Understanding the psychological principles behind influence and leadership, and how to apply them to become a more effective and inspiring leader with Dr. Benah Parker.

Bio

As a leadership development expert, executive performance coach, and social psychologist, Dr. Parker is well known for helping her clients move the needle on desired outcomes.

Whether the goal is organizational transformation, professional growth, or personal development, Benah integrates applied psychology to help high-performing leaders and their teams hit the targets that others can’t even see.

Her mindful approach to executive coaching, along with her authenticity, empathy, and passion for impacting the greater good make Dr. Parker a highly sought after partner for top leaders.

As a cancer survivor, Benah coaches executives and their teams on staying balanced and focused when dealing with unknowns. She guides leaders on keeping their teams directed on the issues and goals in front of them rather than going sideways during periods of organizational change and transformation.

With her proven methodology, Dr. Parker provides insights and solutions to facilitate long-term changes that lead to improved engagement, productivity, and impact.

“When you’re in that leadership position—if you are a strong influencer, and if you are using your influence intentionally—that’s when you’re really going to be able to build the morale and the strong organizational culture that you want for your entire team.”

– Dr. Benah Parker

Transcript

Hey there and welcome back to another episode of Unbreakable Brands, the podcast where we dive into the resilient strategies and mindsets behind successful women-led businesses. Today I am talking to Dr. Benah Parker, pronouns she/her, who is the founder of Level 42 Consulting. Dr. Parker is a leadership development expert, executive performance coach, and social psychologist.

Dr. Parker is well known for helping her clients move the needle on desired outcomes, whether that goal is organizational transformation, professional growth, or personal development. Benah integrates applied psychology to help high performing leaders and their teams hit those targets that others can’t even see with her proven methodology.

She provides insights and solutions to facilitate long-term changes that lead to improved engagement, productivity. And impact. And that is exactly what we’re diving in today on the show, talking specifically about the psychology of influence and becoming a better leader within your own company. So, thank you so much for being here.

Benah: Thank you for inviting me. I’m happy to have a conversation.

Yes. So I always start whenever I’m interviewing someone with your background. So, tell me a little bit about your path into entrepreneurship and your company Level 42 Consulting because you also have a PhD. So I know that your path to get there had a lot of other things happening, so give us some insight there.

Benah: The fun thing is I started down this path I mean, I don’t know how early it was, but I started studying leadership when I was 14. I was an officer in my high school marching band and our band director, there was a guy who went around and he did band leadership training. And I had this aha moment that early in my life of thinking, “Oh, like I went to this because I, you know, I want to be a better leader,” but recognizing that there was a way to study not only how to be a better leader yourself, but to be able to get better at helping other people get better at what they want to do. That was just really exciting to me.

And so all of this, you know, kind of life led me into a PhD in social psychology, just because I love understanding human behavior. It’s a fun thing to know some things about. And in grad school, I really focused kind of more on identity and performance and resilience. To get that PhD and in social psychology influences is part of everything we’re doing. So after I got my doctorate, I went into non-profit work for a while. I spent some time in the corporate world, went back in the non-profit. I kind of tried a bunch of different hats for myself. And along the way, I kept coming back to, in every role I was in, I was always focused on helping people get better.

And when I reached that point of, you know, my own burnout and looking for the balance as my kids were getting into middle school, I was like, “Oh, something has to change.” And that’s when I decided to embrace that entrepreneur identity for myself. And I’ve been doing consulting work for over seven years now and haven’t regretted it for a single day.

I love that. Also, there is not a single person I talked to who has lived the corporate life and not hit a burnout point. And for so many, you know, who I’m speaking to anyways, that is their pivoting point into entrepreneurship and having a little bit more control.

Benah: Yeah, I actually had a dream one night that I had created something for my kids for a parade at school. And in the dream, my boss was waking me up because I had slept through work and I woke up going, “Oh, I’m missing it. I’m missing it.” And I was like, “Oh, That’s a clear message of burnout right there. You’re missing a lot.”

So, it was a wake up call.

Benah: Yeah. Literally a wake up call.

Amazing. So I want to dive into the psychology of influence, which is something I’ve heard you speak about before. So, if you could just break down, like you’ve done, and the talk that I heard from you, how to have that level of influence, like what’s the basic structure that needs to be in place?

