How self-awareness and authenticity make you a more trusted leader

I am so rooted in, in exploring your identity as much as you can, and also sharing some of the wins and losses with the team, right? Being open and vulnerable to the point where if they know that consistently I’m showing up and they know who I am, they know what they’re gonna get out of me, they know what they’re gonna get out of you as a manager. Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where I bring a decade of experience working in some of the most influential companies in tech to help you navigate the ins and outs of being a people manager from conflicts to feedback, to delegating and more.

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I am so excited to be here with Charlie Ruiz. He is the c e o and founder of C L R Connection. And this is means he is a leadership and performance coach and consultant, former professional athlete and Bay Area native elevating leaders through mindset, communication, and identity. And Charlie and I met a few years ago when I was attending a public speaking workshop. He was leading and I was immediately drawn to his coaching style of authenticity and expertise and.

You know, he, he really helps you step into a bigger and better version of yourself. And as we both moved out of our day jobs and into lives as entrepreneurs, we’ve been sounding boards for each other, not only about our businesses, but on what’s most top of mind for leaders right now, especially with all the change and uncertainty and all the stuff going on in the world. And that’s what we wanted to talk about today. So welcome Charlie to the show.

Thank you, Lia. I’m so excited to be here. Appreciate you having me. Yeah. So where do they wanna start? I mean, I think you have worked with some of the most elite leaders in their field. We said from professional sports to startup founders, to corporate executives, the whole spectrum. And I’m curious, you know, from, from your experience, what has been some of the most surprising things that you’ve seen these kinds of leaders have in common? That they don’t have it figured out or that, or that they’re still figuring it out.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s the imposter syndrome. Yeah. We don’t know. They don’t know, right. They’re still testing, they’re learning, whether it’s corporate or I think of in sport, right? In professional sports, it’s such a high pressure environment to where every single day somebody could come in and take your jersey. So we’re constantly iterating as a coach, as a player, as a manager, and as a business leader. We don’t, we’re figuring it out. Yeah, that puts a ton of pressure on, like you mentioned, imposter syndrome and this feeling of like, well, I’m kind of supposed to have it all figured out, and people are looking at me to have all the answers.

I mean, in one-on-one coaching, for example, when a leader comes to you and says, oh my gosh, I feel like a fake, if you are coming to me to have all the answers, where are we at with layoffs and, and the future of the company and all these things, like, what are some of the things that you share with them to feel like, Hey, it’s not gonna be okay. Like, how do you work with someone in that situation?

I say exactly that. I say good. I say, good. It’s good that you have this feeling. If you did not have this feeling, then I would encourage them to go find it in some form or fashion. It’s not that I have a bad relationship with imposter syndrome, right? It’s something that I’ve constantly talked about and dealt with myself. Now, I encourage, I say, go chase it. If you aren’t feeling that, then maybe it’s time to level up.

So good. I encourage it. I encourage them to. Think about where, where it’s coming from, and then we start to figure out what skills we need to work on. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s one of those things that, you know, leaders can bring humility into their work by saying, Hey, here’s where I’ve gotten stuck. Here’s where I didn’t have all the answers. And it shows their teams that, no, you know, Both good and bad. Like there’s not gonna be some day that you figure all of it out and everything’s great.

Right? But also that, you know, you’re not alone in, in having the struggles and, and feeling uncomfortable. And this really goes such long ways to build psychological safety and trust. And as you say, if you’re a leader and you feel like you’re expected to have all answers and everything has to be perfect, you’re kind of getting it wrong because your team members are gonna feel too separate from you, and it’s gonna create a big divide. So I think for, for leaders listening and feeling that like you have permission to.

Say you don’t know everything. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that there’s power in being able to do that, cuz I think trust is like the o overall umbrella. That’s the buzzword or not. It’s the most important piece for any leader, any coach, any manager. And sometimes that trust happens from those moments where you’re going down the direction, you’re doing one thing, you’re implementing a specific strategy or tactic, and then you look around the room and you go, this isn’t working, let’s stop and remove it.

