We always look at the top of the organization, especially when it comes to leadership. But what about the middle? How do leaders lead from the middle of the organization? In this episode, Connie Martin, the author of The Art of Picking Up Dog Poop, shares her insights on thriving and surviving when leading from the middle. She discusses the frustrations and challenges leaders feel as they hold the organization and its teams together. On a brighter note, she then shares the opportunities that can be found in the middle for growth. Giving us a peek into her book, Connie also describes feedback as dog poop. You don’t have to stick with it, you may process and deal with them, but when done, you can put it in a bag and throw it away. Get ready to grow as a leader by tuning in to this conversation.
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Connie Martin - Leadership on Leadership
I have a very special guest, Connie Martin. Connie, welcome. It's nice to have you here. Connie is a dog lover. Right there, she went way up in our book. She's an owner with a degree in Computer Science and more than 25 years of technical leadership experience, navigating corporate and middle management. She enjoyed a short career in the military. She continued to grow through diverse technical and leadership assignments across multiple domains. Along the way, she has become a gifted mentor and facilitator who has learned how to solve problems creatively. Connie, welcome. We look forward to hearing your take on the price of leadership.
I'm excited.
I like to tell our audiences how Connie and I connected. We connected in 1983 in the beautiful land of enchantment at the New Mexico Military Institute or NMMI where I was a cadet, and so was Connie. It’s all those years ago. We're on LinkedIn. I get this email. She's like, "Remember?" I'm like, "Isn't that cool? Worlds were colliding." We reached out. We had a phone call and got caught up. I thought, "I got to have Connie because she has had a brilliant career and is a published author now." Connie, thank you so much. Forty years later, we get to share how we have transformed with the world.
What an adventure for sure.
First of all, The Price of Leadership is a speech my father gave many times. He says that the first price you have to pay in the price of leadership is loneliness. We have all heard that it's lonely at the top. Can you unpack what loneliness looks like for you as a leader and maybe give our audiences a word of wisdom or a tool that they can use if they are in a season of loneliness?
I spent a lot of time leading in the middle. If you're all the way at the top, it's a very lonely place. Even in the middle as a leader, your team is looking to you. Some of those tough spots are when you change jobs. You moved from one team where you're not the top dog but you've gained all the experience. You have the expertise, and then you take over a new team, and now you're the new person.
To make it even tougher, if you move and go from Colorado to Florida, now you know nobody. If you're in a new company, you know nobody. That's a lonely place. You've got to learn to trust some people, get to know them fast, learn their names, and figure out how they tick and what that landscape now looks like. You've got to adjust your approach.
That's situational leadership. That's good for leaders because a lot of times, especially in the military, you're there for a couple of years, and then you're somewhere else. Even in the corporate world, we have changed jobs. When you start, it's like starting a new school. You're always going to have that time but understand that you will get integrated.
It takes some time. Some teams will embrace you very quickly. I use a lot of icebreakers, "What's your favorite ice cream? Where are you from?" We went around the world one time, "Where were you born?" It was a lot of fun. In a team of 60, we had 2 native Floridians and a team of 65 sitting in Florida. I happened to be one of them who had moved from Colorado. That was fun. The icebreakers can help in getting to know your team.
I love it. That's the first one we have heard. Icebreakers are so crucial because my father would also say, "There's no communication without identification." There you find that commonality just like us. If you meet anybody that has been prior military even if it was for five minutes, it’s like there you have it. We're brothers and sisters. I love icebreakers. The next thing he talked about was weariness. You've been stressed out in jobs, and so have I. Being in the military is tough. How do you combat weariness and stay in top fighting form?
You have to take breaks if you see an opportunity. A lot of times, especially in the software business, we do peaks and valleys. It's peak time to get that delivery out. You're going to have to hit it hard and do what needs to get done but when you see that valley, as a leader, you have to make sure that your people take some time off during the valleys. If there are no valleys, then you've got a different problem. You have to talk about that. That's where burnout tends to show up. It’s when you never take a break. It keeps going on and on. You take a step back, reevaluate, and keep going forward. That's how I've overcome the weariness.
Burnout happens when you never take a break. Take a step back, reevaluate, and keep going forward.