Benah: Oh, so I like we’re jumping ahead a little bit and I love it. So a lot of people when they think about influence. They just think about, you know, being persuasive, whether it’s motivating somebody to do something. And I always like to take a step back and go, everything we do is influential. Whether that’s, you know, trying to convince your toddler to take a nap, your teenager to help with chores, whether it’s, you know, influencing someone to close a sale, whether you’re leading a team, whether you’re making strategic decisions for your business, working with stakeholders, working with vendors, every interaction has the opportunity to be influential.

And so much of the time, people are influencing without being aware of it, and they don’t recognize what they’re putting out there, what other people are picking up, how people are responding. So when I think of, you know, kind of taking that step back of where does influence fit into leadership, it’s about how are we being intentional with influence without being manipulative.

There’s really this step of knowing how to influence yourself before you influence others. And being aware of the people that you’re working with their unconscious needs so that they can really hear your message. So the presentation that you heard me talk about, we really jumped into those steps that happen because when a lot of people think of influence, especially from this leadership position, they go straight to strategy and they think, “Oh, there’s a problem.”

I know I’m the leader. I’m going to go in and tell people how to fix it. And I’m just going to get them on board and we’re going to go execute. And it’s going to be great. And you know, with the best of intentions. They go in with a plan to fix something and they don’t recognize that the people in the room may not recognize that there’s a problem.

They may not agree what the problem is. They may not agree what the cause of the problem is. And all of a sudden, as a leader, you’re getting pushback or you’re, what often happens, especially at that executive level, people are smiling and nodding and saying, “Absolutely boss, we got you.” And then, you know, you turn around and the next day or the next week or the next quarter, the needle hasn’t moved and you’re beating your head against the wall going, “I laid out a perfect plan. Why did this not happen?” And so you start making, I mean, in psychology, they’re called attributional errors. You start making errors about, well, this person didn’t do this because they’re lazier because they’re did it and really the problem can be dialed back to you delivered a message that the audience wasn’t hearing, weren’t able to hear it because they had their own unconscious emotional needs, psychological needs that weren’t being addressed in your messaging.

So when I’m working with leaders about how do you get more influential in your leadership, it really is about taking those steps back and saying what needs to happen before strategy. And we can jump into all those steps if you’re ready for it, but ultimately when we’re thinking about influence, you want to be good at this as a leader, because it’s going to help you build trust. It’s going to help you build credibility. It’s going to improve your communication. It’s going to help you drive change in your organization, resolve conflicts. And ultimately, when you’re in that leadership position, if you are a strong influencer, and if you are using your influence intentionally, that’s when you’re really going to be able to build the morale and the strong organizational culture that you want for your entire team.

Yeah, I want to step back to the first thing you were speaking about for influence. You had mentioned, you know, this isn’t about being manipulative. And that is something I hear quite often about, I forgot the full name of that book, but it’s called like power. It’s red. It’s a big, giant book, and it’s about, you know…

Benah: Cialdini’s book.

Yes. I’m pretty sure.

Benah: It’s The Power of Influence, something like Persuasion. I don’t remember the exact title either, but he’s had several books. Yeah.

Yes. And they’re like, that ties right along with the misconception is what I would call it of anytime you’re doing something psychology backed or based in psychology, there’s this idea that you’re manipulating or that it could be seen in kind of a slimy way, especially, you know, we’ve seen this happen in corporations before. So it’s not like this is coming from nowhere. So I’d love to hear you expand on that a little bit more before we go through the steps.

Benah: Yeah, it’s, it’s fun because Bob Cialdini was one of my professors in grad school, he wasn’t my advisor, I didn’t study under him, but I took several classes from him. He was in my program. And it’s interesting because people know that book, Influence Persuasion, and it’s often taught in a lot of business schools. It’s taught in a lot of sales trainings. And, you know, it’s one of the unfortunate sides of doing psychological research is people go, “Oh, how can I use this to my benefit from the purely scientific research side?”

Like we’re just understanding human behavior, figuring out triggers and those types of things. But when people can be used for nefarious deeds, I always just come back and say, the goal is to use it not in that space of manipulation, but recognizing, like I said, the influence, I think if you think of influence, just as a way to sell a product or a way to elect a candidate or a way to, you know, what our current political climates, understanding the psychology of influence, it’s going to help you influence people’s attitudes, perceptions, behaviors.

So to that end, people can go, Oh, if I want to go use it to manipulate and perceive like, um, deceive somebody. It can be done, but that’s not typically what I find most people are doing, at least not in my circles, right? And when I’m working with leaders, they’re not all, they’re like, how do I, you know, become the man and get the most out of everybody?