Yeah. Try something else. Yeah. And right now with, with so much change, uncertainty, we, we talk about this a lot. I mean, having to be adaptable and agile is, is probably one of the most important skills. And, and this is something I talk a lot about with teams and, and. And managers is, is, you know, adaptability is going to be what’s gonna get you through all of this and seeing Yeah. As you called out when something’s not working.

Yeah. Let’s see it through a little bit, but not being so attached to that whole situation. And I think, you know, as an entrepreneur I’ve had to practice this non-attachment, I think in my own work of, you know, moving from the corporate world where things were pretty spelled out, you know, you understand the process, but a lot of our listeners are, Entrepreneurs and founders and small business owners who are having to figure out every single day and, and the patterns and the things that maybe worked six months ago a year ago, you know, pre pandemic, they’re all changing and it can be exhausting, feeling like everything’s changing everything single day.

But when we’re adaptable and responsive, when we start to like build comfort, as you said, kind of chase that, that’s where we start to see. That’s where the innovation’s gonna happen. That’s where we’re gonna actually build a little bit more comfort. Absolutely. And I think, I believe you posted or I saw something recently where it’s like doing more with less. Yeah. And I mean, the motto behind me was also on the bill of my hat when I play, which is Right.

Less is more. And right now, with all of the uncertainty with all of these organizations going through what they’re going through, leaders are expecting more from, from their team with less. Yeah. So to be able to stop. And then focus on the right thing. That’s where typically I see and what I’ve worked with individuals on and myself is am I actually doing the right thing? Am I working on the right problem? I. Yeah. And I try and simplify it.

Yeah. And talk me through, how do you simplify that for that, that for them, like how do you help them d diagnose if they’re working on the right thing? I start with just asking them how many different, you know, balls are you juggling right now? Yeah. How many different tasks are we working through? How many different, let’s look at the calendar. How many different times are you turning on a light switch you’re putting on a New Jersey?

Mm-hmm. Sometimes people are having six or seven different meetings with different teams a day. Yeah, so when are we actually doing the work? Yeah, and think about, I mean, that meeting overload is something we’re hearing from everybody across the board with, with distributed teams and virtual and hybrid, like I’ve heard, you know, someone call it chain smoking meetings. We’re moving from one thing to the next, that it becomes really exhausting. There’s a huge cognitive load and so.

And for a leader really having to show up and be at your a game every single time, that can cause burnout. And I think another thing they talk a lot about in the show is how managers can set themselves up for success. You know, we talk about supporting our teams, but you know, putting your own oxygen mask on first. And like you say, if you are, if you’re constantly contact switching, if you’re constantly, you know, having to.

Even having multiple hard conversations in one day or having to deal, you know, like this is very exhausting and there’s a lot of, you know, I think like it’s been said, Jeff Bezos used to make, you know, hard decisions at the start of the day, right? Like, or I know Daniel Pink talks about that a lot around timing being really important and sort of tuning in and, and almost biohacking your own self. Like when are you at your best?

And then creating your day and week around that, if you can. It’s all about the awareness for the individual, and the hardest lesson I think I’ve learned so far, or that I also try to repeat for myself and for folks that I work with, is to emphasize that it’s not being selfish. Right. It’s actually being selfless when you are able to take care of yourself first. Yeah. As a father, as a mother, as a husband, as a leader, as a friend.

Once that clicked, everything changes. Yeah. Everything changes. Because you gotta take care of yourself. Yeah. Meeting morning with, with a group, I asked them, people, leaders, all of ’em, look at your calendar. Do you have 30 minutes blocked off where you’re doing something just for yourself? They looked at me like I was speaking, another language wasn’t, and I’m, and I was like, and now replicate that over the last year. So get selfish because you’re not, you’re being selfless.

