Kc Rossi 0:00
Innovation is essential to promote change culture and gain a competitive advantage. Any organization looking to improve its process, amplify employee happiness and increase the bottom line needs to have an effective leadership program in place. My guest today is Sara marchais. And she shares ways that companies can instill trust as the first step towards growth. She co operates Leadership Logic out of Rochester, New York with her sister Jeanne Allen, and I had the pleasure to sit down with her and dive deep into all things leadership, and today's episode, you will learn how to improve employee loyalty and efficiency. The biggest things that help team members increase resiliency, and navigate burnout, a boundary that companies can put in place to propagate the work life balance, three pitfalls that contribute to team conflict and what to do about it, and so much more. I hope you enjoy today's episode.
Kc Rossi 1:07
Are you ready to scale your business in a way that's aligned with your soul, and profitable? I'm Kc Rossi, a Business and Leadership Coach. I've been a full time entrepreneur for 30 years and love business. I help conscious leaders increase their impact and optimize their lives. Join me each week for tips and deep conversations on cultivating confidence, increasing your visibility, elevating your vibration, and leading with purpose without burning out. Let's go.
Kc Rossi 1:41
Sarah, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show.
Sarah Marché 1:45
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited.
Kc Rossi 1:47
Yeah, absolutely. I'm really excited as well. And I want to first dive in just to hear your inspiration and motivation when you put together Leadership Logic.
Sarah Marché 1:59
So I actually joined Leadership Logic after it had been created. So my sister, who's my business partner, Jeanne Allen, started the company and we're going on our 10 year anniversary will be October 1. And she felt called to create it because she wanted to help as many businesses as possible. And she'd always been in house HR and working with leaders at one place at a time. And she created the company so she could reach more people. And five years ago, we always knew I was going to join. But as she likes to say, five years ago, all the lights were green. And it was the right time for me to join. And since I've joined, we've been able to expand the business work with even more leaders and make even more impact.
Kc Rossi 2:43
Oh, congratulations. That's so exciting. So Sara, I read that you believe that the people of the organizations are the biggest assets. And I would love it if you could share more about your philosophy in regards to that.
Sarah Marché 2:58
Yeah, I think oftentimes, in business, everyone gets kind of caught up in, oh, I need this new technology, or I need this new, whatever. At the end of the day, I feel like the only differentiator between companies is the people that work there and the commitment that those folks have. And you can have the latest and greatest of everything else. But if you don't take care of your people, then there's no heartbeat to the organization. So you want to make sure that you are taking care of your people, first, you're investing in them, you're meeting their needs and helping them to develop. And yes, that's gonna give them skills that make them competitive in the market. But if you're taking care of your people, while they're not going to want to go out to market, they're going to want to stay loyal to you. And then you will get all of those efficiencies that you were hoping for that, you know, you might be driving with technology and other things. But instead you're getting them through the people who are generally genuinely connected to and genuinely investing in. We can't just see people as like capacity, we have to see people as people, we have to care about them as individuals, we have to, you know, bother to know things about them as individuals.
Kc Rossi 4:07
Absolutely. And you mentioned the word commitment and the commitment that the people have to the organization. And I'm wondering with burnout, which has always kind of been an underlying issue and challenge, but I think even more so post 2020. With that being kind of on the rise, where people's resiliency is being tested. How can organizations take care of their people? Like what are some examples to help them when they're navigating through burnout?
Sarah Marché 4:35
Well, I think the biggest thing is listening. So we don't often take the time to truly listen to another human, we often are already thinking about our response or what we have to get done or the white noise that happens in our lives. So being a deepened active listener is step one, and meeting the needs of your people. Knowing that you might not be the solution for them is probably number two. So maybe that person Then doesn't need to work for you anymore because it's not a good fit anymore. And they need to be able to go on to their next thing. And being supportive of that versus kind of caught in your own way, is also very important. And terms of burnout, the big thing there, I think, is helping people to develop the boundaries that they need, especially in today's virtual world where folks kind of bland work in life, just making sure that they've got the boundaries that they need to maintain that happiness quotient. And that at the end of the day, most work that we do isn't life or death work. Yeah, and remembering that as well, because it's easy to kind of build it up in our heads and be like, Okay, if I don't get this one email set, like the world falls apart, but it doesn't really sustain realistic as well.
