The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Marla Bace: Mastering Emotional Intelligence for Effective Leadership and Self-Awareness

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Marla Bace: Mastering Emotional Intelligence for Effective Leadership and Self-Awareness Marlabace.com About the Guest(s): Marla Bace is a certified business and leadership coach with over three decades of experience in driving real results. As a former award-winning Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and Chief Experience Officer (CXO), Marla is renowned for providing real-world coaching and proven growth strategies. Her expertise lies in guiding accomplished professionals and business owners through practical and values-aligned decisions. Her coaching methods blend emotional intelligence and executive strategy, aiming to enhance influence and measurable results in a business context. Marla is dedicated to putting humanity at the heart of business success, empowering others through clarity and accountability. Episode Summary: In this engaging episode of The Chris Voss Show, host Chris Voss welcomes Marla Bace, a distinguished leadership and business coach, to discuss the principles of emotional intelligence and self-awareness in leadership. As the world of business evolves, so does the importance of aligning personal authenticity with leadership influence. Marla stresses that emotional intelligence isn't just a buzzword but a vital tool for creating impactful, trust-based business environments. This episode dives into these essential skills, exploring how leaders can harness self-awareness, social awareness, and self-management to foster stronger, more effective teams. Through robust conversations, Chris and Marla uncover the nuances of leadership presence and the imperative roles emotional intelligence plays in modern business. They delve into how self-awareness and self-management are the bedrocks of competent leadership, influencing everything from decision-making to team dynamics. With insights on navigating professional diversity and enhancing team collaboration, the conversation emphasizes developing leadership traits that resonate with today's workforce. By weaving in engaging anecdotes and practical advice, Marla provides a blueprint for listeners interested in advancing their leadership capabilities and fostering meaningful workplace relationships. Key Takeaways: Emotional Intelligence is Crucial: Leaders with high emotional intelligence can effectively manage their teams, foster motivation, and build trust. Self-Awareness Cultivation: Understanding one's strengths and weaknesses can enhance leadership effectiveness and improve team collaboration. Leadership Presence: True leadership is about authenticity and influence, not performance and perfection. Constructive Feedback: Leaders should be open to critique, using feedback to grow and support their teams more effectively. Transformational Force: Emotionally intelligent leadership transforms organizations, aligning business objectives with collective team efforts. Notable Quotes: "Presence isn't about performance, it's about alignment." "Success without self-awareness is like driving blind. Sooner or later, you're going to crash." "Higher smarter and more diverse around me so I'm a better leader and fall on my sword." "Your greatest asset is self-awareness, giving you the clarity and adaptability to lead with impact." "Being authentic and actually insulating them and showing that you're willing to not be perfect actually goes so much further."

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Cause you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster

with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi folks, it's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Ladies and gentlemen there, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 16 years of the 2300 episodes of the Chris Vaughn show. I'm going to start seeing 2400 here soon. Anyway guys, wow, I mean we're just banging out the shows.

There's 10 to 15 new shows a week and boy you guys love to consume and all. It gets about 96% consumption so somebody's listening to something. But why are you guys quitting at like the end? Oh cuz you know, I'm rapping the show That's probably why they're like onto the next one Anyway guys go to good reset calm fortress Chris Foss LinkedIn calm fortress Chris Foss Chris Foss one Tik-tokety and all those crazy places in there and listen the last 4% of the show. Sometimes they tell some good jokes there It's rare, but I'll be honest about it. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests to the show may be

advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Anyway, we have an amazing young lady on the show. We're going to be talking to her about her insights and how you can be a better leader, better person, better human being. I guess those of you who are like, I don't want that. I'm turning it off now. You know, maybe try listening and see if you'll enjoy it because you probably need to be a better person if you're trying to turn yourself off the Chris West show. I'm just saying, wow, Chris is throwing shame in this morning. We have Marla Base on the show.

