Middle managers are often expected to do it all—translate vision into action, support their teams, and execute on strategy—all while navigating pressures from above. In our very first episode, we talk with Jeff Sigel, author of The Middle Matters, about why this layer of leadership is often misunderstood, overlooked, and critically important.
We unpack the real challenges facing middle managers today and explore why traditional leadership advice often falls short. Jeff brings a grounded, compassionate perspective to what it means to lead from the middle—and what organizations can do to support these pivotal players in more meaningful ways.
In this episode, you'll hear:
Whether you're a middle manager yourself or someone leading them, this episode is an invitation to rethink how we define leadership, growth, and support inside modern organizations.
Watch the episode on YouTube or listen on Spotify or Apple.
Collette: So today, I'm so excited to introduce our guest, our very first guest, who actually was the person who convinced me to go ahead and do this podcast, even though it, you know, I'm a newbie at it. His name is Jeff Sigel. He's the author of the middle matters, and he has one of his primary jobs is really supporting middle managers and organizations who support middle managers in this crazy time. He is one of the smartest and most thoughtful people that I know. And yeah, Jeff, can you share just a little bit about what you're working on right now? Just
Jeff: Sure, yeah, yeah. So thank you first of all, for having me on, I'm so excited that this is fun, this is coming to fruition, and I really love the topic that you have chosen to focus on. Obviously, feedback is such a huge important thing. But so glad that you did this, and so glad that you have it on. And to answer your question, what am I up to? I am up to many, many things, but probably the most relevant is, after I wrote my book, the middle matters that you mentioned, I started doing lots of work on helping companies with their middle managers, coaching folks, not just middle folks, but also individual contributors, on how to really take charge of their careers, how to take charge of their situation, and how to sort of not feel victimized, if you will, in work that they're doing. So that's what I'm up to,
Collette: That's beautiful, much needed. I keep reading articles. I think the last one was Forbes yesterday about just the struggle that middle managers are having right now and that organizations are having with middle managers. And so I love your book, and I highly recommend it to anybody who is interested at all in the topic. It's a good read.
Jeff: Yeah, it's fascinating. I actually have a a friend who is over in Europe who actually is tracking all of the articles that are being written about middle managers, and he essentially gives them a score. And he said, I think he said it, since the beginning of the year, there have been over 110 articles about middle managers, and it's really interesting. And he scores them based on whether they are, I'll kind of jokingly say pro or con. I really mean by that is pro middle management is middle management is really important. We need to train these people, which is definitely the camp that I am, and the other side is this, like, companies are getting rid of their middle managers. They don't need their middle managers and so forth. And we can talk about that for the whole hour, but it is a, it is a challenging world out there right now because it's sort of weird economic times. Companies are kind of like, you know, trying to cut, you know, cut costs, and all that kind of stuff that companies always are doing. And it's very easy to point at this middle layer, who is really the glue of the organization, and kind of go, what are these people doing? Right? And it's fascinating, because it's, like, it actually, when when people say I don't need a middle layer. We don't need a middle layer in this company, it's, you know, almost always sort of have this, you know, initial kind of gut reaction of, I think I see a problem here, right? Because the the assumption is, why do I need somebody to transmit my ideas to the, you know, to the front lines, if I can just tell them myself. And I think that sort of fundamentally misses the point of being, you know what middle managers actually do, which is really convey purpose, train, develop people and so forth. And when they're not doing that, the the reaction shouldn't be, let's get rid of them. The reaction because let's them to do what they need to do.
Collette: Yeah, totally. I when I worked with Gallup and the engagement survey, and you know, the research that they did, a lot of it is around the influence that the direct manager has on the the individual. Employee and so they have just a huge influence on whether they stay or whether they go, how happy they are with their jobs, how committed they are, how motivated they are. So I totally agree. It's like, if you don't see that that's valuable, then they're probably not being. Being really leveraged and used in the best way?
Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you think about, and I know we've talked about this in the past, but if you think about, in many ways, your relationship with your boss is probably the most impactful relationship, certainly outside of your family, but in some ways, for your own sort of mental health and well being, it can sometimes be even more impactful. I'm not saying it's more important. The relationship with your family is more important, but you'd spend an awful lot of hours dealing with your work environment, and if that work environment is not, is not sort of, you know, conducive to you doing your best work? Are you learning to do your best work? And so forth. Then it, it's not just taking up the hours that you are at work. It's taking up all kinds of mental energy, feeling frustrated and anxious, etc, and so so much of the role of a middle manager is, how do I make sure that I have trained my folks and given them the tools and giving them the feedback and all those kinds of things so that they can do the job that they can do and not feel that anxiety and stress? I mean, there's a, you know, there's a role for anxiety and stress, right? I mean, it does. It does to do sometimes amazing things, but it is not, it should not be the norm, right? Yeah, doesn't have to be that way. And the middle, I believe the folks in the middle are really essential to that. And if you take them away, what it means is that you now have a very senior boss who is often very disconnected from that, you know, sort of frontline work, because they haven't done it in years and years and years, and you're giving them, you know, these spans of, spans of control that are very, very huge, and they just don't have the time to spend. The assumption is, if I just, if my people are good, and I just delegate the work to them, and they just go do it great. I don't need to spend any time with those people. And then all I'm going to do is spend my time with the people who are, you know, problems and figuring out how to, you know, either fix the problem or get them off the team, or whatever it is. And it's like, well, that's not that actually is not how you get the most out of your team. You get the most out of your team, attention to the best people. And so basically the attitude is, we're gonna get rid of the middle so we don't have to spend because we don't need to spend any time with the best people. Is your best people are gonna very quickly burn out or leave or stop being best people, because they are like, Why am I doing this? Nobody cares what I'm doing. All that kind of stuff. And then you won't then then you'll have a different problem.
Collette: I love this, Jeff, this is i i tell people a lot that high performers, I think, are harder to manage than low performers, because they don't stop and they'll they will challenge you to do more and do differently. Low performers, I think you can kind of count on the fact that they're not going to be, you know, uprooting your work or your life, they're just going to be, you know, not performing, but high performers. It takes, it takes a lot to manage high performers. So I think people underestimate that and totally think about just, you know, managing to the lowest common denominator. This is how all of our conversations start off, by the way, like we just get on a call and go with whatever the topic of the day is. I love this
Jeff: Awesome yeah, no, and I completely agree with you. And I think that, you know, if you think about it, with the high performers, high performers are very often people that are extremely hard on themselves, right? I mean, they produce, like, a natural level of anxiety that is, you know, not necessarily healthy. And so what happens is, when those people who are high performers often. And I don't know, you know, certainly we, I know you and I have talked about this certainly, like in my sort of upbringing, going through school, whatever, like, it was very important to be really good, to be the best, to be perfect, to get it right, to get, you know, to get the A's, to get the, you know, whatever it is. And so that level of anxiety that leads to higher performance, actually very quickly. I think turns Can, can actually turn sort of almost internally toxic when left, when left to its own devices, right, like high performers, when they're when they're not getting feedback, when they're not fit, when they when they can't deliver because they don't know how to do something or whatever, they start to essentially attack themselves, and it creates this incredible amount of anxiety and that kind of burnout or frustration. You know, you made the point of like, they'll just eventually, what will happen is this person who was like, trying and. Trying and trying to get attention, to get to get positive feedback, to get that, you know, sort of validating input, not in the in a world where they never get that will eventually go, I can't do this anymore. And yeah, they literally are like, I am I? Am I they? They are. It's, it's really fascinating, because I have these conversations with people surprisingly frequently where they're like, oh, that person left because, you know, they they had mental health issues. No, they didn't have mental health issues. I mean, I'm not saying nobody does, but a lot of times the quote, unquote, mental health issues are just them