Yeah. And by listening to these conversations, by doing the work you are, you know, it’s showing that you care. I think I was laughing with someone I was talking about, you know, who seeks out content like this? Who goes to trainings? Who gets coaching? It’s people that actually care. Sadly, the managers that aren’t very good, they’re not listening to this show. The managers or the leaders that don’t care, the ones that don’t, you know, are, are going to be losing engagement in their teams.

Those, those people are the ones that we need to worry about. I think if you are here, Showing up, doing the work, caring about your teams, having feedback, rolling up your sleeves, wrestling with it, that’s showing that you can take a little bit of time for yourself and, and I mean, yeah, between, you know, like you said, getting up from your desk, having lunch, stepping, you know, having time to exercise whatever it is that, you know, that gives you that space.

I think for a lot of folks listening that are entrepreneurs and and founders that maybe left a corporate job because they wanted to set their own rules, now they feel like they have less time than ever. That’s something that is such a common experience. I know. I feel like that many days, like people say to me, oh, it must be so awesome to have your own schedule. I’m like, well, I kind of work more. I’m kind of working a lot more than I was.

I like what I’m doing better, but you know, I’m not always setting the right boundaries. And I mean, that’s why I created the Ops Playbook program because I. Wanted to make sure founders and small business owners could see, how do I make sure I’m maximizing my own time and not putting this pressure to be always on onto my teams? Because we, that’s unsustainable and in a culture, in a climate right now where everyone’s feeling burned out and overwhelmed and exhausted, we gotta take care of that stuff before it just gets outta control.

A hundred percent agree. A hundred percent agree. Starts with you. Yeah, exactly. And so how have you translated some of these things from, you know, that you’ve learned in, in, in, in practice with executives and founders and, and athletes into your own personal life and try to create your kind of operating principles for yourself? I think about when I have my best days. Yeah, yeah. Who am I around? Yeah. What am I thinking about in my journaling?

Am I reflecting? And I’m not a big writer, but I, but I really try and look at my weeks. And say like, when do I have the most energy? And then I replicate it. And same goes for the work when I know and as you are a manager, as you’re going through whatever you, what stage you are in your career, you have those days, we all have ’em where we’re doing something we don’t like, okay, let’s pair that.

Let’s pair that with something that you do like that serves you holy. You just you. And when you start to do that, In all areas of your life, you start to realize that, I’m not gonna say you have control. We don’t really have control, but what you can control are some of the, the environments that you put yourself in. So with leaders, I start with the environment, what does your environment look like? And let’s stack a new habit or routine onto that.

Something you’re already doing that’s gonna serve you even more? Yes. Usually what we start, I love it. I mean, it’s, it’s so funny. It was literally this morning, like on my walking desk doing a task I didn’t wanna do on my computer. And I’m like, and this stacking thing, it’s, it works so well because if you can, you know, take a walk and listen to the audiobook or have a tough conversation while you’re in a walking one-on-one, like these kinds of things allow you to be doing a little bit of something for you, even when you’re doing something you don’t want to.

And. And I couldn’t agree more about the environment. I think, you know, for me, I can get, you know, I can find myself sitting in this physical room. Anyone that watches all my videos sees like she’s always in that same room, often in those same shirts, but like, because it’s, we get used to it. All of our stuff’s here, we get in our routine, but we don’t always have new creative ideas. When we’re in the same environment.

So, you know, whether it’s moving where your desk is in your home office or changing up stuff, you know, even what’s surrounding you on your desk, putting different pictures up, you know, changing your screensaver, whatever. This is gonna help you reset and you know, what you shared. I love that strategy. I use that a lot in coaching and, and in talking about how people can get unstuck by, right. You know, changing something, actually, creating a symbolic shift of perspective is going to help you actually do that.

Oh yeah. The, the vision work. I mean, to be able to almost name it right? Give yourself an alter ego or, or put yourself in a position like I am, I’m walking into this mode, like this mode. Yeah. Again, taking the sports background, you would have it. You kind of have to have some sort of alter ego and depending on that work and what you need done in that moment, it’s gonna be a time for it.

