it all comes back to is that slow down to go fast. Get clear on the reason for the new thing you're implementing or why you've got to change the way you do things. If you're saying we need people to pick up the phone again, why? Like what's the reason why? And again, it all comes back to that very foundational question of

What do we want to be known for? Are we trying to grow our business? Do your people know you're trying to grow the business? Are we just trying to stay stable at the moment? But if you've never had these conversations, no wonder your people are confused, resistant. They don't have all the information they need to go with you.

Nicky Miklós (29:28)
which is also then just adding to that feeling of uncertainty. Because we know when there's something going on, there's that feeling, there's that underlying energy that's around that. I love that view of investing versus cost. not the best, this isn't gonna be the best term, but some people might relate to it, but it's that short-term pain, long-term gain. Not that we want this to be painful, but if it does feel painful to create space and pause and take the time.

Leah Mether (29:32)
Yeah!

Yeah? No!

Nicky Miklós (29:55)
That investment of time short term and the pain of finding that will absolutely save you time, frustration, heartache. And it makes it easier if some of those people aren't the right fit for the new vision, then it makes it easier for them to be able to identify that and hopefully self-select out of that if that's what needs to happen. ⁓

Leah Mether (29:58)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yes!

Yeah, if you've

made it clear what the change is, if they're not on board, but they know that's the direction your company is going, you know, people choosing to opt out of that, that's not a bad thing. You know, that will save you time. Yeah. And to just build ⁓ quickly on what you just said, it's funny, the same leaders who will say to me,

Nicky Miklós (30:27)
No, it's actually a win in a different way. Yeah.

Leah Mether (30:40)
I don't have time for that or I don't do feelings. They just need to get on board with it and you know, go, go, go, you know, that real old school command and control style. They will also be the very same leaders who will come to me and say,

⁓ Leah, how do I get better performance out of my I need to get them on board. Why is all my time spent dealing with people problems that drives me nuts?

And again, it's exactly that point, it will cost you time.

but it will cost you more time because you're reactively then trying to put out spot fires because why aren't they just coming with me? Cause you've steamrolled right ahead. And that's, know, in the book, I, you, I make put people into sort of three different key areas that I see leaders tend to fall into when they're leading through change. And obviously there's nuance to this, but if I had to put it into three categories, we could say the steam rollers who are

those people we've just been talking about. It's just like, this is happening bad luck, get on board like it or lump it. And they're staying out ahead. But then they're looking over their shoulder going, why is no one coming with me? Right? Your change is never going to be successful if you're steamrolling. But what I also say is a camp of people I call the shirkers.

They're the people who just put their head in the sand.

Avoid the conversation altogether. I'm not even going to acknowledge the resistance or I'm not even going to acknowledge that AI could be an issue for our business. Like just hit in the sand, keep on keeping on. And then they wonder why they're out of business. ⁓ All their people are behaving really poorly because you just have let it go.

I often see this ⁓ from leaders, sales leaders included when the change is not

theirs. So they go, well, senior management's implemented this, this is their thing. It's not my change. So I don't have a role to play rubbish. If you are a leader, and there is a change happening ⁓ in your workplace or uncertainty around you, if you are a people leader, you have a responsibility to lead people through the change or the uncertainty, whether it's your idea, whether you like it or not, regardless.

Nicky Miklós (32:32)
Mmm.

Leah Mether (33:01)
⁓ But the middle category of people and what I'm encouraging leaders to do more of in the book is that role of steerer.

The person, you can't do it for you. I can't make you get on board with a change. I can't, but I can influence you.

And if I make the case for it really well and create the clarity, if I connect with curiosity and try to understand your concerns, if I

then challenge with candor because we do have to do that, you know, okay, so I'm going to be empathetic, but I'm also going to hold you accountable for if I'm saying you have to, I don't know, ⁓ you know, keep track of your sales calls because that's one of the metrics we're going with now. If you're not doing it, well, then I have to challenge you on that, but I'm doing it after the connect with curiosity. So after that, trying to understand what the resistance is.