She is a certified business and leadership coach with over 30 years of experience driving real results She's a former award-winning CMO and CXO She offers real-world coaching and proven growth strategies for accomplished professionals and business owners who don't have time to waste Her career proves that emotional intelligence and executive strategy aren't just buzzwords But the foundation for lasting success. She knows what it takes to grow, influence, drive measurable results and make confident values aligned decisions. She cuts through the noise with her clarity, accountability and deep commitment to putting humanity at the

heart of business success. Welcome to the show Marla, how are you? Thank you Chris. I'm doing great today and yourself? I am doing excellent because we have you on the show and you're just a ball of energy and info and we're gonna learn some stuff today. So give us your dot coms, where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? Sure, super easy marlabase.com is the website and there is a self awareness assessment on that right at the top which we'll talk about later and LinkedIn so linkedin.com forward

slash in Marla base super easy so Marla give us a 30,000 over you what you do there sure having had 30 plus years of experience in corporate entrepreneurial startups, etc., I realized just about the time of COVID, I didn't want to keep doing what I was doing anymore. I had successfully reinvented myself three times prior. I did a lot of soul searching, a little bit of a spiritual journey. I started to ask people that I had worked with all those years, and they said, you should

go into coaching. And I gave it some real serious thought. And because I do everything the right way, I went ahead and got certified, um, with the international coaching foundation. Um, but then I just took what I had been doing for 20 years, even when I was a CMO or CXO or a GM, I always loved working with our interns, our young team members, and helping them become the best people they could be. And so I said, you know what, I'm done doing the next digital campaign.

And there are a lot of people out there doing digital marketing, etc. And I decided to coach. So I now work with, I call it successful career individuals and, or business owners that are looking to bridge the gap to fulfillment. Because I know for me, that was the missing piece. I was highly successful, but I wasn't fulfilled. And I am now super fulfilled because I am helping those individuals become the best versions of themselves.

And becoming the best version of yourselves, who wants that? That sounds, I mean, you become the best. See, the problem with that idea, that concept of being the best version of yourself is you become the best version of yourself, you got nothing to work for because you're just perfect, right? I'm just kidding folks. Yeah, there's unfortunately none of us are perfect. Oh, come on. I still misspeak. I was at lunch with a girlfriend recently and she's not saying that again. I said, absolutely you're right.

So being the best version does not mean perfection. Just means confident and influential and motivational. Leave perfection to, I don't know, people who walk on water. So we know how that turned out though. That's why I never tried to be perfect. I got to think. I have to. The jokes.

So Marla, when you talk about clients, so pretty much just any business client out there, someone that's got a thing, do they need to be executives all to work with you? No. It's funny you ask me that, Chris. need to be executives all to work with you? No, you know, it's funny you asked me that Chris, I actually don't like to work with executives because they don't think they need coaching. But yet it's funny when I decided to do this, the very first group of people that I sent a note out to that said I switched was to the chief marketing officers club

because I used to be a part of them. And I got about four gentlemen who were basically saying, I know I'm going to get Letgo in the near future and I need to figure it out. I will say it's not executives, but I will work with executives. I work with executives with their teams. So the way I would look at it is if you are a professional, so I'll call it a cog in the corporate wheel, and you feel like your organization isn't noticing you.

Your boss loves you and appreciates you, but isn't tapping you for the next position, and you're not really figuring out the why, you're a perfect candidate for me. If you know that you are a business owner and you want to grow, but something's stopping you, there's a level of resistance. It's usually because you don't have the processes in place, the people management, the prioritization and delegation that you get from being in corporate America. I can help you bring that to your organization and identify who to hire, delegate, et cetera.

So I tend to work on the business side with micro businesses, 5 to 50 billion, 120 people. And for individuals, it could be really anybody. I've had someone who was plucked from an agent from her job by an agency to run the agency's top clients. And suddenly, after a year and a half, there was just breakdown between that person and herself. And we worked on reestablishing a relationship, reestablishing the communication so that what she was doing was received and it gave her confidence, gave him certainty,

and it resulted in a 20% raise. So it really can be anything. The difference between me and other coaches, especially the overnight coaches from the COVID generation is I'm not looking for 25 or $35,000, a one-year commitment, and I'm not gonna shove you into a mastermind with a bunch of content. I am your personal chief of staff.

What is your goal? Let's come up with a 90-day plan. Let's work together for three months. Let's achieve that goal. And then if you want to continue to work with me, great. And if not, you want to put me on pause until the next goal, that works too. I'm all about my client's goals. So I use the term my client's goals are my mission. client's goals. So I use the term my client's goals are my mission. Oh, I like that. That really makes sense. I want a chief of staff too. Eh? Only, only I want a chief of staff. Like what presidents do where they fired the chief of staff and blame him for

whatever went wrong. Like Seth on house of cards. Yeah. Yeah. That's yeah. Yeah. It's this is Bob. It was Bob's idea. It wasn't mine. I'm just the president. It was Bob's idea. It wasn't mine. I'm just the president. It was Bob's. I, Bob, Bob, you're fired. Sorry, man.