Kc Rossi 5:52
I love that, that sounds so sound and it just, I can already feel like the peaceful environment that that would invoke versus the the rush, hustle grind, instant gratification, instant response, especially when it comes to working virtually like we're very attuned to the beeps, and buzzers and notifications. And so that's what comes to mind when I think about boundaries is what worked well, for me is really just kind of putting those little governors if you will to only pop into my inbox at 10 and three, because otherwise I was just like, constantly attending to those beeps. And buzzers and I know that some positions, you know, you can't necessarily do that. But what have you found as something that's an effective boundary, like what's a an example that you've seen, help leaders and CEOs, like, put that kind of work life balance foundation in?
Sarah Marché 6:48
One of my favorite boundaries, that companies that we work with a specific company I'm thinking about does, which I think is amazing is that they say vacation is vacation here, when you are off, you are off, we will not be reaching out to you, we will not be asking you questions, we you are not expected to check email, you are not expected to do things or finish anything, we want you to do that before you leave you still to be responsible for your job. But we expect you to actually truly take that time away and be with your family. And let me tell you, that goes a long way. That's actually free. So everybody always feels like Oh, everything costs money that's free to actually make it an environment where people know that they can do that. But you have to be overt about it. Because so many cultures will say things like, oh, yeah, we want you to take your vacation time, but they don't mean it and you know it. And people get a badge for staying late or working through or coming into that meeting when they're off. And so that's a huge boundary is letting people actually have a balance. The other thing you can do is making sure that you trust your people. So and letting them do things that they need to do for life too. So if a person needs to get their car fixed, and they want to work from, you know, the car repair place, and they can based on what they're doing, they're not in a manufacturing facility or something, then why wouldn't we trust them to get their work done? Why are we going to treat adults, like they need to kind of be policed all the time. And you know, that they're in camp. They're, they're not, they're supposed to be active participatory adults. And if we give them that benefit of the doubt, and we've built that kind of relationship, and they know what success looks like, then they deliver the results of that success. And who cares if they do it for the auto repair shop?
Kc Rossi 8:34
Yes, yes. And so this sounds really like a holistic culture paradigm here that you're talking about. That's really positive. There's a respect, there's communication, there's trust in there. What are three pitfalls that you have seen in teams in organizations when things aren't working so well, where there's conflict and where there's just, you know, challenges and issues.
Sarah Marché 8:59
One of the pitfalls, and I don't know if anybody else has experienced this, but we see this a client's and you hear about the person, the clock watcher, the person who watches what everybody else does, oh, so and so shut up. 10 minutes late today, so and so takes a longer lunch, so and so walked their dog today, while they were at a break, the clock watcher can undermine culture in no time. Because what that really means is there's no trust. And so that can really do some damage. I'm trying to think about what other pitfalls happen. Certainly, if you've got that manager out there who says we want to be innovative, we want to be new, we want to be free thinking but you're actually not allowed to make a mistake. And if you get a miss, if you make a mistake, there's like a public flogging of the person. That's a huge one that can undo innovation at a company for sure. It should be about okay, this is a thing we tried. We're going to innovate quickly. Let's evaluate did it do the thing we expect it to okay, no But great job thinking of something different. Now let's think about the next thing and what that might be. And that creates innovation versus trying to tear somebody down. If they tried something that didn't work, how are you going to get creative that? Yes. So those are, those are two big things I think that really undermine in today's day and age, I'm trying to think, you know, the big thing that we always hear is communication, too, is that folks don't ever feel like they're communicated with enough. And in my opinion that comes from our humanity. So as humans, we're just terrible communication. It's kind of an innate humaneness is. So I will say something to you, I think you understand exactly what my intent was, what I what I didn't say out loud, because I was just thinking and connecting the dots. And then all of a sudden, you go up, and you heard something completely different because I was just being human. And maybe you were also thinking about the email and the other things we had to get done while I was communicating. And then we get angry at each other. We're like, Well, why didn't you do that thing? You know, we talked about it, what we really need to work on as kind of working against our humaneness, and over communicating when we're having conversations, making sure that we communicate in three different ways that we capture what we said that we repeat it back to each other, that we're active listeners, that's another thing that can go wrong in a company. So quickly, is this we make assumption after assumption.