creating stories in their head about, well, then my boss isn't giving me this feedback. I must be doing a good, bad job, whatever. And they're just putting all this pressure on themselves. And eventually they just give up and and, and sometimes you see this and like people just like, they just walk out, right? This is my last day. I'm not doing this anymore. And the people left behind are like, I don't understand this person was doing great. They were, you know, whatever, and it's like no what was happening is they were putting all this effort in, and they were looking for validation. Now we could have a whole conversation about whether or not people should need the validation, but high performance, you know, but we do, and yeah, they should or shouldn't. People do need that balance, right? And if you don't, if they don't get it, especially high performers who have basically their whole lives sort of been motivated by external validation, again, the promotions, the degrees, the whatever it is that those people will very quickly, sort of, I think, spiral into, Oh, my God, this is terrible. My boss hates me, you know, the and, and the boss may not be doing anything like sort of wrong, other than just not dispelling that feed, you know, that sort of, you know, fake feedback,
Collette: Yeah, I love that. I think it's burnout, yeah, too. Also, I the when you describe just this constant working and effort and working and effort and getting very little in response to that, and what you were saying is validation, I think that's right. It's just, you just can't sustain that forever. Something's got to give, right? So when we're talking you mentioned feedback, and I know you have a feedback process that you have in your book that I really liked, and it's probably maybe too long to go into here. You have a lot of experience around this, and you have a really good system for this. So I'm curious for you, what is your response to the thought of getting or giving feedback? What is your response to that word?
Jeff: Yeah. I mean, you know, it's interesting, because I think throughout my career, I think I felt, like many, many people feel, which is like, Oh, I don't, I don't even want the feedback, right, like, because it's going to be bad and whatever that, you know my, I guess, my reaction when you talk about giving or receiving feedback is, there is so much sort of, I don't know, I'll say culturally. I mean, it's sort of business culturally. There's so much around this idea that feedback is about corrective. You know, it's corrective, it's punitive,
Collette: Constructive, as opposed to unconstructive feedback.
Jeff: And that it is, I only like feedback is about something negative. You did something wrong, and going to give you, you know, I'm going to give you more, you know, I'm going to give you more, more things that you need to do differently. I'm only going to things that are wrong and and so people don't want the feedback. Sorry, a cat has made it in my lap here because I didn't. Door closed enough, so, but anyway, let me see if I can get her. You know,
Collette: That's entertaining.
Jeff: Anyway, so
Collette: Tail right by your face.
Jeff: Oh, well, this is the the danger of going live, right? So, at any rate. So this interesting thing about, how do you change people's view into this idea that feedback is actually not just about the negative, it is also about the positive, and actually, really importantly about the positive I know, I talked about this in my book, and I'm sure you, you and I come across, I came across it recently in another book that this idea that we typically the research, I believe, you know, sort of would suggest that you kind of need to give, I don't know some it's I've. Heard nine to one, I've heard five to one, I've heard three to one, but you have to give actually, a lot more positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, right? Or negative constructive criticism, right? You are actually get more when you tell somebody, Hey, you did a great job on that, and they will do more of it because we want to. We were sort of, we're sort of wired to please people and so when we are, you know, when we are giving people feedback, that is like, here comes the cat again. But we, you know, we're, we're wired to get this, you know, to sort of do more of what we get praised for. And yeah, I have this part in my book that some people have given me crap for, but I will share it. There was this article, like, probably 20 years ago, and it was called something like, How to Train Your spouse like a pet or something. That's pretty bad. But what it was really talking about was, if you whether it's your your spouse or your kids or your employees or whatever, it's basically saying when you train up, when you train a a pet, right, you are training them by getting them to do something positive. It's very difficult, for example, to train a dog not to jump. It is much easier between them to sit right. And so the way you get a dog not to jump is you train them to sit right. It's that positive the behavior you want and essentially ignoring the behavior that you don't want. And you get more out of the you know, the feedback is more more impactful when you are emphasizing the things that you want to see more of. So I'm not saying disclaimer. I am not saying treat your employees like a pet
Collette: or your spouse.