Then I want to coach with compassion. want to give you the opportunity to try to improve, to try to come with me. And the final element in the model is ⁓ commit with consistency. So again, one of the biggest mistakes I see in this space is, and I even had a leader say to me, ⁓ I told him about the change. I told him in an email two weeks ago and they thought tick that's my change communication done again.

Nicky Miklós (34:20)
Yeah.

Leah Mether (34:27)
It's really normal for humans to

see change and uncertainty as a potential threat. Now we are good at adapting to change humans. We've proven it. We proved it during COVID. We are actually good at it, but we don't like it.

Our brains are not wired ⁓ to just get on board with it. Our brains, our primitive brains are wired to see change and uncertainty as a potential threat.

Nicky Miklós (34:42)
Hmm.

Leah Mether (34:53)
So we are having a normal human reaction when our first instinct is to go, don't like it. But we have evolved. We can work past that, right? But to work past it, we need our leaders to keep banging the drum. We need them to keep explaining it, to keep building on it. If you think about when you hear bad news, and hopefully not many listeners have had this, but some of you will have. you've...

being given a bad health diagnosis or someone's breaking up with you in a relationship. You don't hear. You stop hearing. You hear that first bit and then you're in your head going, my God, what does this mean for me?

And what does this, what else is good? So if that's the only time they tell you, you've missed half of it. So we've got to keep banging the drum. We've got to keep the conversation. Remember, this is why. Remember, this is what we want our salespeople to be known for. want

our point of difference to be relationships and human connection. ⁓ that's why you're asking us to pick up the phone. Yeah, that's why I'm asking you to pick up the phone, because not many people are doing that at the moment. So you always want to circling around.

I think one of the biggest challenges for leaders or biggest mistakes I see is ⁓ we over manage change and under communicate it.

Nicky Miklós (36:17)
Mmm. ⁓

Leah Mether (36:17)
We

get in there and we think, I've done the job because I've got the system in place and I've tested it. My process works and all of that's really important, but we under communicate it.

We don't give the why, we don't give the explanation, don't ⁓ give that sense of calm and security. And that as a leader, if I go to the point we spoke about earlier,

around the uncertainty because it's not always change, right? Sometimes it's just, I don't know what to tell you because I don't know what's going on either. We can still create clarity in that moment. Now, I'll give you a really practical little four step framework around that for your listeners. When there's uncertainty, what we'll often do as leaders is we'll say, ⁓ here's what's going on and here's what we're doing about it.

So we give you those two pieces of information, the first two steps in this process. But then we think to ourselves, ⁓ yeah, and I don't have the answers to everything else. So I'm not going to say anything about that because I don't know. But what's the bit everyone in your team is talking about? That bit that has gone unsaid, that bit about what does it mean for us or

You know, if we're, if AI is exploding, what does it mean for the numbers in the team and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they are going on a spiral.

So as a leader, when you're communicating in uncertainty, here's what we know. Here's what we're doing about it. Great. But then say the quiet bit out loud. Here's what we don't know. And name it, name the elephant in the room. I know Nicky or I know team that you've all probably got questions about.

what this means for the way we do things going forward. So you name it. And then if you don't have the answer, you say that, but you say it in a way that gives people faith in you. So it might be, here's what I know. Here's what we're doing about it. I know you've all got questions about this, but here's what we don't know. I don't have the answer to this yet. And the fourth step is, but here's my commitment to you about

when or how I will let you know. So put it all together, it might be,

here's what we know, here's what we're doing about it. Here's what we don't know. But my commitment to you is I'm going to keep asking the question, I'm going to keep across this as much as we can. And my commitment is the minute I have more information, I'm going to share that with you. And this is how when things feel really unstable and really out of control, you as a leader can give

people faith in you to build that trust and be willing to follow you.

It's a mistake to think you have to have all the answers. You don't. But they need to see you as the person who is steadying the ship to keep going with that metaphor to steady the ship to bring people through and then they will go with you.