Kc Rossi 11:29
Yes. And we expect, like some level of mind reading, you know, you just think that they're gonna catch what our train of thought is by osmosis. And I feel like this particular life skill also transfers over into our personal lives with our personal relationships. That's such a big one. You talked about, like, almost having a badge. So my ears perked up, when we were talking about vacation. And it's just like, you almost feel like you get this badge if you're on and you're responsive. And then I kind of felt that vibe, again, when you were talking about innovation. And this maybe this sense that I need to have it just right, so I don't fail publicly. And so I want to just unpack perfectionism in the workplace just a little bit. What do you see? And how do you see it being effectively handled?
Sarah Marché 12:22
So perfectionism in the workplace, I mean, if we start to celebrate innovative and innovative ideas, and out almost celebrating failures that were brave, it automatically will create kind of a slightly different mindset for folks who strive for that perfection piece, right? who strive for that gold star, right? Because people do want recognition, even though we make that a bad word, even we kind of almost make it like, I don't need recognition, oh, that person needs recognition. But everybody needs recognition, we might need it in different ways. But hardly anybody doesn't need any recognition. So we we create these kinds of ways in which we bring recognition in a culture. And we need to make sure that we're actually rewarding the right behaviors, what are we trying to actually do? Is it innovation? Or is it perfection? Which one are we going to reward? Which one gets you that gold star, which one gets you that notoriety? Which one gets that, you know, promotion. And that's one of the ways I think you can kind of start working towards innovation and against perfection. And I think people think that there's only one way to do things. And if you've been promoted up, because you've been good at what you've done, it's hard for you then to take a backseat because you've done the job. So that's the other thing you need to do is, as you get promoted up and you're a leader higher and higher and an organization, you can't do everything, nor should you, you might be better at that job. That's why you were promoted. But if you don't let someone else get better, if you don't mentor them and grow that leader to be a leader, then you're not doing your job. That's your new job. We always think that we're responsible for our old job instead of our new job, we need to be kind of open minded about what we're doing, and open hearted about what we need to accomplish and how we need to grow folks.
Kc Rossi 14:20
That's really powerful insight. I love that. I love that. And so what what do you personally feel are, you know, a handful of top leadership characteristics?
Sarah Marché 14:33
It's a great question. I think when you're talking about leadership, one of the big things has to be the ability to give trust. Leaders often are looking for this dedication to them, and we're that to the company but they're not taking the first step. So I think a top leadership characteristic is extending trust first and Not being, you know, not looking for the used car salesman, but being the one who's like, Oh, I'm going to trust you, I'm going to invest in you. And yes, do things go wrong? Do people do wrong things? If they do, but why would we expect that of everybody and then get it from a few, instead of expecting those good behaviors and building that confidence in folks and maybe being burned once in a while? It's the it's the leaders job to take that first step and be brave. It is not the employees. Yeah, I think that's a top leadership characteristic. I think being willing to admit mistakes is a huge leadership characteristic. Oh, my goodness, I totally screwed that one up. So let's think about what what I would do differently next time. Here's how I think we should do that in the future. Here's my part of it. Any other thoughts from anybody else being open minded. And that humility is huge, because that also creates innovation when you think about it, because then if the leader is demonstrating that it's going to make it safe for somebody else to do it. So I think that's wildly important. And and I'm not talking about like, again, a public flogging, like, Oh, my God, I'm gonna beat myself up for you know, a week because I made a mistake, but more of a, here's what happened. Lessons learned to kind of grow from it.
Kc Rossi 16:21
Yes, yeah, definitely. And, you know, when I hear these things, they make such practical and grounded sense. It feels like it's not complicated. But then in the reality of it, there's fear and ego that kind of become these roadblocks to implementation, what have you found that dissolve some of those challenges? When it comes to like, emotional insecurities or fear and ego?
Sarah Marché 16:49
It think if a leader gets comfortable enough to say out loud, if they are afraid of something, or if they, you know, are, you know, worried about a situation, I think it's powerful to talk about the elephant in the room. If a leader stands in front of their team, and says, I'm nervous, too, but we need to go bravely forward. So I'm nervous about this, but we got to pick a direction that gets a lot more people on board, then. Yes, of course, pounding my chest, I'm gonna win, you know, it just creates kind of this openness. And again, innovation, and allows that competitive advantage and that psychological safety for everybody, and it just kind of creates that different environment. So I think that's important.
