The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – You’re the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need) by Sabina Nawaz

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

You're the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need) by Sabina Nawaz Sabinanawaz.com Amazon.com Turn the hidden pressures of management into astonishing results and become the boss everyone wants to work for. This must-read guide from elite executive coach Sabina Nawaz reveals the leadership secrets of highly successful managers. Whether you’re in the C-Suite or newly promoted, you’re most likely succeeding at your job. But are you reaching your full potential as a manager? Most top performers suspect they aren’t, and Sabina Nawaz, former Microsoft executive and elite Fortune 500 coach, says they’re usually right. Unfortunately, it’s often hard to recognize the problem or know how to address it. In You’re the Boss, Nawaz taps her experience and proprietary data drawn from analyzing and advising executives at organizations like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Motorola, Nordstrom, and the United Nations, to offer managers everything they need to know to succeed at the job. Her work reveals that as our job expands, the added pressure to perform corrupts our actions, and our increased power will blind us to the impact of those actions. Even the most well-intentioned manager can quickly become the boss nobody wants to work for. You’re the Boss is your executive coach in book form. It offers a fresh, evidence-based framework for managing pressure and power with grace and intelligence. Nawaz’s potent, proven strategies guide you to anticipate the unavoidable hazards of leadership without changing who you are, based on over two decades of coaching and in-depth research into the psychology of behavior and relationships. Discover a powerful way to manage yourself and others, navigate working relationships, and communicate effectively. Become the boss you want to be—and others need—while experiencing less stress and greater impact.About the author Sabina Nawaz is an elite executive coach who advises C-level executives and teams at Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, nonprofits, and academic institutions around the world. Sabina gives dozens of keynotes, seminars, and conferences each year and teaches faculty at Northeastern and Drexel University. During her fourteen-year tenure at Microsoft, she went from managing software development teams to leading the company’s executive development and succession planning efforts for over 11,000 managers and nearly a thousand executives. She has written for and been featured in Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, NBC, Nasdaq, and MarketWatch.

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 because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

Ladies and gentlemen, the hour-long season that makes it official. Welcome to the big show. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. As always, the Chris Voss Show is the family that loves you, but doesn't judge you, at least not as harsh as the rest of your family does, because they know you better than we do. But we don't loan you money, so stop asking. Anyway, guys, go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrissvoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrissvoss, chrissvoss1 on the TikTokity, and chrissvossfacebook.com. You can see everything we're doing over there. For 16 years, over 2,200 episodes of bringing you the Chris Voss Show.

Some of the most brightest minds on the planet. Of course, none of them are me. That's why I have guests. Anyway, we have an amazing young lady on the show with us today. Sabina Nawaz is on the show with us today. Her newest book comes out March 4th, 2025. It is called You're the Boss. Become the manager you want to be and others need we're gonna get into some of her insights and experience she

is an elite executive coach who advises sea level executives and teams at fortune 500 corporations government agencies nonprofits and academic institutions around the world she gives dozens of keynote speakers, seminars, and conferences each year and teaches faculty at Northeastern and Drexel University. During her 14-year tenure at Microsoft, she went from managing software development teams to leading the company's executive development and succession planning efforts for over 11,000 managers and nearly 1,000 executives, advising Bill Gates and steve ballmer

directly she's written for and been featured in harvard business review the wall street journal forbes and corp uh fast i should just say inc right yeah inc fast company nbc nasdaq and market watch welcome to the show sabina how are you thank you chris great. Thank you. Excited to have you as well. Give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? SabinaNawaz.com. That's S-A-B-I-N-A-N-A-W-A-Z dot com. So give us a 30,000 overview of your new book and what's inside.

Great. Chris, as the title and subtitle suggest, this book is for bosses of any kind and anyone who's dealing with power and pressure. The three key headlines in the book are, first, that being promoted can be the riskiest time in your career. And I don't just mean being promoted first into manager, but even to a more senior manager. And this is because while on the one hand promotions are rewards, they come with a risk. One of the risks is believing that the strengths you've relied on up to this point will continue to help you succeed. talk more about how this myth has scuttled the ambitions of countless brilliant executives, maybe some who are on your show. About five of them, I think. So yes, as we go up in seniority, we open up what's called a power gap,

which is a difference in power between us and those who report to us. So the things that we see as strengths start to be seen differently. We didn't change, but our position and our circumstances changed and they start getting viewed differently. So let's say you are direct. Now you can come across as callous. You are calm. Now people will think of you as uninterested or lacking passion. You're strategic. It can be viewed as manipulative. You're disciplined.