No, you want to get the best out of everybody, not the most out of everybody. And if you’re showing up as a leader that people like trust and respect, then that’s when you’re going to be able to get that discretionary effort out of them. And if you are showing up in a way that you are leading your team and addressing their unconscious needs, addressing their psychological needs through your leadership, people are going to show up with that extra effort without you having to manipulate. They’re going to show up and give you that extra because they believe in the vision you’ve created. They believe in the culture you’ve created. They believe in the impact you’re having in the world or for your clients or for your stakeholders.

When you’re able to show up as an influential leader. You’re going to get the best out of people because they’re on board, not because they’re operating out of fear or operating out of, you know, this need to stay alive. When you’re showing up in that manipulative space, people are going to, you know, show up to work and the butts are going to be in the seats, but you’re not going to be getting the best work out of them.

And I think there is so much to be said there for the intention you bring to it and then the impact that you want to have out of it. And chances are, if you’re sitting there saying, I want to be a better leader, you probably have a really good intention to begin with. But I couldn’t leave that because I know it’s a common conversation around that, especially as I, so I build psychology backed brands.

And so that’s a question sometimes I’ll get from clients is like, Oh, well, I’m not here to like, I don’t want this to be slimy marketing. And it’s different than that because it doesn’t come from that place. It comes from a place of putting your people first and understanding their needs first. And you can use psychology to do that and to make that connection. So I think that that’s just an important thing to mention here is we’re all coming to it from that perspective.

Let’s pop into the stages, because when you broke this down for me, it like blew my mind. And I was like, you have to share this with people here on the podcast. So what are the stages to have that influence within your company culture? People could be even at home. You’ve mentioned some examples of that.

Benah: Yeah. So like I said, people love to start with strategy, you know, as a culture, we love to do, we love to be in action. We love to be able to say, I did that thing and I got this outcome and that feels great.

First you need to know that people can hear you. So I always say if you’re coming into a conversation and that conversation can be via email, it can be, you know, a one on one conversation. It can be presenting to a group. It can be presenting to thousands of people from a stage. The first thing people need is certainty.

They need to know that everything’s okay. They need to know what you’re there to do, what your goal is, and it doesn’t have to be a big, Oh, today we’re here to do this. It can be as simple as, Hey, I’d love to check in with you on this. You know, everything’s good. I just have a couple of questions. That level of certainty can open doors because if you just say, Hey, I need to check in on you with this project, immediately walls can go up and people go, is there something wrong? Did I do something wrong? Well, you don’t know what I did. You don’t know the obstacles I had. You don’t know. And people go into that conversation already on the defensive.

They go in already with walls up and they’re not hearing what it was you actually wanted. You may have simply had a question of like, Oh, I don’t know. Like, did we close the door on this? Do we check this box? And they go, Yeah, that’s fine. But in the meantime, they’ve already had this emotional response. So they’re not hearing anything else you’re saying. So coming in with certainty is always the first step. Just letting people know like, Hey, nothing’s on fire. No one’s getting fired. Nothing’s on fire. We’re good.

Right, the famous, “We need to talk line” needs a little bit of clarification.

Benah: We need to talk. It’s bad at work. It’s bad in relationships. I think it’s bad with kids. Like, we need to talk just puts the hackles up, right? Everyone gets a little concerned with, we need to talk.

Yes.

Benah: So then once you have certainty, certainty kind of gets people level-footing. And then it comes down to really addressing those unconscious needs of your audience and people tend to have, I think of these as the internally driven needs and the externally driven needs.

So there are some people you have them in your work. You’ve worked with them in your teams that are really driven by a need for significance or a need for self-esteem. And these are people who they need to be recognized for what they’ve done. What they bring to the team, they need to be recognized for their wins. These people love the spotlight, and there’s nothing wrong with loving the spotlight. It’s just it’s just an internal driver for them. They like to achieve for themselves. They’re very internally motivated, internally driven, internally focused. They’re going to really respond by somebody going, Oh, it’s you. You have done so much for us. It’s great that you’re here getting that kind of ego stroke for them could be really useful to kind of bringing down whatever walls or self talk is happening in there.

So addressing those kind of internally focused needs followed right along by those externally focused needs because in the same way that we know some people really love the spotlight. There are other people that you work with who, you know, this is a person who comes into your office and they ask you about your week and they ask you about your kids. They want to hear about your kids soccer game and you may be really busy and in the moment of like, oh, why are you, why are you interrupting? But they’re asking this because they care and because. They want you to ask about their life. They’re really driven by that need for connection, that need for empowerment.

