Speaker 1: Have you ever found yourself sitting in a meeting and
Speaker 1: feeling too afraid to speak up and voice your idea,
Speaker 1: only to realize later the outcome would have been ten
Speaker 1: times better if it's spoken up. For the last four years,
Speaker 1: Tim McKinnon has been the managing director of eBay Australia,
Speaker 1: and today he provides some practical tips on helping to
Speaker 1: find your voice, as well as how to have impact
Speaker 1: as a leader, and also why he felt like throwing
Speaker 1: up when his name was announced as the new leader
Speaker 1: of eBay Australia. My name is doctor Amathe Imba. I'm
Speaker 1: an organizational psychologist and founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 1: and this is how I work, a show about how
Speaker 1: to help you do your best work. On today is
Speaker 1: my favorite tip episode? Will you go back to an
Speaker 1: interview from the past and I pick out my favorite
Speaker 1: tip from the interview. In today's show, I speak with
Speaker 1: Tim McKinnon and this extract starts with Tim talking about
Speaker 1: how leaders need to find the right balance between being
Speaker 1: approachable and authentic but also having authority.
Speaker 2: There's two dimensions. There's people who are leaders who struggle
Speaker 2: with being authentic. There's a balance in life between having
Speaker 2: authority and being approachable, And so there's people at both
Speaker 2: ends of the spectrum, and they're more senior leaders, and
Speaker 2: we get frustrated at our politicians and American CEOs is
Speaker 2: not being authentic.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The other side of the problem, which is more common,
Speaker 2: is people who are more themselves but actually don't know
Speaker 2: how to be a leader, and they don't know how
Speaker 2: to behave and to speak up and to take authority.
Speaker 2: And I'd say there's a core job of my job
Speaker 2: is not just to be authentic myself, but create the
Speaker 2: conditions for everyone at work to be authentic. And I
Speaker 2: know that people can't be one hundred percent say whatever
Speaker 2: they think for one hundred percent. I can think that
Speaker 2: idea is, you know, we all we all have kind
Speaker 2: of versions of ourselves that we show to people, even
Speaker 2: to the people we're closest to. But I mean, like
Speaker 2: our job is to is to help people in their
Speaker 2: workplace actually their work self and their home self not
Speaker 2: be that different, like if there's a massive dichotomy between
Speaker 2: those as a real problem, and secondly, to help them
Speaker 2: be leaders. Like I think everyone on my team are
Speaker 2: amazing leaders, and my job is to create the conditions
Speaker 2: where they feel comfortable speaking up and expressing their view.
Speaker 2: So I guess I'll start with it like practical tips
Speaker 2: for people. If the first case, if you're a leader
Speaker 2: and you're struggling with authenticity, or if you've been given
Speaker 2: that feedback, my first question you should ask yourself is
Speaker 2: is this an environment where I can I really feel
Speaker 2: like it supports me for who I am? Or is
Speaker 2: there just too much it's just they're just too different.
Speaker 2: And if it's if it's not that environment, you don't
Speaker 2: feel like you can be yourself and you can see
Speaker 2: no way to being yourself because of the culture, it
Speaker 2: might not be the best environment for you. But the
Speaker 2: other part of it is, well, how do you change
Speaker 2: the environment to make it so that people can be
Speaker 2: themselves more? And then what it starts with you? So,
Speaker 2: I mean the first thing to being authentic is being vulnerable.
Speaker 2: I think that's like the key. You know, it's just
Speaker 2: people admitting that they don't have it all under control,
Speaker 2: for people saying I don't know the answer to that,
Speaker 2: I don't know what to do here, I'm struggling. If
Speaker 2: you start with that, people will reach out and that
Speaker 2: really builds trust and I mean anyone who's accused of
Speaker 2: being fake or not authentic, as someone who is not
Speaker 2: genuinely vulnerable about what's going wrong because nobody has got
Speaker 2: it all under control, like no one. And then obviously
Speaker 2: like as you develop that capability as developing your self
Speaker 2: awareness is really important and generally and self reflection can help.