It becomes rigid. So first point that being promoted can be the riskiest time in your career. That's why I never get promoted. Aren't you your own boss? Well, yeah. Well, that's the other reason too i never get promoted is because i'm already ceo and there's no there's no upward there's a there's no upward uh you know after ceo here and there's a lot of upsides to that i think working for myself i can say that

the other things at the 30 000 foot view Chris, are that power doesn't corrupt. It's actually pressure that corrupts in these roles of manager. Pressure. That the higher we go, the higher the pressure that we're under. Deadlines, expectations. Before you know it, the qualities that made you a great boss, patience, empathy, clarity, they start to slip. Is it because – sorry to interrupt you, but I want to make this point. Is it because, maybe the better question is why is that, but is it because the demands of your promotion are much harder on you?

They're going to change, maybe shape you a little different. Maybe you're going to react differently. Absolutely. The demands are so high on you. And when you're in that rush, there are so many people I work with who consider themselves extremely empathetic. Except when I interview their teams and they go,

this person lacks empathy. Why? Because I was in a hurry. Because I had so much to do. I figure these are adults. They can put on their big boy, big girl pants and get with it there's time for empathy and connection later but is there yeah that's interesting so it becomes

harder and harder as you go up and you help in the book us identify some of the things that uh you know ways to identify when you're kind of getting out of touch you know one of the problems you can have you have too many yes men or if you're if people don identify when you're kind of getting out of touch. You know, one of the problems you can have, you have too many yes men, or if you're, if people don't find you approachable, you can kind of get isolated. And if you're isolated with the data and knowledge and resources that you need to analyze your business, you can, you know, a president see that they get, they get out of touch in the Oval Office from what's going on and maybe on the ground in America. And so it sounds like that's kind of the same sort of thing you're talking about, where you can get really detached from reality, as it were.

Absolutely, Chris. Bing, bing, bing. You just said my third point for me, which is that power. So pressure corrupts, and then the power obscures. In fact, the more you accomplish, the higher you go, the less you know. The less you know about the impact your actions are having on other people, and it has a bigger and bigger sized impact on people. Oh, wow.

So how do you combat this? Because, you know, I have that problem where I have a real leadership, masculine, direct, boom, boom, boom boom boom sort of you know communication style and people can find it off-putting and personally I don't care no I'm just kidding I care sometimes depends on the person but you know you know I don't I don't want to come across as that type of leader that doesn't care I want I want to have some empathy but you know you can't walk around giving hugs to everybody all day empathy but you know I can't walk around giving hugs to

everybody all day long because HR said I can't anymore that's a joke when I stop laughing I'll answer your question but you're like this guy would never make it at Microsoft well specifically for what exactly you're describing Chris there's a tool in the book called mapping. And mapping is basically providing a map of you. Hey, when I frown when you're speaking, it's because that's my thinking face. So people don't think they're about to get fired. If I don't acknowledge your presence in the elevator and it's before 10 a.m., it's because I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at the sun for rising.

I'm not a morning person. If you send me a really lengthy email, don't expect a response because I have trouble processing the written word. Send me texts or break it into three emails. Don't put it all in one, for example. So this mapping can take your coordinates and then translate that to other

people of what that looks like. You know, I don't give hugs, but I deeply care about X or Y about you as a human being. Here's how that might show up. Do you like to chat before talking or do you like to get straight down to business? Letting people know those things helps them not make up stories because nature of course a vacuum and the stories we make up about people who, who, who we report to are often more personal and worse than we think they're going to be.

Yeah. Mine are always worse, but then I listened to him and I go, wow, you guys nailed it. Um, I'm always worse, but then I listen to them and I go, wow, you guys nailed it. I'm always like, you should have used more four-letter words when you're describing me. That would have been more accurate.