Kc Rossi 17:33
Yeah, absolutely. It's so interesting, I just came back from Florida for an advanced leadership training. And because I tend to intellectualize quite a bit of things. Like, for the first part, I was like, Oh, these are games. When we were unfolding exercises that build trust, or, you know, have other leadership development skills. Until we had this one exercise that was just this profound, personal aha moment. And I was like, oh, okay, like this is how we get out of our minds drop into our hearts and actually see things through the lens of I mean, for me, that particular experience just illuminated this space of where I can attend to for personal development. And it kind of shocked me, because I've been in personal development for a couple of decades. And I was like, Holy crap, like, here's this big area that a quote unquote, game illuminated. So I'm wondering if you see any resistance in your work when you go into corporations, and you do team development, and there are maybe non conventional exercises to get to a specific result?
Sarah Marché 18:43
That's a great question. I'm also I'm now intrigued by the game that you played, and I totally want to hear about it. But I, you know, oftentimes, so when we do teamwork, we'll do some pre work with the leader about what they want to get out of it. And then we'll do some kind of like, how are you going to demonstrate what you're hoping to kind of get out of it? So I don't think that's like a big game or a big aha, so much as laying the groundwork for what is the ultimate goal? And how are you going to be the leader through that versus and you're going to be a participant too, but you know, have a picture of the goal. And it's not just this fun, you know, we're going to be there. And it's going to be a fun day, and we're going to put it on a shelf, and we're going to do trust balls. But instead, you know, what is the bigger goal and what's the purpose? So I think goal and purpose I think are important. I don't have any great AHA game things though. So I'm intrigued by yours and I want to learn so I am committed to learning growth. I think everybody should be and I feel like that's something we don't talk about openly. Speaking of ego, too, is like leaders think that they need to have all the answers and that there's like some secret book and all the answers but they just weren't given it. So then they pretend. And there's a lot of impostor syndrome out there.
Kc Rossi 20:04
Yes. Well, in a nutshell, this particular exercise was really to understand team toxins in a deeper way. And so it was something that was separated on the floor, as far as like four main quadrants that toxins show up, whether it was contempt, stonewalling, bullying, or anger. And then we just had these really beautiful conversations. And we explored our relationship with each of those when they come up what we're most curious about what we default to. And let me just tell you, I was just like, Whoa, it was very revealing. very revealing.
Sarah Marché 20:46
Yes. So that's making me think about DISC. So we do, we're certified in DISC. And we do a lot of DISC training, which is a behavioral assessment tool. And one of the things that we do with it sometimes is we talk about the productive conflict components of it. So if I'm a certain style, what am I go to defaults in terms of conflict when I'm under stress? And it's not positive conflict? And what are my go twos, that can be positive conflict that can bring out better results. And when we talk about positive conflict, we mean conflict, that means I don't agree with everything that's being said. And I'm speaking up and I'm taking doing so with a positive voice, though, where nobody leaves feeling torn down or bad. But we were able to actually vet discussions. So we do work on that with different styles on desk, and we do it through that positive and negative conflict lens. So it sounds like that's kind of a what you were doing just without the differentials, just talking about it as humans, which is awesome.
Kc Rossi 21:50
Yeah, absolutely. So we talked a little bit about the work life balance. And I'm wondering if you have any non negotiables in your life to get closer to that possibly elusive work life balance.