That's interesting, especially for the audiences out there, those of you in the field. I was in tech for five years in Austin but it would come on strong. You would be working 100 hours a week and then throttling back layoffs, "I'm paying you to stay home." You learn to go with it. Entrepreneurship is like that. There are times when you're speaking three times a day and times when it's three times a month. I like that. Keep your eye out for the future and push hard, knowing that you're going to get a time of replenishment but also to watch for burnout. That's very sage wisdom. Thank you.
The next topic was abandonment. As dog lovers, we're not talking about abandoning a pet or fear of abandonment. This is about pruning out things that no longer are in your life helping you get to your highest and greatest purpose, be it a board, volunteerism, or people. You're growing. You got to suit up differently. How do you deal with abandonment? You transitioned into a different person probably several times.
On the abandonment side, I focus on some things like feedback. Everybody gets feedback. Everybody gets reviewed. You're walking down the hall, and somebody tells you something you probably ought to throw away. For me, the offenses and the feedback as a leader are the things that we have to sometimes abandon and walk away from. Process the emotions. Deal with them for today but don't let them stick because those become the chip on your shoulder and those triggers that show up out of nowhere, "How did I react that way?"
Those are the things that need to be put to the side and abandoned, especially some of that negative feedback. You want to grow. You want to process it and understand it but then you have to let it go because some of those can stick for years or decades. That's not good. Process the feedback for a day or maybe two, let the sting go, and then throw it away like dog poop.
I have never heard about abandoning the stink or the offenses. I love that you said, "Take it, listen to it for a day, and process the emotions, and then we're done." Own what you can but don't let it go because otherwise, that rumination or that critical spirit will absorb so much of your leadership persona, and you don't even realize it. That's when we get tired or weary from that internal friction of carrying these self-imposed emotions of anger and frustration. That's all self-imposed. I love that you can abandon it, "I'll own what I can own, and the rest I'm abandoning." Thank you for that.
We all make choices. We get to own our choices. We talk a lot about accountability. I flipped that around and said, "You made the choice, not own it. You have a choice on how you want to react, and only you can choose that." When we make those choices, we should own them.
We can't own whether the person did it or said it. All we can own is how we can react. That does not matter. They did. Let's not even carry that. There's no sense going there.
Let it go. Throw it away.
I love it. It's dog poo. Put it in a bag and throw it away.
Who knows? There would be wisdom.
I tell people, "Hound wisdom is twice as good as sound wisdom because it's got double the legs to stand on." Hound wisdom is a higher form of learning.
I like that. That's fun. That's awesome.
The last topic he talked about was vision. For technical operational girls like us, I would always sit there and go, "That's squishy and out there," but my dad would always say, "Vision is seeing what needs to be done and then putting a plan together to do it." I'm like, "It's the practical or the pragmatic side." What does vision look like for you and how you transitioned? You can tell our audiences about that. You're in the next chapter of your life. How did you cast out that vision? How are you using that to create the next future version of Connie?
One of the times, I did get some feedback that I decided to hold on to for a little bit. Everybody sits in these meetings and forgives the meetings. I appreciate I don't have as many of that now that I'm not in Corporate America anymore. We would be talking about how you could take a system from here to there. I would get what they're saying and then zoom, "I'm over here. I'm ready to go. I've got the vision. I caught it." The rest of my team is sitting way back over here at the beginning. I'm like, "You've got to walk them through it. When you do that, they will come along and get the buy-in that you need to go where you're going to go."
That's one that stuck that said, "Let's take that vision and get the team to rally around it so then everybody can go there. As it shifts, this let's retire." I cast that vision eight years ago. Somebody said, "You should write a book." I'm like, "I got all these good stories. Maybe I'll write a book." It turned into, "I'm writing a book.,” and then it's done. It's out in the middle of a pandemic. Maybe I can focus on this book thing and see what happens next. I'm excited to see where we're going to go around the corner and what that next adventure around the bend might be.
Leading From The Middle: Leading From The Middle: Let's take that vision and get the team to rally around it so then everybody can go there.
We're going to talk to our audiences about that so they can hear about that and support that. I love that you said, "Vision isn't about the leader because if the followers don't get the scent and the buy-in for the vision, I don't care how talented you are. You can't do it alone." We're not meant to do anything alone. That spoke to me. As soon as the words come out, I'm like, "Where is everybody?" I love that you said that. I got feedback on that too. I'm always thankful that we have leaders that will appreciate that.