So how do we, how do we, now, the alternative to this is, does it vary per person? Like, I'll give you an example. When I'm dealing with men, we're used to dealing very directly very succinctly we can we can cut it up with each other where if i need to break balls you know as it were and you know get really get get really uh direct somebody like hey man quit fucking around you know that sort of thing um which is uh what i'm telling somebody off camera hey quit fucking around no i'm just teasing anyway uh it's my dog, but, uh, you know, you can be very direct, but with women, you tend to need to soften it up a little bit, right? You can't just be barking at them like you would another man. Um, is there, is there a difference in, in, and you might want to come

across with more, uh, um, empathetic sort of uh you know everybody is different well i guess what i'm trying to say is everybody kind of has different ways of receiving communication in certain ways uh like i have one employee that you have to choke to death just to get him to understand anything he has he has some problems let's put it that way i'm just teasing there's nothing like that so bob bob's at the show so. So is the audience part of the termination of that, I guess? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I don't know that it's that cut and dry, Chris, according to gender. I find that I go around when I coach my clients, I interview about 12 of their coworkers about what's it like to work with this

person. And, and really, I cannot tell you the difference by gender. Often, the number one complaint about bosses is this person has a hard impact on me. And they different people can do it in different ways. So and then how you show up? Yes, absolutely. You need to calibrate it based on who you're dealing with. And sometimes this mapping exercise people can do as a team. So now we know exactly how each other likes to receive feedback, morning person or not, what are my physical characteristics, how I like to process information, do I use humor or not? I noticed Chris, you say just kidding a lot of times. Now, if I were working for you and you kept saying just kidding, I'd go, no, you're not really. What else is going on? So I've thought about choking some employees every now and then.

I just don't act on it. Bill Gates does the same thing, doesn't he? I mean, I'm sure he's wanting to choke out an employee. Maybe I don't know. I'm just teasing mean I'm sure he's wanted to choke out an employee maybe I don't I'm just teasing I'm sure he's a nice guy He reads a lot of books He does he does Has he ever said that though? Are you worked with him him or Steve Ballmer Steve Ballmer would be the guy I would expect to choke someone because he's he's got A lot of energy, you know you ever seen him. Well, you I'm sure you've seen him, right? Yeah

But he's got a lot of energy. He's, you ever seen him? Well, you I'm sure you've seen him, right? Yeah. But he's got a lot of energy. He's a he's a good cheerleader. Dr. energy is great. The question is, how is that energy being translated and received on the other side of the power? So so another tool that you can use is scaling, which is saying, Hey, honest, look, if somebody is super energetic, then everything they say could come across as super important. I mean, already I'm multiplying everything when someone's my boss, right?

And increasing it in importance. So if as a boss you want people to take you seriously and to pay more attention to your highest priority items, then specify using numbers. Hey, on a scale of 1 to 10, this is actually a two. And on a scale of one to 10, this is a 20. So now I know I have more discernment about what, how to translate that energy that's coming at me. Ah, so you get feedback on the thing. I know we've had people in the, on the show that their companies do these executive surveys.

So do you recommend those? And is that some of the ways you could talk about? And maybe getting feedback. You know, they do like an anonymous survey. Like, hey, is your boss an idiot? You know, that sort of thing. And then they sit down with the executives and they go over, here's how people are perceiving you. I guess, is that a good way to maybe figure something out? That's exactly what I do, Chris.

And instead of a survey, I do it through live interviews. And that's essentially the backbone of this book is 12,000 pages of verbatim data from over 1,000 interviews. Wow. So tell us a little bit about your experience your journey uh what was it like working with bill gates and uh uh working at microsoft and i believe uh you also work with uh the other gentleman i referred to uh um tell us about how you kind of came up through the system what influenced you growing up and and uh got you in the field you're in and where you're at now?

Well, Chris, that's a lot of questions packed into one. Sorry, we threw everything at you there. No worries. I grew up in India and came to the U.S. as a transfer student in my junior year, my third year of university. And my undergraduate and graduate degrees are in computer science electronics and computer systems engineering i went to uh smith college which is a liberal arts college and on the east coast of the u.s and then did my master's at the university of massachusetts and from there microsoft was my very first job i sent out 180 job applications and microsoft was the first one to interview me, fly me over, and hire me. That's awesome. It was great. Honestly, when they asked to fly me over, I had not actually heard of Microsoft. It

was a 6,000-person company those days. And I thought, well, I haven't been to Seattle ever. It's a free trip to Seattle. Why not? And by my third interview, I was hooked. I really wanted to work there because the passion and the care about the work was really oozing out of the hallways, out of people that I talked to. It was awesome. And so the first nine-ish years, I worked in software development, working on products that you may have heard of, like Windows and Internet Explorer and MSN, and many products that you've never that never saw the light of day, because they didn't quite succeed. They were ideas, great ideas, not great in reality. But it was great. I managed a lot of teams of different sorts. And then I went on sabbatical Microsoft offers you an eight

week sabbatical. And this was the first time I actually slowed down in probably in my life. And a funny thing happens when you sit on the couch and eat bonbons is fat. Well, I was young enough that i didn't get fat at that point thankfully i would get fat because i know i tried it what else has happened to you as you sat on the couch and ate bonbons uh you know the usual the usual whatever couch things go on mostly it was just eating the bonbons and then uh, uh, usually I just kind of sat there and ate Cheetos without a shirt on and that's never a good idea. So yes, it's the perpetual cycle between the salty and the salty. Yeah. It all gets down in your belly button.