You gotta have scapegoats. You know, this is what I learned in from the Machiavelli of the Prince. I don't know. That's true. But in coaching, it's more the quiet support and cheerleader in the corner to make sure that you're making the right decisions, being your authentic self and using emotional intelligence so you're not having to fire someone in front of the rest of the organization. That's the fun part is the firing people in front of the thing.

I just took your score, your score thing, your test, your quiz that you have for whether a person is smart or stupid and it says I'm stupid. No, I'm stupid. How do I frame this quiz again that I took? It's a self-awareness assessment. So you'll fall into one of three buckets and it's either you really need to start to think about self-awareness, it's you know self-awareness but you you're not actively utilizing it is the middle bucket. And the top bucket is you are a self-aware leader, but there are probably additional things like self-management, social awareness and relationship management that you can improve on.

Ah, you can always improve, right? I mean, if you do think you're perfect, you're probably the first part of the problem, right? So I got a total score, a hundred of 125, which is- So you are in the top bucket. You are not just a leader, you're a transformational force. Let's not push it. Your greatest asset is self-awareness, give you the clarity and adaptability to lead with impact. You know, the only problem is I'm self-aware enough to know, you and adaptability to lead with impact.

You know, the only problem is I'm self-aware enough to know, you know, the Dunning-Kruger element that the less I know, the more I know, the more I need to work to master something and probably don't know anything. And that puts you into the third or the fourth element of emotional intelligence. So it's, okay, I know what I don't know, but I like to be authentic. And you are, you know, a leader. I mean, look at you look at your podcast. So then it's okay, is it a once and done relationship? Is you know, we're laughing and we're kidding around about, you know, common topics. So I would say social

awareness is, you know, one, two, and three, you've got checked about, you know, common topics. So I would say social awareness is, you know, one, two and three, you've got checked off. You know, so maybe it's relationship management. You have people on, you stay in touch, you pull them back in, do you connect them to each other? Do you add value beyond the show? Those are all things you can consider. Pete You know, you mentioned something in there. One of the big things that's important to me in looking at blind spots or scotomas, Anthony Robbins, or another people call them, the understanding what I don't know, I think, which is part of that equation. You know, I always, I always cite three, the three things there. There's the things you know, there's the things you don't, or there's things you know,

there's the things you know that you don't know. Like I know that physics exists. I'm not good at it. I know algebra exists, but I don't know how to do it. And I don't want to know how to do it. Fuck you. High school math teacher and a little bit of, a little bit of trauma rage there. Chris, what's going on, man? Uh, and then there's the things you don't know.

You don't know. And I, I wrote a big thing to my niece and my nephew back in the day when they graduated from high school. And I go, the things you don't know, you don't know, those are the ones that come out of the dark and hate you. So it's really important to have, you know, the self-awareness and all those things. And we alluded to the number four in a series of lists that we talked about in the green room, four steps to be emotionally intelligent leader, you kind of referenced there. Tell us about what those are, if you would walk us through.

I will. And I just want to sort of touch on first what you're talking about, what acknowledging you don't know what you don't know. And to me, that, we talk about a self-aware leader, but what I also have always strived to be, and I work with my clients to be, is an authentic leader. And if you're authentic, and you know you don't know what you don't know, and you're driving for influence, and you have people around you,

that having the self-awareness or the emotional intelligence, and I'll go through the four steps, to say, I'm not 100% on this. Is there anyone else in the room or, you know, the conference table or whatever it is that has knowledge and information? Please bring it forward. Too many leaders are willing to own the room through bluster and not through authenticity. And what they do is they actually alienate instead of motivate. So I respect that you acknowledge you don't know what you don't know. And I think more people who did that, they would be more impactful and more powerful.

But the four areas that you're asking me about, and you mentioned blind spots. So before I even go right into the four areas, there is a study out there, and I forget the actual study, but it says that when executives or leaders are asked if they are self-aware, 85% say yes. And then when they actually go through the study, and it was a university study, only 15% are truly self-aware.

So that leads right into your blind spots. and it was a university study, only 15% are truly self-aware. So that leads right into your blind spots. And self-awareness, ironically, is only the first step to emotional intelligence. So we're not even talking about the full picture of emotional intelligence in that. We're talking 15% are self-aware. So once you're self-aware, the next step is self-management. And what that is is recognizing your emotions and having an ability to deal with them in the moment so that they don't force you to go off the deep end

or overreact, et cetera. And one of the things that I'm certified in is NLP. And we work on if somebody has a trigger, something that's called anchoring. I can explain that more. But so there's self-awareness, self-management, and then social awareness. So people can be self-aware and they can manage their emotions, but they're not socially aware. And I'll give you an example. I was at a networking lunch with a group of people that I've seen more than once. And I had received a question from one of them last week.