Jeff: There definitely is a way. There's definitely this idea that you can get people to behave in certain ways by spending more time reinforcing the positive than and that can be something as simple as, hey, that email you wrote this morning was really great, and this is the really important point that I like to emphasize when I talk about this, is you have to be as specific about the about the positive feedback as you are about the constructive feedback. If all you say is, hey, great job on an email, I don't know what I did, I have to be great job on email because you, you know you were very clear about, I know, X, Y and Z, whatever it is, because you're trying to make sure that people understand exactly the behavior that you are praising, so that they do more of it, right? That's what, yeah, I love that. Yeah, I'd be fascinating. I'm gonna throw a question back to you here. I'd be fascinated, because often when I start talking about this, I get this question from people, which is about this idea of the sandwich.
Collette: Do you know what I mean? Oh gosh, the sandwich? Yes.
Jeff: I'd be fascinated to hear your reaction to the sandwich, because I have a very strong reaction. I know
Collette: A lot of people do. I've been a victim of the sandwich before, and it I'll be honest. It's better than just hearing bad news, you know? I mean, honestly, it's like, well, here's something good, and then you can see the other thing coming. And then, well, you know, I mean, I'll take it, it's, it's better than the alternative of just constructive criticism. And so many thoughts about this. Jeff, when you I particularly have thoughts about this. As a mom to a six year old, I'm thinking about I know everything that you're saying is true in terms of five to one, I think is the magic ratio when it comes to relationships, when it comes to work relationships, personal relationships, whatever, five positive interactions to one negative interaction and the negative ones are so compelling. And I think about this at work too. When you see somebody do something that is really not great or that is problematic. It's you just the need to go in and give feedback about that is so strong when you see somebody doing something well, because it's usually not, you know, if it's something big, of course, you celebrate that. But if it is an email that was well crafted, or something smaller. It makes so much logical sense to do it, and it is freaking hard because it's not as compelling in most cases. Yeah,
Jeff: Urgency is not there. I don't need it's I don't need to correct. This thing, and so it's no big deal. And then what happens is, you forget, right? I don't know, and then, but you don't forget the negative things, right? And so here's my, I mean, I'll give you my quick take on the sandwich. It's what I like about the sandwich, is that, fundamentally, the problem I have with the sandwich is that we when we are giving feedback in the form, you know, obviously the sandwiches I give you a piece of positive feedback, I give you a piece of constructive criticism, and they give you another piece of positive feedback. My question is always, who are we trying to make feel better? That fundamentally, the reason I am giving you positive, negative. Positive is because it's going to make me feel better about and so there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the sandwich, but in the end of the day, when we are giving feedback, I really strongly believe that the most important thing is that it is clear that our intent in giving the feedback is about the helping the person grow, and not about helping us get done what we need. That's not to say that we don't need the person to do something. We need them to grow, right? We need them to knock things, or whatever it is, but it needs to be about I am giving you this feedback because I want to help you, and if it's not, then people can see that smell, that whatever a mile I would say a crap sandwich is still a crap like, it's like, and, and. And I also think the other thing I don't like about the sandwich method of giving feedback is that it is very often very the positives are very cursory, right? You want to rush to get like, you know, it's sort of like the equivalent of, I love your shoes. That was a really horrible presentation you gave. And your hair looks nice today. Is like, like, everybody, like, people get it like, like, just saying that so that you don't feel bad about giving me the feedback, which means that the reason you're giving me the feedback is because of you, not because of me. Ah, that's how do you get people to really understand that I am giving this feedback to you because I want you to be successful.
Collette: That is so interesting. Jeff, I love that differentiator, differentiation of why, why am I doing it, and why am I doing it this way? And you're right. I think I totally agree with you, healthy feedback, at least, is for the person who's asked for it, or for the person that you're giving it to and I will say, I think when people are doing the feedback sandwich, or whatever the technique they're trying to do, it really stems from an actual ability issue, that feedback is hard. Receiving Feedback is hard. Giving feedback is hard. It is something that we have to learn how to do, and it comes, I think here's therapist hat, you know, from our relationship with our parents and growing up, and there's a certain amount of just shame inherent in feedback, because it's like, I missed something, I did something wrong. I don't know. There's just this old stuff that comes up for people, and the dynamics and relationships around feedback often, in my opinion, reveal some kind of triggers and patterns that people have, whether they're giving it or receiving it. So I almost think that somebody who's using the feedback sandwich is just trying to find a way to do something that they truly do not feel comfortable doing and haven't learned how to do yet.