It's so, so for me, it was, it was also things that started, um, pinging in my head, I started getting these insights, because I was sitting there doing nothing. And then suddenly, and I had this sort of realization that it was no longer a matter of if but when I could become a corporate vice president at Microsoft. And, and that had been a career ambition of mine. But when that realization came in, it was one of the most anticlimactic moments of my career, and my life. Because I thought, if I know the formula of how to get

there, why am I wasting my time? Still chasing it? That's boring. Shoot, what do I do with my life? And that's how I switched careers into HR at Microsoft and ran the company's executive development, succession planning, management development, all of these things, working with Bill and Steve doing that. And I did that for about six years and then left to run my own show. Oh, wow. So now you're out advising people. I can see on your website you offer several different services. Tell us about some of the things you do there, speaking, partnerships, book writing, etc., etc. comes to me and wants to work on a particular leadership challenge that they're facing, it could run a wide range. So we work one-on-one over a period of anywhere from six months to

six years or longer sometimes. And in addition to the one-on-one coaching, I might work with the C team of the CEO. So I just came back from London last night working with a CEO and their team there around how do we get set up? How do we establish ourselves to fulfill our mission? I also do keynote speeches for conferences and other talks on leadership and workshops on leadership. So it runs the gamut. And then I also write articles on leadership for Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, and so on. Wow.

So you have lots of fun there. People can reach out to you. Do they reach out on the website? Is there a form they can do or is there time they can schedule a call? For sure. Yeah, for sure. They can contact me on the website. But also, I often find people reach out to me after one of my articles goes live or they've seen me at a conference.

Or I say some, I often say things that take conventional sayings and turn them around. And people will often contact me during those times, either to share their disagreement with it or to say, oh, that really resonated. I've been thinking the same thing myself. Now, how can this help me progress in my journey? Well, give us your final thoughts on how people can pick up the book and all that good stuff and, uh, reach out to you. Dot coms, et cetera,

et cetera. In terms of the book, I would say two things. One, look at the, at the very end, you know, we talked Chris about conducting a survey or an interview to get

feedback, you can actually fill out the 42 questions there for yourself, to get some feedback on yourself. Because it's really hard to get feedback, as you said, when you're in those positions of power, because who's going to want to tell somebody who has control of their fate in their hands. Hey, boss, you suck at this. So do that yourself. And the book has some questions you can do that with. If you don't even go that far, here are four questions to think about. One, is anybody ever pushing back or suggesting an alternative to your ideas? Two, are people treating you as though you're funnier, smarter, faster than you know you are in reality? Three, are you the only one who's always setting the agenda, coming up with ideas, showing initiative, working late? And four,

you use a lot of yeah buts to justify your actions. So that's just a subset of those questions. Use those to see if you checked yes on all of those, you might pick up the book and understand how do you reduce those power gaps? How do you mitigate those pressure pitfalls that are showing up there? I like it. I like it. Mitigate those pressure, uh, pitfalls. Um, cause I, I'm, I'm, uh, I'm, I'm definitely like, uh, I don't know. Yeah. You can always be a better boss and leader really when it comes down to it. Do you like that term boss over leader or manager? Some people, I don't know, is boss really? So I think boss and manager work well for me leader actually does not okay and and in fact you'll find that hopefully i've not used the word leader even once and in the book really because

to me leadership is about actions that anybody can take regardless of what their title is that's true so if we just call a few people leader that means everyone else is off the hook oh I see okay yeah that makes sense yeah I get it yeah that makes sense well yeah we do need more people lead like you say I mean I've I'll talk to people now like well I can't lead I don't have a management position title. It's like, no, you can lead. Everyone can lead. Parents lead. Everybody leads. Yeah, exactly. Well, it's been wonderful to have you on Sabina. Uh, give us your.coms as people, we go out so people can find you on the interwebs. People can find me on LinkedIn

on sabinanawaz.com and on Instagram at Sabina coaching. Thank you very much for coming on the show, Sabina. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. And thanks so much for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfast, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisfast, chrisfast1 on the TikTokity

and all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.