Sarah Marché 22:06
So I, I feel very positive on my work life balance, I'm blessed to work in a business with my sister. So we are very invested in each other's lives. So and we have that elusive trust that I feel like every company is kind of chasing for because we just have that innately. So I have small children. She has grandchildren. We have aging parents, we run a business, we have clients, all over the United States. And we just kind of engage in life together. That's beautiful. That's one of the things we've done. And but that's not for every company, obviously, it's a very unique circumstance. But if you know, somebody has to take mom to an appointment than the other person takes the call with the client. Or if you know, my kid is sick from school, and I have a client appointment, maybe my sister takes him and it's nice, and it kind of coincides. So I think that's important. I think it's important as a boundary for work life balance to just remind yourself of what's the most important things in your life, too. And when I worked in the corporate world, before this, I didn't put my kids to bed for at least a year, like I mean, I mean, on occasion, I don't want to make it seem like it's every night, but during the work week, I was never home. And that's not the case anymore. They know that I'm around and that I make the priorities, and then I'm at the things that it can be. And I think that's been an important boundaries. Well. I am a big proponent of spending time away from work and doing those vacations and spending time. And but I also run my own business. So you know, I don't have the latest vacation. There were two days where I worked, but they were completely carved out, set aside, over communicated with my family. And then I could still do that balance between the two, because I knew that that's how it had to happen for that particular set of time, too. So I guess those are a few different things that happen. But that way in which we work in our company has been a huge factor for promoting work life balance.
Kc Rossi 24:16
Yes, it sounds really like a blast balance. I also love that it has a nod and a reflection towards some of the qualities that you help teams with as far as the over communication as far as being intentional. You know, so I think that that that's amazing. Who is your ideal client, Sarah?
Sarah Marché 24:37
So we we say we work with, we probably worked with 20-30 industries over the 10 years. We work with everything from you know, you know, folks who are in manufacturing day to day two, we've worked with lawyers and marketers and schools and nonprofits and for profits and you know, investment firms and all sorts of Thanks. And the thing that they all have in common is the leader wants to do their best, and knows that it's their job to do their best. And so it's more about the people we work with within the organizations than the organization's themselves. And it's funny, because I'll do an interview with a potential client, and they'll say, oh, have you ever worked in this industry before? And whether that answer is yes or no, doesn't ever matter? To me, it's about who's that person? And what are they trying to achieve as their goals, and nothing's cookie cutter, we don't approach anything as cookie cutter, it has to be what's right for that person and that client and that business. And it's not ours to dictate to them, it's theirs. And then we're their accountability partner, their partner and, you know, trying to come up with solutions. And, you know, we're also not the right fit for everybody. So we do turn down business if we're not the right fit, because there's no reason to try to fit ourselves into every, you know, place, it has to be the right kind of chemistry too. Am I the right, fly out coach for you? Am I the right, you know, group leader? If you're doing leadership development for a group, you know, what the right match for your company in your goals?
Kc Rossi 26:19
Absolutely. So if we have listeners that want to learn more about you, what's the best way that they can enter your world?
Sarah Marché 26:28
We have a website at www.leadershiplogicny.com. So like the, like New York, so leadership logic ny.com. And, or we have an email address, that's info at leadership, logic and why.com. So you can reach out and that reaches both Jeanne and myself. I do have a LinkedIn profile that folks can find me under Sarah Marche, like the month of March with an E on the end is always how I say my last name on LinkedIn. And, you know, we're always happy to answer questions and refer people. So we are at the solution, we will send you somewhere if we know somebody, but we know people that are just looking for the right fit the right solutions for their needs.
Kc Rossi 27:14
Oh, that's awesome. I'll make sure to put the links in the show notes. So it's super one click easy for people to learn more about you. And if you were to leave our listeners with one final jam of bright light Wisdom, what do you really want people to know today?
Sarah Marché 27:31
I think it's permission to be authentically yourself. So when you're in the workplace, there's no reason to have to put on airs, or pretend you have all the answers or pretend that, you know, you're not nervous about things or to you know, just feel like you have to be this all knowing, you know, God in the workplace. If you instill and are authentic with yourself, and you are vulnerable and authentic way, folks want to march behind you and be part of your group. And it creates more of that influence and drive than that kind of persona we've created around leadership that isn't real. It isn't authentic. So being yourself is the most important thing you can bring to the workplace.
Kc Rossi 28:25
Yes, and I feel like we are all craving authenticity. And as leaders, we need to be the one that show and lead by example. So I love that. Thank you so much for being here. It's been a real pleasure. Thanks, Kc. Alright, until next time...breathe joy.
Sarah Marché 28:41
Thank you.
Kc Rossi 28:44
Well, what did you think? I hope you enjoyed today's episode Leadership Logic with Sarah Marche. Dash me a note with your top takeaway. Also, if you would like to rate or review the podcast, it really helps support the show. You can head on over to www.lovethepodcast.com/brilliance. Thank you!