Jeff: I think that's true. I think that if you don't, absolutely, you have to practice giving feedback. You can't, you can't just do it. Never have anybody explain to you how it's done. But I think you know what I what, I'm sure you see a lot of, and what I see a lot of is that most, many, I don't know most. I don't have the data, but it seems like an awful lot of people only give feedback in two circumstances, okay? One of them is I give feedback when there is a problem, okay. Other is, I give feedback at review time, and so the problem with both of those types of feedback is they're both about them or something. Yeah, like the feedback I give when I'm giving people, you know, when I'm giving somebody negative feedback because they did something wrong, it's about I need you to. Fix this for me, right? You're making your team look bad, whatever. When I'm giving feedback at the end of the year review, it's because I have to get this done.
Collette: Gosh, that's so insightful. Jeff, I've never really thought about that before.
Jeff: Yeah, no. So, I mean, I think the interesting question is, how do you change the giving of feedback to be about, how do I help this person learn and grow? And if I doubt them, then they will, even if it's hard to hear, I mean, I've given hard to hear feedback to people, and have people thank me for it before they know that I gave it to them because I wanted to help them, right? And it may in the moment, but they're like, but you know, the next day, they'll pop in your office and they're like, Thank you for saying that. Because if you didn't say that, I was going to go through the rest of my career doing this thing, it was a little bit like, it was like that, the proverbial piece of broccoli in your teeth, right? Like, hold me. Why didn't you tell me? Right? And you know, this is a I'm sure you've you, and we've probably talked about radical candor, but you know, the story the most from radical candor is the story she tells about this employee that you know, Kim Scott had this employee who wasn't doing well and everybody you know, and she was avoiding giving feedback, avoiding giving starting to, you know, the rest of the team was starting to revolt on her, and she finally was like, she took this guy out to lunch and basically let him go, and he looked at her, and he said, Why didn't you tell me? And it's just such a poignant thing. It's like, wow. Like, yeah. Like, I should have said something a long time ago, and it wasn't, it wasn't helping anyone for me not to tell this person. And so I think if you, if you can figure out how to make the feedback not about you, but about them, that's where I feel like the most value happens. And I am going to pretend for a second that I have ever been perfect. Hard. It is hard to do it. It's hard to remember to do it. It's hard to, you know, it's like, we aren't, you know, we don't like to give the negative feedback and we don't remember positive feedback.
Collette: Yeah, so true. And I think what you talked about, too, is just that you practice it, yeah, it's, it's, it's not fun. It doesn't feel natural. You have to really make yourself do it. And the thing that drives you to do it is your intent to help somebody else, and that helps you get over that discomfort.