Yeah. Leadership styles, management styles, they gotta flex and the best ones do it. Yeah, I, so let’s dive into that a little more. I love that concept and I think, how do you rationalize the alter ego and, and authenticity and, and how do you bring those together at the same time? First of all, knowing who you are. Yeah. So it’s for some of the identity work and the authenticity, people can sniff it out when you’re not, people can sniff it out when you’re not.

And I am so rooted in, in exploring your identity as much as you can, and also sharing some of the wins and losses with the team. Right. Being open and vulnerable to the point where if they know that consistently I’m showing up and they know who I am, they know what they’re gonna get out of me, they know what they’re gonna get out of you as a manager. Yeah. When you do maybe get a little more direct or.

You show an emotion maybe a bit different than what they’re typically used to, that might also work in your favor. Oh, Charlie raised his voice. Charlie didn’t ask me to, for my opinion. He’s coming in with even more conviction. Oh, he means it. That’s because they know and they’ve had me consistently showing up as who I am. So it starts with that authenticity and from there, You flex when you need to. All the coaches do it.

You see in basketball, you see it in corporate. I think of some of my past managers. Yeah. They know how to flex. Yeah. It’s such a great distinction because it’s like, yeah, yeah. Constantly yelling at people that doesn’t work or always being in one. But I think similarly with parenting, we both have, you know, you know kids to four, four year old and you have two kids. I mean, I think when you are. You know, using that in the right way with authenticity, love, but also that conviction.

It’s like, Hey, okay, we’re, we’re serious right now, but it only works if it’s on that foundation of trust that you’ve already built. And I think it was Ed Shine who was a thought leader in the kind of consulting and and coaching space. He talked about the connection between trust and predictability. And that trust is formed on predictability in communication, interacting. And so as you called out, when you create a trust by showing up in, in your authentic way consistently, then you have that trust and you can turn up the heat when things, it’s serious, and people are there with you and they don’t think like, whoa, what happened here?

Because you’ve established that predictability. Now, if you haven’t established that predictability, that’s where stuff goes wrong. Where. One day it’s hot, one day it’s cold. One day everything’s great, one day’s bad. This is like, yo-yo helicopter managing. That’s not, we’re talking about, it’s a subtle shift is what I’m hearing. That kind of, and putting on, and then there’s a level I’m guessing, like, of putting on your game face when we’re, when we’re in kind of go mode, that’s a, that still within that same authenticity, it’s not like you turn into a new person.

Yes, and it’s all you. You said it. It starts with trust. It’s the one thing that comes up in high performance individuals, teams. Trust is the foundation. And if we don’t have that and we don’t understand what it means to each individual, how they operate, what they see as trust, what removes trust, what builds it, that’s where it all starts. And then, yes. You can continue to adapt and pivot as you need to as a manager.

So we’re talking about building trust and authenticity and I think one thing I often see managers get wrong is thinking, okay, high performers, they’re good. They’ve got this, they don’t need oversight, they don’t need management. Like leave them alone and, and I feel like that doesn’t always work out as intended. I’m curious, you know, what do you see the role is of a manager in, in motivating a high performer? I. You have to know your players or reports team members.

The saying, and I came to this recently comes from my, from my mother. She’s always saying, know your players. And I just thought so much about that in the context of what she was saying. If you know your players, you know your team and they are high performers, they operate and they learn and they need to be coached differently, right? Some may need that more direct approach. Some may need to be hands off. You need to be hands off with them.

I think of my coaches, you would think I would like the Socratic the, to be coached as a coach myself, that I want to think through the questions and No, tell me. Mm, fix me, like hit my back leg. Tell me that I’m giving feedback the wrong, like, tell me live cuz I, I need to feel it in order for me to get better. So if I am hands off because my manager thinks I’m a high performer, if they know me, know your players, I.