You know, we all have some core basic psychological needs. We all need connection. We all need belonging. We all need self esteem. We all need significance. And for any individual person, those needs vary. And I always want to caution that just because you know, somebody who always loves the spotlight doesn’t mean that on any given day, they don’t also need you to check in on their family.

I always say, never assume that you know what somebody needs. So when you’re going into a conversation, you start with certainty. You speak to some level of significance and self esteem, and then you speak to that level of connection. And that connection is where you’re talking about. You know, we’re all on board together. That’s when you like if you’ve hopefully laid out a vision for your team. You talk about that shared vision. You talk about those shared outcomes because that’s when you get that sense of team of belonging of membership. And if you’re able to touch on those three things, that certainty, that kind of internal focus, that external focus.

By that point, you’ve addressed the majority of the psychological needs that anybody in your audience is going to have. So whether again, like whether you’re talking one on one or whether you’re talking to a whole audience, a huge audience, most people at that point, they know why you’re there. They feel special about being there. They feel like they are valued. They feel like they are seen. They feel like their needs, they understand how it’s going to impact themselves, their family, the audience, and it can be done in, you know, a couple of quick sentences. It doesn’t have to be a big, long, and now for the team part, and now for the ego part.

It’s just, as you practice, nobody’s ever perfected this, but as you practice, the stuff just starts flowing more easily. And like I said, it can apply at home. It can apply at work. It can apply in all these situations, but once you’ve met those needs, those first three steps, that’s where the strategy comes in. And this is where, you know, all these other things that we talk about in influence, you know, in Bob’s work, you hear about commitment and consistency. You hear about social proof. You hear about liking, you hear about trust, all these things. Those things come in and that strategy piece, and this is what people love to talk about.

So all of this learning that people do about influence. They apply it in that strategy step. But if you’re not taking care of those unconscious needs first, that’s all going to fall flat. But when people can hear that in your strategy steps, that’s when you eventually get to the results that you actually wanted. And you’ve minimized that feeling of going, Well, I thought everybody was on board, but nothing happened. Because you actually took the time to get people able to hear your message, then they are going to be more on board. And people may still have pushback, they may not your strategy, they may not agree with your, uh, evaluation of the problem.

But when those psychological needs have been addressed, that’s when they’re going to be able to use their own influence. To come in and share, you know, a counter argument with you or to give pushback or, you know, depending on your culture, you know, follow the chain of command to give feedback or to raise a flag, blow the whistle of saying, hey, this strategy, but you know, I see this problem coming for us.

If it’s not a safe environment, if they don’t believe that they’re heard and valued and seen, that’s when people can sit there and go, Oh yeah, I see a wall coming. No one’s gonna listen to me anyway. And they let the company hit the wall, which can cost thousands or millions of dollars jobs. You know, it can really have an impact.

What I also love about that piece is that you have the people on your team or whoever you’re influencing, actually starting to problem solve for you rather than the other way. around where you’re always having to do the problem solving.

Benah: Exactly. It really helps with delegation when people are on board with what the problem is.

Imagine that. Yeah, I love it. Oh, so good. I think what really stood out to me, from hearing that talk together was the two types of ways to connect with people, like either through connection, the, you know, I think you said the empowerment piece or through either the self esteem or, you know, the significant need for significance, which was huge also to identifying, like looking back at myself and being on teams like, Oh, what did I prefer? What made me feel like. great on the team. And for me, it was definitely significance. I don’t mind the spotlight, but that’s probably why I lead my own team now.

And then I can be as a leader, not as great about the connection piece. Cause I’m so, I can be so compartmentalized. And like you said, I can jump straight to the strategy. So I can be like, skip over that. How was your family? How’s your dog? I know you had that thing. Not that I forgot about it or don’t care about it, but when I’m in work mode, I can often separate those very quickly and skip over it.

And so hearing this from you before was so helpful for me and reframing that of, you know, it’s not about, Oh, this isn’t the time or place at all. And bringing that back in to the next thing. To help the people around me, because I do want to be a better leader for them, too. So I loved that piece of it.

Benah: Yeah, I mean, what’s what’s the saying? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you’re able to prevent the pushback by simply going, Hey, like checking in with that person that you know is connection driven.

Yeah.