Nicky Miklós (39:25)
What I was feeling when you were going through that model is absolutely the trust in that because the trust doesn't come from having all of the answers. And yet we put pressure on ourselves as leaders to have all the answers and hold it back. But actually, you I felt the trust of you're being so honest with me now. You're being so honest about the fact that you don't know what you don't know. And then of course, the consistent communication to follow up, even if the update is I don't know anything else.

Leah Mether (39:30)
Yes!

Yeah.

Nicky Miklós (39:53)
but I'm giving you an update because I promised that was my commitment to you. So, yes.

Leah Mether (39:53)
No!

Yeah, I'm still asking the question. We're still

keeping abreast and you can see there. So imagine I didn't do it. I didn't give you the here's what we don't know and I didn't own up to that. If I just said here's what we know and here's what we don't know. That's my briefing. Everyone go out. You can guarantee you're all walking out of the room in each other's ears going, yeah, but what does it mean or worse than that? You're building your own stories in a vacuum.

Nicky Miklós (40:24)
Yeah, spiral thing.

Leah Mether (40:26)
In a vacuum of information, we create our own stories. And those stories can be so far off base to the reality, but they get hold within a team, they become rumour, they suddenly grow legs. And before you know it, you as a leader are going, how do I unwind this? Because everyone believes it's true. So put the message out there. Don't be scared to say that thing. People will

Like you said, trust you if you own it. that you'll note that the fourth piece there is really important too. It's not just going, yeah, I don't know that. And that's the end of my briefing. See you later. Cause then people are like, well, if you don't know it, you're my leader and I don't know it now I'm scared and unstable because I don't feel like you're leading me. So that last piece is crucial. Here's what I don't know, but here's what I'm doing about it.

Nicky Miklós (41:09)
Hmm.

Leah Mether (41:24)
I'm trying to get the information or I will keep you updated or my commitment is to keep leading you through this the best way possible and when there's new information to share. My commitment to you is at a time when things feel really unsteady, I'm going to be the steady presence for you. There will be, there will be stability you can give your people and clarity in how you show up.

And that can be the stabilizer. I just worked with a leader last year who ⁓ had the two executives above him resign in quick succession. And there'd been high turnover in this team and he was at supervisor level. he said to me, said, what clarity can I give to my people? Cause there is just this churn like, don't know what's going on.

And my question to him was, well, are you going anywhere? And he said, no. And I said, we'll give them that.

That's the clarity and the stability you can give them. My commitment is, regardless of who's coming in at executive leader, I'm not going anywhere. I am still here. You can rely on me. So I really encourage everyone listening to think about how they can bring that into their leadership. How can you give people faith in you?

And to go right back to where we started, that is why it's so important for you to be modeling good behavior, because I can't say, trust me, have faith in me, and then run out of the room screaming, going, this guy is falling down, this guy is falling.

Nicky Miklós (42:59)
Yeah,

so true. So true. I really love the analogy of steering steady the ship, steer the ship. I think, you know, that's that is a bit of an anchor to come back as a leader. And you've shared some really beautiful steps that we can also get some certainty as a leader to follow and to use when we're maybe feeling a little bit wobbly ourselves. Do you have any tips and thoughts on

Leah Mether (43:14)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Nicky Miklós (43:26)
If somebody, you we might say, you mentioned this a little bit in a different way previously, you know, if there was a bad experience with change previously, or maybe there was leadership that was toxic and you've got new leaders coming through and the culture shift is speaking up. We want everyone to speak up, have robust conversations, challenge with curiosity. It's easy to say that and yet sometimes people won't feel comfortable. What tips do you have or thoughts around?

Leah Mether (43:34)
You

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Nicky Miklós (43:55)
really trying to draw people out to speak up if they have concerns, challenges, questions, if they disagree in a safe space, but they're not quite there yet.

Leah Mether (44:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, two things here. One, you've got to really consider how you're asking people to speak up. Because just saying speak up, not everyone's good at that. Some people will speak up in writing. Some people will speak up one on one.

If the only opportunity you're giving people is saying in a meeting, speak up, that will appeal to your more extroverted or assertive communicators. Your passive people are not saying boo.