Speaker 2: And I'm still going to do a lot more of that.
Speaker 2: You know, while you're getting too that getting feedback from people,
Speaker 2: like there must be people you can trust it can
Speaker 2: just tell you just be honest with you and say,
Speaker 2: especially as you get more senior, people are less likely
Speaker 2: to tell you the truth, So you've got to seek
Speaker 2: it out, and you've got to find people who give
Speaker 2: it to you straight and talk to them a lot.
Speaker 2: Whenever someone's leaving the company, I always try to chat
Speaker 2: to them and get feedback because you know they're going
Speaker 2: to be honest in that situation because they don't have
Speaker 2: to think about working with you in the future. And
Speaker 2: then the last thing is probably just you know, creating
Speaker 2: every opportunity to fuse your personal life and your work life.
Speaker 2: So talk about your life outside of work a lot
Speaker 2: at work so people understand that part of you and
Speaker 2: that feels natural, and I think that really helps. And
Speaker 2: so incorporate talking about your family or your hobbies, or
Speaker 2: your fears, or your history, or your hopes or your holidays,
Speaker 2: and then you'll start to see that barrier breakdown for
Speaker 2: the second class of people that struggle to speak up
Speaker 2: to be leaders, people like an imposter syndrome. I think
Speaker 2: everyone suffers from that. I remember distinctly when I was
Speaker 2: made the managing director of EBO Australia. We had an
Speaker 2: all hands and my then boss was about to announce
Speaker 2: my name and I was sitting there and I had
Speaker 2: this overwhelming feeling of wanting to vomit on the carpet,
Speaker 2: Like I just felt nausey that I'd never felt in
Speaker 2: my life before. And I stood up and I really
Speaker 2: really really had to had to contain myself from doing
Speaker 2: like a massive projectile vomit over everyone, which would have
Speaker 2: done a really bad start. Because I'd never thought of myself,
Speaker 2: I'm not this guy, like, I'm not that kind of
Speaker 2: personal I've never had aspired to be a CEO. I
Speaker 2: grew up and my idea of who a leader is
Speaker 2: is completely different, and I had to remind myself, well, actually,
Speaker 2: like I've managed to do things and lead and achieve
Speaker 2: notwithstanding that, notwithstanding I never fit this mold. And so
Speaker 2: to people who struggle, I'd say, you have to remember
Speaker 2: that what has got you to where you are is
Speaker 2: good like and you are a leader, and you kind
Speaker 2: of need to, you know, find people that believe in you.
Speaker 2: It might just be your parents, and just reinforce you
Speaker 2: and say you can do this and start to speak up.
Speaker 2: There was a colleague at eBay who who wasn't comfortable
Speaker 2: speaking up when he wrote down every decision that was
Speaker 2: getting made in these meetings and what he would have decided,
Speaker 2: and he went back. He wrote this over like twelve months,
Speaker 2: and he went back and found that he was actually
Speaker 2: making the right decisions eighty percent of the time, but
Speaker 2: he wasn't actually expressing his view. And if you don't
Speaker 2: know what to speak up about, you don't know how
Speaker 2: to have impact, Like, you know, get really good, I'd
Speaker 2: sort of say to people start at eBay, get really
Speaker 2: good to understand the data, or know the customers really well,
Speaker 2: talk to them more than anyone else, or really invest
Speaker 2: in the relationships across the company, and that will give
Speaker 2: you the authority and the confidence to speak up and let.
Speaker 1: That is it for today's show. If you want to
Speaker 1: follow some of the work that I'm doing, you might
Speaker 1: want to reach out on some of the social media
Speaker 1: channels that I'm on, which is LinkedIn search for Amantha Inba,
Speaker 1: Twitter which is at Amantha, and Instagram which is at
Speaker 1: amantha I. How I Work is produced by Inventium with
Speaker 1: production support from Dead Set Studios and thank you tomt
Speaker 1: Nimba who does the audio mix for every episode and
Speaker 1: makes everything sound amazing. See you next time.