Still adapt and move with me. The best coaches do it. Yeah. And, and this is why career conversations, goal setting conversations, meaningful one-on-ones is so important because we will manage, like you just called out, we’ll assume what worked for us or what we know is gonna work for everyone. And that’s rare. That’s rarely the case. In fact, it’s never the case. That’ll work for everybody, both with feedback, with recognition, with any of this. And when, you know, when you know your team members, what makes them tick, what motivates them, you know, what they’re, what, what they’re afraid of, what, what they’re excited about, all these different things.

This is going to help you, one, have more influence. Two, be more effective, and three, you know, motivate people more. Because what motivates me, and I’m using that on you and it doesn’t do anything for you. Then it’s not gonna do anything for you, and it’s not gonna work. And so, I mean, I talked about this a lot with Tracy O’Malley in the episode about the Enneagram and that tool. I talk about this a lot with recognition.

You know, we, we cannot just assume what works for us, works with other people. And as, as we just talked about with, with high performers, you know, I think there’s a lot of times folks are motivated by. Affirmation and, and you know, recognition and a good job. I know especially folks that are in that perfectionist achiever zone, they may be coming to you for some validation if you’re not giving them that. Even if you feel like, yeah, we all should work on our perfectionist, and it’s not exactly, you know, it doesn’t always serve us, but if that is the motivation for your team members, We have to understand that and they’re gonna need to hear it.

Yes. Think about where most high performers come from in the corporate setting, probably from an individual contributor role where they were absolutely killing it, and then they get promoted to be a people manager. And then five, six years into the career, they’re like, I’m literally just doing what I was doing, and now I just have a random one-on-one from time to time and have to just tell other people above me what they’re doing. Like I don’t really have the skillset.

I’m just continuing to do what I was doing as a high performer, as an individual contributor. Yeah, exactly. It’s foreign. It’s foreign. Yeah, exactly. And, and, and small business owners the same. I mean, if you or founders, like if you were great, you’re super technical, you, you know, you were able to make a lot of money work in real estate, whatever it is, and you know that skill, that does not mean you know how to manage people.

It’s. Different skills and it requires a different level of awareness, requires getting your own coaching to figure out how you want to show up for folks. And, and like you say, it’s, it’s not just about being good at that one thing, this is putting a different hat on, keeping that same person authenticity, but you know, having to develop another skill. And if you’re struggling with this, if it feels uncomfortable, Then I think probably like we started the conversation with, then you’re doing something right because it is hard.

Managing is hard and and the fact that you’re like, Ooh, I should get some support here. That’s exactly right. We should always be, doesn’t matter how long we’ve been managing, Because right now we have new generations entering the workforce. We have, you know, all this uncertainty. We are figuring out how to deal with ai. Like there’s all this stuff that’s making, managing hard. Even if you found it easy three years ago, pandemic, remote work, hybrid, like it’s always going to be changing.

So this is not, you know, building your skills as a manager and professional development in general is not optional. It’s like choose it and figure it out and constantly be getting better for yourself and for others. It’s mandatory. It should be mandatory. Yeah. And, and, and you as an individual contributor, or again, sports references, you’re gonna have to just work with me. Love it. All good players do not make good coaches, right? Because as a player, yeah, maybe they had something over a certain period of time.

They didn’t know how to ask for feedback. They didn’t know how to go get better, just like an individual contributor who’s now a manager. So go seek it. I can think of number of friends and family members that are way better coaches than I could have ever imagined, ever imagined with, with the guys that I see them on the field way better coaches, because they’ve also learned and they’ve adapted. They’ve, they’ve, they’ve tried to get better at their craft.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is something for managers who are thinking about making someone a manager, right? A lot of us managers are managing other managers that not everybody is ready for that. And you know, I think there’s three things I suggest when you’re thinking about asking someone to be a manager, or if you’re thinking about becoming a manager of in a different capacity. First is, You know, do I have support? And if you are going to have somebody, manager, and you don’t have the bandwidth to make sure they’re up to speed and train them, there’s no real resources for that.