And I walked in to talk to them. And there's two gentlemen, they work together. They don't really need to be networking at the networking event. They're in a close conversation and they were completely ignoring me. I started to walk away and finally someone, one of them said, did you need something?

And I was like, I couldn't did you need something and I was like I couldn't introduce you to someone and give you business but that's being socially in aware so the third step is social awareness and then the fourth is true relationship management which is what I mentioned before with you oftentimes with my career being a head of marketing and professional services organizations I wasn't responsible for sales, but I was damn well responsible for connecting people. So I consider myself a super connector. And the thing with that is it takes follow-up and constant ongoing of those relationships so that you can make sure that you're putting dividends in the reciprocity

bag, you're giving value before you know you're asking for something. But basically what all of those buzzwords mean is you are on top of someone else's mind because you're giving before you're getting and they're looking at you as a real value to their world, to their business, to them. Yeah. So the four steps is being self-aware. I mean, how do you know it's kind of, this seems like a cyclical question. How do you know if you're self-aware?

You just took a test. Ironically, after 30 plus years of experience when I decided to coach and go through the certification, one of the things they asked me to do was put together an assessment. I can honestly say it was before ChatGVT was out there. They're psychological based questions and it's ranking yourself on a scale of one to five. Based on, and you saw it's a five minute quiz, you did it while we were talking, it will

tell you if you are self-aware. Then once you know that you truly are self-aware, like you said, you're 100 out of 125, then the next question is, do you manage your emotions? Can you handle self-management? My gut is yes. You probably have a lot of really different people, diverse people who come on the show. There's probably even a few that are pushing every one of your buttons through the whole show and you stay calm.

I love all of them. I haven't anybody pushed my buttons too much on the show. Okay, that's good. They're nice, they're polite. Yeah, that's self-management. And then, we talked about the social awareness. That's usually dinner party and networking event, even in the office.

There's clicks and being able to, to bridge and to bring yourself above whatever your judgments or filters and things like that to, to make sure you're engaging. Yeah. And so having that self-awareness is super important. Now, do we flesh out all four of the, the points of self-awareness? Yes, we did. We did. And the four points, self-awareness is the first.

So I just want to be clear. It's, it's to being emotionally intelligent. And so there are a lot of people who might be self-aware, but they're not practicing emotional intelligence, whether it's in their personal life or in their business, and that's the culmin personal life or in their business. And that's the culmination of the four of them. I used to be told that one of my secret powers was walking into a conference room and immediately being able to see what

everyone's agenda was and that where social awareness comes in. So I knew what two people were going to have a pissing contest, what female wanted to prove herself. We can laugh about it, but I mean, you know, it's before the Me Too movement and, you know, DEI, it was a real thing. Yeah. It's kind of interesting, some of the different things that go on there. And we moved to, you know, emotional awareness, we've been talking about more on the show, it's been more context and talking about leadership and everything else. You know, emotional awareness, we've been talking about more on the show. It's been more context and talking about leadership and everything else. You know, leaders, why is it important for leaders to be socially or to be

self-aware and, and be self-accountable and, and have these attributes? Because presence isn't about performance. It's about alignment. So for a leader to truly have presence and to have impact and to have influence, they need this. You know, the days of just being able to walk in and bully the team and to getting things done is changing. We are as a humanity starting to talk about things like collective consciousness, being more aware, caring about things that are going on. That starts in whatever everyday environment that you're working in.

And quite frankly, what I see is this practice of emotional intelligence, becoming a leadership edge. If you're not using it, you're usually misusing your influence. You're bullying people, you're forcing, it's a different kind of influence. Emotionally intelligent leaders have an edge because they are naturally influential and they drive motivation and usually

you will get more out of whoever it is you're working with, your team, etc. If you are emotionally intelligent, if you just go in and you start banging the desk, you're gonna, you know, you get what's within a box and I've seen all types of leaders. You know, I've worked with someone in an HVAC company. They had a great innovative product. They were bringing an app to market, but they walked in and they belittled every single person on their team and their staff. They were the boss.