So this is why, again, you've got to look at your communication in a more holistic way and make sure it's not about trying to be everything to everyone, but you want to make sure that you're not just communicating in the way that works for you. You lead different people. People have different styles and preferences.

You know, a little one I use often if I'm doing this sort of work in a meeting and I'm saying, I want you to speak up.

I just did it recently in a workshop. One of the things I wanted to draw out was what holds you back from ⁓ giving feedback in this organization. Now, if I just post that question, no one's going to say it because God, they're scared to give feedback. So I gave everyone post-it notes and I said, can everyone write down when I asked that question, what would your answer be? I went around the room and grabbed all of those post-it notes.

Nicky Miklós (45:18)
You

Leah Mether (45:32)
I stuck them all on a whiteboard, grouped them together, and then we had a conversation about the themes that came out. So it's not highlighting one person and their voice.

So there's lots of little facilitation techniques that you can look at to say, what can I do to provide some different avenues for people to speak up or to make it

⁓ safer to speak up. So that's your role as a leader to make sure you've got some good facilitation skills in there. The other thing and this is absolutely crucial. ⁓ Courage and psychological safety are two sides of the same coin, right? And what I mean by that is people will often say, you know, we want to speak up culture, we want people to, yeah, speak up, say the thing, you know, so someone gets courageous and they go, okay.

I'm going to say that thing in the meeting and I'm going to put my opinion forward and they do it.

And someone goes, well, that's a stupid question. Why does how long have you worked here? Seriously, you should know that already. And that person goes, and that is the last time I am ever going to do that. So you really need to be aware of how you respond as a leader.

Nicky Miklós (46:35)
you

Leah Mether (46:55)
and how you manage the responses of other people in the room. If I'm saying that I want you to challenge me or are there any other ideas here and someone says something,

even if they say something I totally disagree with, this is again where that technique that some of your listeners will have heard me say before, get curious, not furious. This is where it is so crucial. It takes practice, but train yourself to at least ask one question.

G, Nicky,

help me understand where you're coming from here because that's really different to how I see things. Can you help me understand when you say you think this approach isn't going to work? What do you mean by that? And at least ask a question to clarify the information rather than just say, that's a stupid idea. That's never going to work. So

You know, we've got to do both. We've got to look at how we invite people to speak up, but then really watch our response when they do. too often people say, want to speak up culture. And then everything they model is that actually they don't because people speak up and we get defensive or we shut it down or we say, no, you're not allowed to have a different opinion to me. So actually you do not want a speaker culture really.

Nicky Miklós (48:19)
Mmm.

Leah Mether (48:19)
You're

saying it, but it's not what you're doing.

Nicky Miklós (48:22)
And all of this really links to everything that we've just talked about around who we're showing up as, why we're doing what we do, how we bring people along for the ride and absolutely finding those different avenues and remembering that we are not all the same. Yes, we have patterns of behavior, but we do take in information, take time to process, learn things differently. And also the way I love what you said around the way we speak up is different.

Leah Mether (48:28)
Yeah.

Nicky Miklós (48:50)
For some people it's writing, like so true. For some people it is the one-on-one. For some people it's absolutely the meeting room or, but having that awareness and thinking what are the different ways that we can create this speak up culture and ⁓ boy, absolutely how you respond. And I think also keep in mind what you said there around not just how you respond to that person, how are you responding to other people on different days, in different conversations, in different.

Leah Mether (49:15)
Yeah.

Nicky Miklós (49:16)
context. Maybe it's not even an open floor meeting, but people are boss watching all the time. The reality is we're being watched in how we interact and our response or reaction. So it might be something that's completely unrelated, but we've reacted in a really negative way. Why would I speak up and put myself in danger, which is what it feels like to be vulnerable? Like I'm not going to do that. So be really aware of that.

Leah Mether (49:36)
Yeah.

Yeah.

And to that point, I had a leader in a session, you know, a while ago say to me, are you telling me Leah, that you're holding me and us to a different standard to everyone else in the team? And my response was, yes, you're a leader. Now that doesn't mean the people in your team can behave poorly, but what is leadership?

It should be modeling the behavior we want to see.