Benah: And they’re going to, because they’re connection driven, they’re going to love that you reinforce that connection for them and they’re going to be on your side, right? The common pitfall that people really make is, you know, you hear about the golden rule, treat people the way you want to be treated. And that’s well and good, kind of in a global sense, if you don’t want someone to cut you off on the road, don’t cut someone off on the road, whatever. But when it comes to leadership, when it comes to communication and to influence and to being an effective leader, it’s really more about not just treating people the way you want to be treated because we all have our own blind spots. Like you said, you can go into work and like, you’re really driven, very focused on the outcome. Your role as a leader, you’re focusing, you know, six steps ahead on some strategy and the person that you’re asking, all they know is what’s in front of them and you may not know what obstacles they’re having in their job.

You may not know how hard the software is or that something’s not lining up or that this thing that’s supposed to be automated is taking them 17 different steps in your head. You’re like, well, why haven’t you done this? You must not be working. You may not be focused. Like you don’t know what’s happening in their work life. You also don’t know what’s happening outside of work, what else they’re bringing, because we come to work as a whole person.

Right.

Benah: You know, you have to recognize that everybody who’s showing up to work is showing up with their own challenges, struggles, lack of sleep, concerns about their health or somebody else in their family or finances or all the different things that the world serves up to us.

On any given day, especially in this, this current moment of existence, there’s plenty of things that are stressing people out. But if you just go in and go, Oh, I need this done and I need it done now, because you are so driven, you’re focused, you want to go straight to the strategy piece. That’s what you need, and maybe for you it feels really good to be in action.

But for them, they need a ramp up to get in action. And you may have people that you work with that you know work in a similar style and they also, you know, they don’t want the fluff, they want to be driven, they want to go in there and be in action, but there are still moments that you have to step back and go, whoo! You’re a whole person. Is everything good? You okay? Yeah, so I think that biggest mistake that people make is assuming that the way they like to work, or they like to be spoken to, or that they like to be led is how everybody likes to be led, because it’s just not true.

Yes, yes, that’s such a good one. On that same note, so we talked about that, and then we talked about, you know, diving into the strategy piece and then also trying, like, even taking too long to get to the strategy piece. Yeah. Are there any other kind of common mistakes or pitfalls that leaders could easily fall into?

Benah: When it comes to this structure, the biggest mistake is assuming that everybody wants to be spoken to and led the same way that you do the next mistake is assuming that, you know, what people need, assuming that that person who is driven by the spotlight always needs a spotlight and that you don’t have to take the time to kind of check in and make sure I mean, if you’re in any sort of training or sales, like you always hear about, oh, you have to establish rapport if you assume rapport with somebody and they’ve just, you know, had to put their dog down.

They’re not going to be shown, like you put a spotlight on them. That might be the stress that, you know, takes them out for the day because they can’t handle it. So assuming that everybody always needs what they often need, I think is another big challenge because you can go in and go, Oh, I know that person. They’re good. That’s my power. That’s my, my workhorse, my, you know, powerhouse person over there. They’re human. They’re going to have days where that’s not what they need and making that assumption can lead to. Misunderstandings, botched communication, hurt feelings, and stagnation.

Okay, so on that note, I love some examples, some like specifics, like talk me through some. It can be with the team or relationships are both, but I think like, at least for me, I’m very much so. Okay, what does this look like in action kind of person?

Benah: Well, I mean, I think there’s, like I said, some of those examples of, you know, whether, whether you’re talking to your toddler, your teenager, your team, there are different ways that you approach those. And it’s simply, you know, what, what do people need in this moment? How do I create that certainty? How do I create that significance? How do I, you know, with my own, I have a 16 and an 18 year old about to head to college in two weeks, which is nuts. But, you know, instead of just being like, oh my God, why has nobody done the dishes?

I’m like, uh, you know, they’re managing life, learning how to be adults, these types of things. I’m like, Hey, thank you for doing this thing. Like, I’m going to give you a little bit of significance because I recognize that you did this. I recognize that you overcame this challenge. You’ve had a rough week. And do you remember that we talked about doing the chores and could you please get, and here’s why, because ultimately we all want the same outcomes and da da da da.

But one of the examples I love is I had a client. We never have favorite clients, and I love my client, Eric. We’ve been coaching him for almost four years. But when he first came to me, he was in an individual contributor role, and he knew that he had a promotion coming up. And he came to me, and I loved his description. He said, I want to be the leader I’ve never had. And I was like, Oh, that’s good awareness. I was like, that’s a great space. Cause so many people come to coaching like, Oh, I’m not doing well in this area. And like, he was doing well, but he was like, I want to be better. I’ve had some leaders that kind of supported me, but there’s been a gap.