And honestly, they didn't get the second or third round of funding and it, it petered out. It was a phenomenal idea, but it was the lack of leadership presence and the ability to be emotionally intelligent, to drive collaboration and a collective desire to get that over the finish line. So it it what's the word I want? It creates roadblocks for leaders who don't have that ability. Yeah. And it, and it trusts companies. I've seen it firsthand. Yeah. So what's sort of, how do we turn these into habits where we make them, you

know, if we're trying to become more self-aware, we're trying to be emotionally caring, I mean, I guess we have to care about other people, maybe. I don't know. Actually, it starts with yourself. So I'll say, I guess we have to care about other people, maybe. I don't know. Actually, it starts with yourself. So I'll say, I don't think people need personalities. I give them clarity and strategy so that it becomes part of their every day. So that one individual I mentioned a while ago where she said, you know, my boss isn't recognizing me and I'm not getting a raise, my conversation and my coaching with that person was,

how are you showing up every day? How are you articulating what's going on across team, across clients, upward, downward, sideways, such that everybody is aware that it's a collective process. And specifically the example I'll give is if a client or a team meeting was talking about a problem, I said, if you've solved that problem with another client recently or in another team meeting, bring that. Because then what you're doing is you're able to sort of self promote yourself without being self promotional, which is also the first thing

about self awarenessawareness, but you're facilitating collaboration. Hey, we've already done this. It's not a new problem. So it just becomes, it's really tools. And again, you know, it's clarity and strategy of how to show up every day. And people, I mean, leadership is a big deal. I think, I don't know what the numbers are, but a large amount of people leave a job and go someplace else because the poor leadership, it's that big of a factor. Sometimes it's not even about how much you pay them or how much you, what benefits you have at your office or whatever the case may be. If leadership is poor, people don't want to follow a bad leader because most people know

that bad leaders will usually drive something off a cliff and no one wants to be on that ride. And plus, people want to show up and do good work every day and they want to enjoy what they do. And if it's miserable, no one wants to do that. I mean, unless you're really a masochist, but there's some people husbands, excuse me, anyway, do the Mary jokes in the show. Anyway, the, and so working with leaders that are self-actualized, you know,

it's self-accountability is probably a big part of this, right? And, and some of this falls into Stoicism. You know, as a man, Stoicism is kind of our Bible meditations and Marcus Aurelius, and of course women can use it in masculine nature, to be stoic, to have control over your emotions, to not let your emotions run you, and to be able to look at your emotions from a logical or reasonable standpoint and go, why do I feel this way? What is going on? Uh, is this, is this reality in what I'm feeling? Cause you know, feelings aren't reality. Feelings are very personal. They're not, you know,

someone can look at a sunset and have a feeling of the world's ending tomorrow cause the sun is disappearing or someone can have a feeling that it's something of beauty four plus two plus two always equals four in logic and reason. And you know, having being stable as a leader and being emotionally stable and knowing that people, you have that sort of stoic response to things is really important because if you're losing your shit, everybody else who's following you is going, the leader's losing their shit emotionally. This is scary, right?

And there's an instability there. So your thoughts on that? Sorry. You are. No, you're fine. You're spot on. So yeah, if there's one thing that I am glad has transitioned in the last couple of years in corporate culture is the idea of dump what you're talking about is dumping emotions. So it used to be your emotions aren't

welcome here. And nowadays it's true. And nowadays it's we're using emotional intelligence for clarity, influence and trust. And I'm going to quote something else you just said, because it's spot on. You know, success without self-awareness is like driving blind. Sooner or later, you're going to crash. And to bring what you just said into a story, I was one of my roles. just said into a story, I was one of my roles. We were responsible for divesting a business, and the goal of the larger organization was to keep everyone intact by the leadership team. And they, because it was a large multinational that was based out of France, they decided

to bring someone up from Venezuela to be the CEO of the team. And you had a bunch of Northeastern driven type A's on that team, a couple of females, a couple of men. And that individual only knew how that organization always worked. They could not really read who he was meant to lead to make this happen. Now, because his direct reports were who we were, we managed to get the task done on time,

under budget, et cetera. But what was interesting is, again, to your point, the lack of self-awareness, the lack of being able to motivate and to demand influence and trust because he didn't have the self-awareness. I look back, and I can't believe it's just 10 years now, all of us have landed, we've moved on with our careers, we've reinvented ourselves.

I haven't seen that person on LinkedIn or anywhere. So they really do crash or run off a cliff. Pete Yeah. You know, I learned, like I've talked about in the show before, I learned a long time ago earlier in my career that even though I'm the CEO and I create all these cool businesses, that I am not the purveyor of all the greatest ideas. And when I have really bad ideas, it's very expensive, trashed a few businesses maybe.