Nicky Miklós (50:05)
Yeah.

Leah Mether (50:09)
from others. Like it's part of the gig, folks. It's not, you know, this is that difference between leadership and management. If I want to be a leader, management's about tasks, leadership's about people. I want you to follow me. I want you to show up well for our customers. I want you to have conversations with clients. I want you to be empathetic. I want you to do all these beautiful things.

Nicky Miklós (50:13)
Yep.

Leah Mether (50:35)
Well, you better make sure you're doing it yourself. And it

Nicky Miklós (50:37)
Yeah.

Leah Mether (50:39)
is hard and you won't always get it right. But when you don't get it right, as we said earlier, apologize and crucially make amends, work on doing better. But we've got to own this stuff and keep working on it. And it's never been more important. People are looking to be led well right now

because there is so much change and uncertainty. So if you develop these skills as a leader, as a sales leader,

This is where you will retain and attract great people to work with you because they want to. A lot of people are doing it badly. At the moment, this really can be your competitive advantage.

Do it well and, you know, see your results flourish.

Nicky Miklós (51:25)
Yeah,

completely. Even what you were saying, the apologize, own it. ⁓ That can be because I also find some people are like, ⁓ I haven't been consistent with coaching or I canceled the last two. So I don't want to it's awkward and I don't want to bring it up. Own it. I'm so sorry that I have actually canceled that and that was a commitment I made to you. So here's what we're going to do instead. Here's what we're to do going forward and you know, permission all of that. So the behavior to own is yes, it could be

Leah Mether (51:42)
Bye.

Nicky Miklós (51:54)
getting cranky, angry, could be, but there's so many things that I really encourage everybody that's watching and listening to reflect on this conversation and think for yourself around, okay, think about the last few weeks. What are some of the, think about the feeling that you have around some of the tasks that maybe you've let slip or the actions or the behavior, but even you might think.

How do you feel you could have been a bit more present with your team or communicated a little bit better? Actually look it in the eye, own it, sit with it.

Leah Mether (52:26)
Look at in the eye and

yeah, and have the courage and the vulnerability because vulnerability is courage instead of just going, ⁓ I should have done better. Own it. Acknowledge the awkward, particularly if one of the things you want your team doing is owning their mistakes instead of just going, I hope no one noticed that I made that commitment and I haven't followed through.

Nicky Miklós (52:41)
Yes.

Yes.

Yeah!

Leah Mether (52:54)
And this isn't about over apologizing because some people go down that, my gosh, I'm a terrible human. I'm a terrible person. should have like, no, don't do that. But that's making it about you. Absolutely. But going, Hey, you might notice I'm going to schedule coaching sessions in the in the calendar for the next two weeks. I need to iron I made a commitment to you. I haven't followed through on that.

Nicky Miklós (52:58)
Yes!

True, yep. That's making it about you, isn't it?

Leah Mether (53:21)
So me putting these in is to make sure that I hold myself accountable. That is you showing your team that, okay, we're all human. will make mistakes, but when we do, we own it, apologize and make amends. Again, this is leadership, right? You've got to show your people how to do it. If what they see from you is don't fess up, don't own, don't acknowledge it.

Nicky Miklós (53:47)
Mm.

Leah Mether (53:50)
What do you think they're going to learn to do from you? So you have to lead the way even when it's scary.

Nicky Miklós (53:56)
which also links to the whole speak up culture, the honesty culture, the, you you're giving permission for people to be human. Leah, this has been such a wonderful conversation. And just to wrap up, what final tips, any final tips, thoughts to share for leaders as we enter and continue to thrive and go into 2026. Can you believe it?

Leah Mether (53:59)
NNNN ⁓

Yeah.

Nicky Miklós (54:20)
Final thoughts of wisdom

Leah Mether (54:20)
Yeah.

Nicky Miklós (54:22)
from our communication expert.

Leah Mether (54:24)
Oh, look, I would

start off by saying, just acknowledging this is really bloody hard.