And so for him, we were like, okay, so how do you show up? We were determining like what his executive presence was, what type of leader did he want to be and how did he communicate that? And, you know, he had taken some Toastmaster classes and he was getting to the stage where he’s like running meetings and he was like, how do I get everybody on board? So we really got to start from this place of being intentional with his leadership, what did his culture need for that organization that he was in?

Once we started working together, he got that promotion in his company, and then he got recruited by Amazon. And from there, he got recruited by Google, and he’s moved to like two or three different types. So he’s a finance leader at Google now, but along the way, you know, it was over four different promotions and job changes. He was always able to come back to the structure of being intentional with how he wanted to influence his team and get people on board so that he was showing up as the leader, the executive that he was, I mean, he was still growing into it. We’re always still growing. We’re always becoming there’s, I mean, no matter what peak of your career or profession you’re at, if you stop growing you’re going backwards, right? So the fact that he came in clear eyed and wanting to be intentional with that growth, I mean, it was really exciting for me as a coach, but to be able to see him over the years. And in this time, like he also had another kid and like his whole family moved across the country.

So there were all these moments he was able to influence, you know, his family along with his team, along with his profession. And, you know, when he’s going in for these interviews. when he was flying out to interview, uh, at Amazon, he was, he was based here in Phoenix, where I am originally. And, you know, now he’s in, uh, Washington, but when he was flying out, I actually recorded a voicemail for him to listen to on, on his flight with a pep talk of like, this is how far you’ve come.

This is what you were focused on. This is what you’re doing. And so he’s able to show up influencing in that way that he’s really, I’m not saying that he wouldn’t have already, that he wouldn’t have achieved the same steps in his career, but he was able to do it with intention. He was able to drive the growth that he wanted.

To be that leader, he wanted to be able to present himself so that when he was going to those interviews, because anybody who’s interviewed at those, those big companies, like it’s a process. You’re there for a whole day and you’re meeting 15 people in there. You know, it’s so much structure. He knew who he was. He knew how he wanted to present himself and he knew how to deliver that message in a way that the people in the room could see his fit for the organization, his fit for the role, where he’s also evaluating, he’s also learning and asking the questions to make sure he’s a fit and to make sure that that’s the right move for himself professionally and for his family.

Seeing that process over the years is really exciting because I’m like, this is somebody who came in as an individual contributor. Yeah. And he’s taken this to really become that leader that he wanted to be. And he felt like he didn’t have those role models. He didn’t feel like he felt like he didn’t have those people to say, I want to emulate that person.

And along the way, I was like, okay, so who are the models? Who are the leaders you love to follow? And what are the pieces of, you know, how this person communicates how this person shows up that feel natural and authentic for you? And then how do you practice incorporating that into your own? Leadership identity so that it is natural that you’re not just mimicking somebody, but that you’re taking the pieces that inspire you, that light you up, so that you can do the same for the people that you’re leading, recognizing that you’re not leading a bunch of people exactly like you.

Yes. Yeah. Oh, that’s good. How amazing. What a great story for him, too. Yeah, he’s gotten there.

Benah: He sends me letters every once in a while. Handwritten letters, beautiful penmanship. It’s great.

Oh my gosh. That’s amazing. I love that. Nobody sends snail mail anymore. So that’s incredible. Oh, that’s special. Thank you for sharing that. On that note, with him or with anyone else, what are the particular habits, routines, or things you can do to put this in motion?

Because like you said, I mean, you’re not just going to overnight be the leader you never had. So I’d love to hear what you’ve seen work. And you’ve mentioned practice a little bit, which is interesting. So talk me through that a little bit.

Benah: Practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent. So if you’re practicing the wrong thing, you’re going to keep doing the wrong thing, right?

So what I always say, one of the first steps is slow down. Don’t assume that you always know exactly how to interact in every situation. I mean, of course, as a leader, there are moments that you have to step in and react. You have to be quick. And so absolutely, I’m not saying in every moment, take a pause and the moments where you can take a pause the moments where you can go, okay, like this is a really critical initiative that we need to incorporate in the next quarter to meet our goals. How do I go in and make sure I can get the majority of people on board so that I don’t have to go back and have the same conversation six different times. You know, we had one meeting and I don’t have to have seven meetings afterwards to like, no, but your feelings matter.