And they just kind of have to do that. For the first time with nothing, it’s probably not going to go very well for the first few months or, or time being. And then that’s gonna be a really strain on whoever they’re managing. So if you don’t, if you’re not able to create that support, then you know, it’s, it’s could be a problem. The second thing I say is, is do how much I see versus manager work do they have, and you call this out as well, like if they have all this other stuff on their plate and they’re upskilling and being a manager, that’s going to be really difficult as well.

And then the third one is, can they hire the team? Are they inheriting team? Whole other set of things there. If you’re inheriting, you know, folks that are struggling with all different kinds of issues, because that’s also going to require that you have more skill as a manager. So before you tap someone in a manager, the criteria is not just were they a strong performer. There’s a lot more stuff to think about. Yeah. Couldn’t agree more.

There’s, there’s so many components, but they have to. Sometimes even, maybe even ask them. Yeah. Surprise. Right. Is this something you’d be interested in? No. Okay. Let’s go somewhere else. How often does that happen? Yeah, yeah, I know. And I think there’s this belief, especially in the corporate world, that you have to be a manager. You have to amass a large team under yourself in order to grow, and that doesn’t work for everyone. And I think that’s why we have so many situations where people didn’t really wanna be a manager.

They felt sort of forced into it. They don’t like it, the whole team’s suffering. And that’s why you have, I think Gallup reported like, I don’t know. 50, 80% of people would leave because of their manager, whatever it is. I’ll, I’ll add this to the stat, to the show notes because most people become managers because of some, you know, gap in personnel and it is very, very rarely because they were actually interested in it and trained in it.

Look at what that creates. I mean, you wouldn’t have that. And I think that’s an interesting difference, right? Between, you know, coaching and professional sports or, you know, leading in the military versus like coach managing in a corporate setting, you would never become a coach without any experience or interest in it, right. It’s rare. I mean, I don’t see that happening. Right. Especially in when you think high performance. Yeah. It’s a conversation. There’s a lot that goes into it.

Yeah. And a lot of the times you may see, again, speaking from experience and seeing other leaders go through it, it took them a while to even get their footing as a leader. And when they figure out who they are at the core, their identity, oh, you mean I can be authentic, I can be myself. Yes. Yes. We’re in the age where everyone is not saying to go get a social media, but if you can humanize yourself Yeah.

And you don’t, and you, and you can create. This, this reality, especially with the younger generation, that you are human. That’s how you build trust. If it’s no longer this hierarchy, and if the hierarchy’s there, it’s gonna eventually start to fizzle out. Yeah. The more you can connect with your, with your team, with your players at the human level, promise you it’s gonna work better. Long term. The term players coach exists for a reason. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that.

I love that concept players coach. And I think the more we embody that as leaders, the more we see higher engagement, higher retention, all the things that we talked about. So that’s an awesome place to start to wrap up. So what’s something that you’re working on that you’re excited to share with our listeners? Just continuing to build, uh, build momentum, I think for, for myself and launching, you know, my business c l r connection. It’s really working with, with leaders across industry, whether it’s working with a sales leader right in tech, or working with a major league pitching coach, and really helping them not only own their story, but then communicate in a way that is going to land for their team and who they are.

And more importantly, it’s actually having some agency in what they’re doing every single day and knowing who they are. So my work is that it’s helping your voice. Making sure that you have the right mindset and that you have intentional focus on what you’re doing every day. Awesome. Love that. Anything you wanna leave our listeners with before we wrap up? Stay connected to you. It’s not being selfish, I promise you. As a recovering people pleaser, the light bulb went off and we’ll continue to go off for individuals if you can get right with you, cuz it’s always a U versus U game.

Yes. So good. Well, thank you so, so much for being on the show. Covered so many awesome things here and I feel like really, yeah, if we can focus on how do we want to show up and bring that, that’s where we’ll be connecting with people and that’s where the magical will happen. Thank you so much. Thank you, Lia. It was a plus. That’s all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple Podcast where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive.

I always love to hear from you, so please reach out at liagarvin.com or message me on LinkedIn. See you next time.