It is hard. Like this isn't about being Pollyanna about the state of the world or, you know, it's not going into the depths of despair because there is something we can do. So that is, you know, if I go, what's the main tip here? It's focus on what you can control. And that's you. That's you folks. So

Nicky Miklós (54:36)
Mm.

Leah Mether (54:52)
make sure you're working on getting your own self in order first, because that's leading by example, right? But then my next tip goes to that piece around that conversation with your team. It's a great, if depending on when you're listening to this, we're early in 2026, it's nothing to stop you. It's a good time of year actually to go actually, before we get too far into the year, like, let's just look at it.

What do we want to be known for this year?

There is a lot going on around us. So how do we want to show up this year? What, what do we need to do better? What do we need to make sure we're not falling into the habit of doing? What do we need to remind each other? Like that big picture anchoring conversation, have that conversation and you'll note the word I use their conversation. This is not you coming in as the leader from up on high and dictating to your team and saying,

This is what we are doing this year. This is a conversation where you are as a team saying, this is what we want to be known for. This is what we want the experience of working together to be like, this is what we want people to say about us. Have that conversation and then keep revisiting it because that will help provide that anchor and that stability for your team. It will help when things get wobbly. If you have that home base to come back to to say,

Yeah, it's scary, it's uncertain, but don't lose sight of the fact this is who we are. This is how we want our clients to think of us. And that will help you keep coming back to that point of knowing how to communicate and behave.

Nicky Miklós (56:36)
and help you steer through the storm, my friends, and keep that ship steady. Leah, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm gonna put some links where people can friendly stalk you in the show notes below. And I know you're so generous with your Ask Leah Anything videos and so much content. Is there anywhere particular you would like people to come and find you, particularly if they wanna send you a quick message on what they loved about this episode and what they've taken away, or just to say hi.

Leah Mether (57:00)
Yeah!

Yeah!

Nicky Miklós (57:05)
Where's your favorite place to hang out?

Leah Mether (57:05)
Yeah, thank you, Nicky. And

look, thank you so much for having me first off. Look, lots of places. LinkedIn is probably where I spend most of my time these days. I've also got that YouTube channel with like hundreds. I think it's almost 400 episodes of Ask Leah now. I've been doing that for a really long time. But and also my website, my website, there is a resources tab

Nicky Miklós (57:23)
Wow.

Leah Mether (57:32)
and there's a free stuff tab, folks. So

Jump on there, as Nicky said, I've got a whole heap of, whether it's a framework or a communication style questionnaire, or how do I have difficult conversations? How do I deliver difficult feedback? I've got all that stuff on my website that you can download, that you can take and use. ⁓ And I encourage you to do that because

Nicky Miklós (57:48)
Hmm.

Leah Mether (58:00)
my bigger why for why I do what I do is I know this stuff is hard and we're

We're seeing it done really badly. As I said, we're seeing a lot of poor behavior out there. And I really want to help leaders and teams do the people part, the human part better. I really do have hope for humanity, which, you know, can get tested in these current times. But I really do believe that, you know, humans are intrinsically good. Most people want to do the right thing, but they might not have.

ever been taught the skills or equipped with the strategies. So jump on there, take the stuff, test it out. And if you need help reach out, I'm always happy to answer questions. Whether you ever end up working with me or not.

Nicky Miklós (58:49)
You are always so generous with your insights, your knowledge. And really ultimately, I think what this is about, know, success in this modern day world is about, yes, it's getting results and healthy, happy humans. You know, if we can have results and happy humans, that is the ultimate definition of success, right? And also it's more sustainable. Also recommend, I don't have it in my hand, but I'm sure if you're watching ⁓ a picture is gonna pop up in a moment of there it is behind Leah's ⁓ soft.

Leah Mether (59:02)
Yessss

on my bookshelf.

Nicky Miklós (59:18)
Soft is the new heart, steer through the storm. Brilliant reads. Thank you again so much for bringing so much value to our audience today. Love your work, love what you do. You absolutely are a leadership communications expert. So fantastic to be in your orbit and your world. And thank you for sharing so generously. I'll see everybody else next week.

Leah Mether (59:38)
Pleasure.