Jeff: Yeah. I mean, we both come from, you know, backgrounds where we we worked for a restaurant company, and actually see some of the best examples of really good feedback is in a really well run restaurant, or where it is very, very busy and there is no time to mess around with mistakes being made or whatever is feedback is being given all the time, positive, destructive, and there is no negative connotation to it, like, Hey, you and the tables aren't getting cleaned as fast as I need to. I need you to focus on, on making sure your tables are getting clean. Because we really need to turn these, you know, tables faster, whatever it is, and it's like that quick, right? It's that very, very fast, like, Hey, I am this is, there is no judgment here. I am not holding this against you. I am not saying this is your end of your review. I'm saying I need, we need to get these tables screen because we need to turn more tables. And I'm just trying to help you be more successful, so that we can all be more successful, right? Yeah, and I think it's that but, but the other thing that's amazing is, in a restaurant, like people like, you know, will, there's a constant, at least when it's running, well, you'll, you also hear a constant stream of positives. Hey, thank you for doing that. Really appreciate that you did this nice job. You know, being a team player. You know what I like? I remember working in, you know, a restaurant one day when I, you know, I wasn't working in a restaurant. I was, you know, you know, sort of visiting the restaurant or whatever. And I was, I was helping out. And I just remember, you know, getting feedback, you know, thanks for being such a team player. Because I would, you know, go and clear off, you know, the glasses off of people's tables that you know, you know other people's tables, and get those tables clean and whatever. And I think that constant stream of positive and constructive feedback is it's easier to take, because you actually become, you don't take every piece of feedback as if it's like the end of the world, right, right? And I think when we only give feedback when it's negative, or at the end of the year, it's so infrequent that it becomes really hard for the person to sort of acclimate to, oh, when, when my boss tells me that I need to, you know, turn this table faster. They are not you. Questioning my future,
Collette: And they're also arm to arm, elbow to elbow, with the people who are doing the work, as opposed to kind of those meetings that tend to take more time or happen more infrequently. It's like the leaders tend to, I think, be more separated from the work too. So the actual feedback might fill off for people. Okay, I'm excited to hear about your most powerful feedback moment, because we didn't talk about is it feedback that you got? Is it feedback that you gave? And I can't wait to hear about it. So I'm wondering, can you set us up as much as possible in the first person I have this like in my imagination, you can just take us there, of when this happened, where you were, what you were doing in this moment, when you got or had your most powerful feedback moment. So
Jeff: I'm going to be super open here, because, okay, powerful moment. So i i recently. It's only been recently that I sort of have recognized the value of therapy. And it was a couple weeks ago, I think, and I was talking with my therapist, and we were talking about management and leadership, and which, you know, I talk about a lot, obviously, because I wrote this book and I was, you know, talk, I don't remember what the scenario exactly we were talking about. We're having this conversation. And my therapist asked me this really, really poignant question, which was, what kind of leader were you? And I thought for a few moments, and I said, I and I said, and I said to her, I'm like, I think I would describe my leadership style as benign over manager, not micromanager. I don't think I was a micromanager, but I think I was a little bit I historically have been a little bit too involved. And I could go on this long explanation of how I really think that what kind of got me over that eventually was that I started managing people that did things that I did not know how to do, and so I could not over manage. And so I often said, written, the book that I wrote, until I had the job, the job that I have, where I was managing like data analysts, and suddenly I don't know anything about this stuff, right? But the feedback that I got in that moment was the real, like gut punch, because we had been talking a lot about some of my anxiety, about, you know, things that were happening with my kids and so forth. I said I was a benign over manager. She said, Oh, just like with your kids. And I was like, Oh my gosh. And it was, it was like this, I'm like, That is so true. And, wow, that was like, punch to the gut. I had not made that connection between my sort of need to control things in in, you know, in the work environment, and my need desire whatever that we I think many of us, all of us have as parents of to control our kids and try and make and that's what I mean, like when I say benign over manager, like, really, mean it like, I really want the best I am, like any other parent, best for my kids. I want them to succeed. And I was trying. I had been trying to control the situation too much. In many ways, I've sort of come to realize in the last you know, whatever. I don't know when this happened, a couple weeks, a couple weeks, a couple weeks ago, or whatever. Like, I'm like, oh, huh. This is really interesting. I was trying to control the situation too much. I was trying to, you know, make things happen the way I was wanted them to happen, and that actually, when I back off, things seem to fix themselves much more quickly than when I try and get involved, which is, frankly, the lesson I needed to learn as a manager. I just had never really thought about it as a parent, so I don't know was that that was my most point.