And I mean, yeah, feelings matter and sometimes it’s exhausting as a leader. You’re like, that’s not necessarily where you want to spend all your time. So I say, slow down where you can be intentional, where you can’t make plans for being intentional with your communication and then practice it, go in and say, okay, in this moment, like, how do I convey certainty if, you know, if, especially if you do have to have a challenging conversation, you know, if you need to put someone on an improvement plan, you need to give somebody feedback that they may not want to hear.

How do I start that so that they’re able to actually hear the feedback instead of just getting defensive? How do I have that conversation where I’m not coming from an emotional space? Cause there are times that somebody can drop the ball and you’re like, Oh, I have to wring a neck, right? And you go, Whoa, that’s not the best time to influence anybody.

That’s when you dial back and influence yourself and go, whoo, what do I actually want out of this conversation? What is the most important thing? And recognizing that we actually control way less than we think we control. So you can’t actually control what people do. Oh my goodness. This is one of the things I spend so much time with all my clients is, you know, people come and go and I need this happen and I need to control it.

And you’re like, oh, we don’t control that. We control two things. We control the stories that we tell ourselves about what things mean and how we choose how to respond. We don’t control how we react, because the react is the emotions, but we can decide whether or not we want to respond based on those emotions or if we want to take a breath, focus on our outcomes, focus on our communication and respond in a way that actually gets us where we want to go.

And sometimes we want to respond from that emotional space and I’m not saying don’t do it because I’ve done it from time to time too. Like, that’s my kids. But at the same time, as a leader, that emotional space isn’t always the best place to respond, right? So we talk a lot about focusing on what you can control and recognizing for the thing, there are certain things that are completely out of your control, but there’s a whole lot of gray area that you don’t control, but you can influence.

And so slowing down and being intentional with your influence and how you’re communicating and how you’re getting people on the same page and practicing that. And I think a big step of the practice is often going back and looking at the things that didn’t go the way you wanted to think back to a conversation that you had with somebody that you had to have a bunch of follow up conversations to move the needle or that you had a conversation with somebody and, you know, something, the complete opposite happened, you know, you ended up with a fire on your hands because people weren’t on board or somebody, you know, sabotaged intentionally or unintentionally and go, Ooh, yeah.

What steps of this process did I not do? Did I not provide certainty? Were people going in afraid for their jobs or afraid for, you know, some other negative outcome, afraid that they were going to lose some income or that they were going to have to, you know, not send their kid to summer camp because this sales quota wasn’t met, whatever it was, what need did I not meet there? And how can I do it differently next time? And how can I show up better in the next interaction? You know, I always say that the only time we actually fail is when we fail to learn. So if you make a mistake and you don’t learn from it, well, then maybe we call that a failure, but most mistakes, if you go, Oh, that didn’t go the way I wanted, what can I do differently next time?

How do I go back? Can I solve this? Can I go back and, you know, apologize, recommunicate, get people on board? Most of the time, it’s not too late. You know, hopefully we’re not, you know, living in these spaces where mistakes can be fatal, but that’s a different type of job. And, you know, I’ve coached some health leaders too.

So it’s a matter of practicing, not expecting things to be perfect, not expecting yourself to be able to control every outcome, but recognizing that if you show up owning the fact that you can influence it and being intentional with that, that’s where you’re going to be able to, I mean, I feel like I say move the needle a dozen times, but that’s where you’re going to be able to move that needle and have that impact and get, if not ideally to your ideal outcome, get closer to it or to hear the people on your team saying, wait, You know, you’re over here, but we all have a different outcome that’s more important and here’s why and maybe they’re able to influence you to go, “Oh, you’re right. We do have to take care of that first because then these other dominoes fall so much more easily,” and making sure that you’re, you know, not even on the same page. But the first step is making sure you’re reading the same book. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. Are you even in the same part of the bookstore? Are they at the bookstore and you’re at the library? Like, who knows? But making sure that you’re on that same page first, you’re going to get to your outcomes so much more easily.

Mm hmm. Yeah. With so many more happier people around you.

Benah: Yes. And then when people are happy, then you know, that’s when that discretionary effort comes in and all of a sudden people are coming to you with their innovation and with their ideas and with that extra effort and saying, Oh, well, you know, I thought about this and here’s another connection.

And all of a sudden, I mean, I’m never going to say life is effortless, easier and more inspiring and more impactful. And that’s kind of, I mean, that’s, that’s my goal for my own life. And that’s my goal for my clients is to help them figure out how do we all operate more in that space? Where life doesn’t have to be hard, work doesn’t have to be hard, that we’re able to show up in these ways that light us up because we’re doing the things that we love doing and influencing to get the outcomes that we want, allowing ourselves to be influenced by other people because we know that we have shared goals and shared outcomes.