I always tell people, "It's always easier to rein somebody in than trying to push the rope or the needle," but I still needed to hear that and say, "Vision is a shared enterprise." You may see it but it may take some people some time to process it. That's sage wisdom. We did loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. Is there anything else that you want to share with our audiences on the topic of leadership?
I created a company called Words from the Meander. I got a lot of feedback on the meander but I chose it because, in addition to wandering aimlessly, it's also the middle course of a river where all the action is and all of the twists, turns, and things that we get asked to do. I wrote a book about leading from the middle. I used a dog poop story to set the stage. You've stepped in it. Everybody can relate to what happens when the bag breaks. Those set the stage for some of those hard conversations.
We talk about what it looks like in the middle of the organization. You're going to see a few things in the middle because you're the glue that you may not see at the top. Not everybody wants to get to the director, the CEO, or the corner office, but there are a ton of opportunities sitting in the middle of the organization. Here's the thing. Everybody has to go through it. Everybody has to get their stripes, understand, and get the experience. There are some things in leadership. You can't learn it from a book. You have to go and do it. You have to try, take that risk, and see what happens.
I like that. Talking about your website, tell us also about the book and how people can get a copy of that.
It's in all the outlets. It has been out for a while in hard copy but the audiobook is coming out in a couple of weeks. We're very excited about that because I put it in my own voice. I did all the editing and production. I'm very excited. We got a couple of more weeks on the blooper reel but it's coming as well. You can buy my book on my website at WordsFromTheMeander.com. It should be available also on all the other ones. If you want a signed copy, you got to go to my website. You will look for some discounts there as well.
The Art of Picking Up Dog Poop: Leading from the Middle
It's The Art of Picking Up Dog Poop: Leading from the Middle. I love it. For our audiences out there, you've heard Connie's background. She's a technical girl with decades of experience in leading technical teams. If you want to reach out to her now that she's in a free entrepreneurial role to share her wisdom and all she has learned about it, please reach out to her. Connie, do you coach? Do you go into organizations? Who is your ideal client?
The ideal client is those younger leaders or technical folks that now have taken on a leadership role. They are looking to gain some more of those skills in scheduling, planning, and all the stuff that they don't focus on when they're in the technical role. I would love to be able to come in and facilitate meetings and help folks get to their next best opportunities. I would love to come and speak. You can find me on my website.
Pick up your book for a book club too. That's awesome.
I do have a discussion guide out there that could help people grow their unique leadership styles. That's the other piece that I'm very passionate about. We can copy what everybody else does but then it's not authentic. What we want is authentic leadership. They're going to follow you because they trust you and not necessarily what somebody else did.
For us, otherwise, it's exhausting when you try and lead like somebody else. You will keep drifting. You won't be yourself. Life has a funny thing about always reorienting back that freedom. Joy only comes from being yourself. You will start attracting those other followers that resonate with that leadership style. Connie, let's not make it another 40 years.
No doubt. That would be too long.
We will be like The Golden Girls then.
Thank you so much for having me.
That's not bad to be The Golden Girls.
There you go.
I love it. Thank you so much. It was an honor. Thank you for your wisdom. You gave us some wonderful pearls to digest. Our audiences out there are going to be truly blessed by this. Thank you again, Connie.
Thank you. I appreciate you having me.
You're welcome. To our audiences out there, thank you so much for being a part of our Tremendous Tribe. If you like what you heard, please be sure and hit the subscribe button. If you would leave us the honor of a five-star review, we would be so thankful for that. Make sure you subscribe, like, share, and get in touch with Connie. Get her book. Reach out to her, especially if you're in technical fields, and you have leaders new to the field that know how to lead people, not just manage processes and products. That's such an important thing. Thank you so much, everyone, for paying the price of leadership and being a part of our Tremendous Tribe. Have a tremendous rest of your day.
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About Connie Martin
Connie Martin is a dog lover and owner with a degree in computer science and more than twenty-five years of technical leadership experience navigating corporate and middle management. She enjoyed a short career in the military and continued to grow through diverse technical and leadership assignments across multiple domains. Along the way, she has become a gifted mentor and facilitator who has learned how to solve problems creatively.