And it doesn't end well, you know, unless I wake the hell up and become self-aware and go, okay, back to the basics and off we go. But it can make a measurable difference. And, and, you know, I, I constantly, one of the things I talk about with my team is when I have a new idea or innovation, or I'm, I'm working on trying to build a new model of, of, you know, sequence for a business process, what I'm usually looking at is I'll ask my staff, what aren't I seeing here? Is this truly the great idea? I think it is. And I actually try and pull back from thinking any idea is great anymore. I just present ideas and I go, I think this is good. And I think I've squared off all the edges of the widget,

but what am I missing here? Is there something I'm not seeing that there's either liability here or there's an issue or there's an imperfection or maybe I'm not seeing that this really isn't as great as I think it is. And one thing I've started to become good at, I think, you know, it's a constant struggle, is trying not to put my opinion weight on the scale and try and not try not to to mess with the opinions of people that are just going to, Oh yeah, boss, that's a great idea. The You're, you're, you're supporting, I'm sorry for the interruption. You are supporting your hundred out of 125.

You'd be surprised how many leaders I have to say when you put an idea on the table if you genuinely want feedback put the idea on the table ask the question and almost if you're really Supportive of the idea almost agreed the idea so that you can see Where where people are actually, you know netting out so I think that's phenomenal Chris Yeah I mean It's it's really important because like I said, the things you don't know, you don't know, those are the ones that get you. And so in business,

what I found was the things you didn't see when you were looking at that widget and you were, you know, trying to decide if you're going to ship this to, you know, customers or your business, the, you know, it's that one thing that you didn't see? You're like, ah, man, it's the one thing. We used to sometimes call it looking the dragon in the mouth. And if you can deal with the fallout from what happens if you muck it up, then, then, you know, maybe you should move forward. And, but, you know, I'm constantly looking at things, you know, what do I, what do I

don't know? What am I missing? Where am I, you know, because I,, what do I don't know? What am I missing? Where am I? You know, cause I, I used to think I had all the great ideas for a while there. I banged down a lot of home runs right away. And then all of a sudden the home run kid quit hitting home runs and there was what happened to that. And I was like, I don't know. And you know, maybe I had some, some luck there.

It, you know, luck is a, a facet of being successful in business. You gotta have a little bit of luck, but you know, I found that, you know, I've talked about this before, you know, the around our office, the rule was the only stupid question was the unasked question. We wanted people ask questions. We wanted people to know things because the people who didn't know things, they broke the $30,000 machine. And you're like, why did you break the $30,000 machine? And I kind of was half asleep during training. And so if you would have asked us to fill in those blanks for you, we could have saved $30,000. But here we are. And yeah, being being so far is real important being able to ask questions. I think being able to have the maturity to be told you're wrong.

I don't know if you want to delve into that a little bit, but that's, that's a really big part of it because some people can't even handle being wrong. Yeah. No, that's, that's huge. So being, being open to constructive criticism and able to be authentic. So I will say over my career, because I've reinvented myself so many times, I've had to have people who are willing to almost take, you know, a gamble on me that I was going to step into this new role and do something. And in one

very specific case, I was walking into Tower of Terror. If you've ever been, I laugh, what comes to mind when I think of the situation is in Tiro, there's a card with the tower and it's one of these cards that everybody like gets shooken up about, but it's because basically what it's representing is an unstable foundation. So it's going to come crashing down. So anyway, I stepped into the role and I really knew very little about the industry that I was stepping into, but I have a TQM background, total quality management, and I was a CPA at one point in my life as well as being a marketer and head of experience. And what I was able to do was read the room, assess the situation, and understand that.

We talked about relationship management being the fourth pillar of emotional intelligence. We that between the two organizations was at an absolute worst point it could be. And I had, I could see the leadership really just trying to rally around itself and they had all the answers and I walked in and I'm like no they don't I could tell that self-awareness so I quite literally took the team but the low level team the

call center team and I put them in a conference room and I put them alcohol and I brought them pizza and I became my authentic self And I just said tell me everything that's wrong if you could be leader for a day What would you do differently and why and I just sat back and listened I? Because I was new and they you know even though I was their bosses boss They felt comfortable enough because I was being authentic. And I said, I don't know what I don't know here. I can read a room and I can tell people aren't getting along, but I don't know what's underneath

that. And we spent about, I'll never forget that night, went from 11 to 3, 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. But I walked out and I knew enough to go back to the other people that I was on par with and say, this isn't going to work. We need to divest this company and we need to go up to corporate and we have to propose a solution. So what happened with that was the team that shared, they got saved. They had the right things put in place. And ultimately the client and everybody else won.