And then I go completely Pollyanna and it’s all rainbows and sunshine. Yeah.

But isn’t that what we want too? And I, I think about this too, in terms of the, the client relationship, like you have client relationships, I have client relationships, which is different than the, you know, teams that, uh, a team supports me in that.

But, you said like we don’t have favorite clients, even though we do. And the favorite clients are the ones who for me are the ones who influence back and are grateful or thankful or celebratory or whatever it is in our process or curious. And there’s this feeling back and forth of really beautiful creative collaboration and really beautiful moments for me where I can access creativity and be like, Oh, I had this thought and this idea and bring it to them.

And I think it’ll help grow your business in this way. And I’m sure it’s the same for you and your clients. And then I think about, Oh, the relationships with clients that maybe aren’t that way is they could be coming from a place of frustration or shutting things down and then there’s nothing, you know, that shuts creativity down more than that.

So it’s like, all in a circle, which I think is such a beautiful way to think about it beyond, you know, just the teams, but in the other relationships that we’re having that maybe go the other way too.

Benah: Yeah, absolutely.

This has been incredible. And you have just so many golden nuggets of information. So I love talking to you, but we are coming to a close. So I want to end with what I think is an important question is if you were going to go back to your younger self, well, I guess you’d have to be really young because you started this at 14. Like at 13, right when you were getting interested in leadership, what would be one piece of advice that you would want to hand off?

Benah: I love the question. And the funny thing is, you know, when I started studying leadership and learning about leadership at 14, I mean, no, there’s, there’s so much learning that goes into all of it. I can go back to, you know, my first job after my PhD, when I was 30, and I go, Oh, I was not a great leader. Then, you know, these moments in hindsight, you just go, “I was really not applying these things that I knew, and I had the PhD at that time, but you know, I hadn’t practiced them.” I didn’t know how to lead a team. I was still learning how to lead myself and then motivate and those types of things.

So I think my best advice for myself is kind of two-fold is: Don’t wait to be asked. Research shows there’s a gender difference. Women often wait to be asked and invited into leadership roles. Whereas men typically volunteer or step in or are assumed to have the role. And so people just listen. So don’t wait to be asked and really trust my voice. Because even in those, you know, first jobs outside of grad school, I often, you know, I had the fancy title and the role, and I had a team that reported to me and I would sit in the room and Like taking everybody’s impact and taking everybody’s advice and go cool. Good. And I, I was, I was a doer. It’s like, great. I’m going to go do the thing. And I was like, oh, wait, no, I have to lead people so that they want to do the thing.

But I didn’t always trust my voice to speak up in those meetings. I mean, I was still, in my mind, like a lifelong student. So I was like, I’m here to learn from these people that I work with and their genius. And at the time I was at 30, I was probably a good 20 something years younger than most of the other people in the room. And so I was there to absorb. And now in hindsight, I go, Oh, I could have done a lot more in that role. And so that would be my advice as a leader is don’t wait to be asked and then trust your voice and trust that you’re going to make mistakes along the way.

And that’s okay. Hopefully you have some safety nets around you in your role, but that you’re learning from that you’re taking some intelligent risks, but that you’re learning from those mistakes so that they don’t become true failures. And then you’re going out and trying again.

So good. Thank you. Of course, that’s beautiful. That said, where can people find you and get connected with you so that they can stay in your circle and be influenced by you?

Benah: LinkedIn is a great place. I put out content, videos and posts every week. So on LinkedIn, I’m Benah Parker. So the name will be there. My website is level42consulting.com and it is due for an update.

Well, you know, you know someone, so.

Benah: And then of course, uh, I do offer a free executive strategy call. If anyone’s interested, we can always book a call and I can chat about, you know, where you are in your career. And, you know, it’s not a sales pitch, but simply, you know, a moment to step back and go, what are a few tips I can share that you can go implement this week, ways that you can show up a little differently, and hopefully see that impact and change in your own leadership.

Amazing. And for those listening, I’ll link everything in the show notes. And Benah is actually on LinkedIn, like way, in a way better way than I am right now. So definitely get into our circle there. And thank you so much for sharing your insight and your expertise and your energy with us today.

Benah: Absolutely. Thank you so much for inviting me, Bethany. It’s been a blast.