But it was a hard 12 months, but they still, it's funny, I said, if I told you what the organization was, you'd laugh, but I can still call the 800 number. And if one of the low level team people answer and they realize it's me, I still got the IV treatment and I haven't worked with them in almost 10 years. So, when you're authentic and you're doing the right thing, it pays dividends. You not only have influence, but you build trust and you build that relationship management,

that fourth pillar of emotional intelligence. Pete I think, I think people are afraid to be seen as infallible. Like, they'll, you'll see leaders that, you know, I mean, leadership is about confidence and having a vision and leading people to that vision. But it also, you can communicate that you aren't infallible and that you are self-aware in your emotions, that you do listen to other people's input. Because people want to, you know, especially today's workers like Gen Z and I imagine that Gen Alpha is going to be the same way, they want to know that they can have input, that they have a say, that their thoughts and interests are being considered and evaluated and were valued, I think is the word I'm looking for. But I think some leaders, when they get appointed, if they're not mature enough, they fear that if they're found out, you know, kind of an imposter

syndrome, if they're found to be fallible, that, oh, the leader did make a mistake, you know, kind of an imposter syndrome. If they're found to be fallible that, oh, the leader did make a mistake, you know, and that's why you see some leaders, they try and spin if they're caught doing a mistake. We were joking about presidents earlier and, you know, oh, I didn't make a mistake or Bob made a mistake. It was Bob's fault on the team or, you know, or you just didn't understand what I was telling you correctly, you know, gaslighting things of that nature. We see a lot of narcissistic leadership and how, how, how can, you know, I guess people that are concerned about that, what if people see me fail as a leader?

How do you, how can they maybe overcome that? So what I, I'm just going to speak from my own experience. What I found over my career is when I leaned in and gave recognition to the lowest level team member for something that they did that was maybe mediocre, it wasn't even knocking it out of the park. But recognition for that and then fell on my own sword for when the team made a mistake and took ownership to my boss or to another because marketing was always the what are you doing? You make pretty pictures. So you had the CFO and COO. So I would be the one saying my fault. I got that trust and that motivation from my team.

So being authentic and actually insulating them and showing that you're willing to not be perfect actually goes so much further. And then to your point of the narcissism and the other stuff, I recently was subcontracting for a coaching organization and I could see straight through the CEO. They really didn't have much experience in business and they had been coaching for 10 years and they were doing okay. But the minute the economy sort of started

to falter, they just started to gaslight, to use your term, their staff. And what wound up happening was, they wound up losing the quality people that actually delivered on their brand promise, and the people who stayed were the people who couldn't find other jobs. Yeah, so when you're asking me what can go right and what can go wrong,

in my opinion, I've always been higher, smarter and more diverse around me. So I'm a better leader and fall on my sword because when I see people gaslight and become narcissistic, they just wind up in trouble. Yeah. I mean, that's the short version. And I've just seen it over and over in my career, but those are two recent examples. Yeah. Being able to show that you're, you know,

you're not infallible, that you're not perfect, and that it's okay to make mistakes is a great thing to communicate to your staff because then they'll do the same. If you're teaching them to be narcissistic and I'm never wrong, then they're going to be never wrong and you're going to have a whole department of idiots that are running around thinking they're never wrong, making all the mistakes in the world and not having that self-awareness. So probably the importance of having emotional intelligence. Yes, absolutely. I couldn't have said it better. That's why they pay me $5 to do the show.

You get $5 a month. It's awesome. I'm, you know, I'm saving up. So anyway, as we go out, tell people how they can onboard with you, how they can get to know you, how they can handshake with you to find out if they're fit, how they can onboard with calls or whatever to get on your schedule. Absolutely. Again, marlabase.com, at the top is a book of call. If anyone is questioning what my first call on getting to know me looks like, I encourage you to go to my LinkedIn. I just had someone who did a complimentary coaching session and I didn't even ask them. They wrote a review because they walked away

with things that they can do. I love to talk to people. So again, if you just go to the website or even my LinkedIn, you can click book a call, 30 minute networking session or 45 minute free coaching session, whatever works best for you. And again, I work in 90 day increments. So if you have a goal that you just haven't had a moment to get to, and you need accountability and you want to get out of the fray, that's

something that I would love to work with you on. And they can reach out on your website, give us your dot coms as people go out so they can find you on the interwebs. Sure. www.marlabase.com, M-A-R-L-A-B-A-C-E or linkedin.com, MarlaBase, right there. And I'm also, I have a YouTube channel, MarlaBase Coaching, where I just talk about in soundbites, some of what Chris and I have talked about today. It's really a factor nowadays where people care more about this stuff. The old Peter Drucker management, carrot and stick sort of management, it doesn't work

anymore. People want to feel more emotionally connected. They want it to mean something more to them than just showing up to a job and they want to know what's making a difference. They want to make their difference in the world. It's so important and we need more people to be more self-aware. It would make the world a whole lot better place. But you have to deal with, you have to look into yourself internally. Sometimes it's hard for people to do. You have to be accountable. It's hard for a lot of people to do. But there's an insecurity you initially feel when you delve into that stuff, but I've been doing it for so long. I'm not insecure. I'm very confident in my

leadership abilities. And part of those abilities are being able to know that I'm fallible and know that I'm wrong and to search out, especially with the assistance of my staff and team, people are like yourself or my podcast, you know, stuff that can expand my awareness and my ideas and and, you know, pondering who I am, what I'm about, how my leadership works, is it effective, you know, a lot of people don't even question the competability, the competence of their leadership skills. Yeah, I know. They just figure they have it.

And I really, I give you kudos because a few and four of us, you know, a few and four in between those of us that are truly willing to say, I'm not perfect, I need to look at myself and I need to do that with the people around me day in and day out and I need to trust them enough to give me honest feedback. And again, the self-management is not reacting to the feedback, but taking it and saying, okay, how do I become a better person? Because if I'm a better person and I'm doing all the things that emotional intelligence requires, you will just be fulfilled. It's like we started out with, I help people get from success to fulfilled.

It's usually, that's the gap. It's what aren't you doing to be your best authentic self, leveraging emotional intelligence and doing all the things Chris you just mentioned, you know, being vulnerable in front of your team. Pete Slauson Yeah. And that's how you create a learning organization. Like I said, we wanted a long time ago, Peter Senge's book, The Fifth Discipline, I wanted to create learning organizations and it's so important to invoke that into cultures because they, you know, if people see that it's okay that, okay, the boss makes mistakes, it's infallible, he recognizes them

and he's self-aware, I need to follow that lead. And then you start building a, you know, a learning organization that will learn as opposed to just assuming they know everything. Absolutely. And it is, you know, this goes back to my days as an auditor at Ernst, which we're going to say wasn't even started at the year number two, it's tone at the top. So it's, you know, it's all about tone at the top and the best organizations are led by the best leaders and the best leaders are self-aware and emotionally intelligent. Yeah, and it just makes all the difference in your performance, in the world, in what you do.

And I think it improves you as a human being in life, just being self-aware and being okay with, I don't mind being open. I don't mind saying, okay, what's wrong with my ideas? I'm totally fine with that because I have some really awful ideas and I've got the money lost to prove it. I'm learning from my mistakes. I should say, do point about in life, right? It's your presence. Leadership presence also happens through all of what we're talking about. So I happened to be dealing with a volunteer situation last Saturday. And I had someone say something to me that the old me and the non self aware me would have wanted

to give a zinger right back. And I just realized I'm going to be so much better off if I just smile and bite my tongue. And ironically, it's proven 10 times forward this week in collaboration and ease of next steps with that volunteer organization. So yes, it's, this isn't just about business. It's an everyday life. You, you said that I just really wanted to drill at home. Thank you. Thank you. And we certainly appreciate it. Let's book in one more time. Give us your dot coms as we go out. We started a whole other podcast we went on there.

Sure. It's marlabase.com, M-A-R-L-A-B-A-C-E dot com, LinkedIn in Marla Bays and YouTube, it's Marla Bays coaching. You'll find very short snippet videos, five minute videos on each of these topics we talked about today. Thank you, Chris, for having me. Thank you for coming. What a great discussion we've had. Thanks for our audience for tuning in. Check out Marla and reach out to her and see if she can become your coach and help you improve the quality of life because we all need help. I mean, I'm, I'm 57. I'm not anywhere near perfect. And just like the Dunning Kruger concept, the more I live, the more I find out.

Perfect. And the idiots, what an idiot I am. So I'm always, I'm always working and I'll probably, that'll probably be my last words on my death bed. I'm not finished yet. I'm still a mess. I'm not dying. You can't kill me now. I was i'm really close kind of maybe I don't know Anyway, thank you

Thank you Thank you marla Thanks for our audience for tuning as well go to goodreads.com Forchuschristphoslinkedin.com forchuschristphoschristphos won the tick tock and all those crazy places the internet be good to each other Stay safe. We'll see you next time