Collette: That is huge. Jeff, gosh. First of all, I thank you for the transparency. You know, I'm a huge fan of therapy. I've been in therapy and doing therapy for years, so I totally when you have it sounds like you have a really good therapist. Um, what I mean? I That was wonderful the way you told that story, because I felt it for you. I was just like, in that moment, I can just know that that feeling of just total, oh, new awareness, just put a mirror
Jeff: Like this is, you know, I mean, it was, yeah, it was, it was a really powerful moment and a real moment. And it's funny. Me, because I was, I was not that long ago. I was on a call, and somehow we were talking about, I don't know what exactly we were talking about, networking or something. I don't know we were talking about how, you know, kid, it was sort of like one of those kids these days conversations, you know, and the and one of the people that was in the call, made a comment about one of their kids and that, you know, they couldn't, they couldn't, you know, get them to do, motivate them to do the thing they wanted them to do. And I said, I and I literally said, I said, I have no idea what the answer to your challenge is. I just can tell you that the best piece of parenting advice that I have received recently is stop trying to control the situation, right? Because you can't. Yeah, and, and, you know what? Your kids, your employees, they're going there will be disasters. There will be errors, mistakes. I actually have this thing that I sometimes say, which is that delegation is a leap of faith, but it's not a leap of faith that your team will always get things right. Is a leap of faith that your team will get things wrong and it will be okay. And I really believe that that applies not just to being a boss, but also to being a parent?
Collette: Yeah, we don't. It's about repair and restoration, right? Fixing what went wrong. There's, it's not possible to have perfection or not not deal with issues, but it's about, that's how people learn to grow and do better. Is that repair process?
Jeff: Yeah, I think that's very true. I mean, you can't, you can't become great without learning, and you can't learn if you don't ever make mistakes, right? I mean, this is the Harold Dweck fixed in growth mindset. All of that stuff basically says, the more you are focused on perfection and achieving, actually, the less risk you take and the less you grow, right? Yeah, okay. I mean, I actually, I don't know as a strong belief that we, we I've actually had this strong belief for a really long time, but I'm not sure I truly understood it until which is, I believe that we need to do more work when we are raising kids through school, whatever, and teaching them how to fail. And there are some kids that unfortunately get ample experience in failing and kind of give up. But there are also, equally, a group of students who don't really ever experience failure, and experience failure as a kid, you know, sort of learning these things because they they only do the activities that they do well at or they only whatever that because they don't experience that failure, they actually become reluctant and reverse and they don't grow and that, you know, that's what's fast. You know, it's just this, this fascinating thing is, like, the more you try and again control everything, the less control you you end up having. Anyway, that's my, my take on, on on that experience. But it was a very powerful moment, so
Collette: I you just, you know how sometimes you give me so much to think about that my brain works way faster than my mouth. I'm kind of in one of those moments right now where I have three different threads going. I want to go back to one thing, which is, I'm shocked that you described yourself as a benign over. What was it over? Over? Manager like that's shocking to me that would be the way that you would describe yourself. Was that shocking to you when it came out of your mouth? Or did it feel
Jeff: That's an interesting question. I think that it was a little bit of a surprise. It's it's something that I've kind of realized over time that, you know, just from feedback I've gotten from people who I who have worked for me in the past and whatever, like, I always thought I like, I mean, you know, I had asked some people, just some people that I worked for me a very long time ago for feedback about, like, how my management style when I was sort of working on my book and so forth. And he got this feedback from somebody who was like, you know, you were a great boss. And here's what, you know, here's the great things you did whatever. But I really wish that you had had been more willing to just let me do what I wanted to do, whatever, or what I need do my thing or whatever, which was fascinating to me, because when I think about that particular relationship, I think that I was giving that person incredible amounts of free reign, like not micromanaging. In my view, I was not at all and and so it's fascinating, like I this. Person came to me and they said, I have this idea of how I want to do this thing. It was not the way I wanted to do it. But I was like, Okay, I'm going to let you do it this way and whatever. And yet their reaction was, you were over managing me or whatever, micromanaging me, whatever, whatever I'm like, I don't I'm not sure I understand exactly what why that, what that is, but I kind of need to own it right. I need to basically say at some point I was too involved. And again, back to you, like when I really believe that I learned to lead was when I was managing people who did things that I did not know how to do. Yeah, and that what the window that I was sort of opened for me when I was managing somebody, for example, at some point I had home office facilities reported into me. I am a marketer. I studied chemistry and physics in college. I studied Marketing and Business School. I do not know anything about HVAC systems at all, and I didn't need to, right? Yeah, I remember that that person actually came back to me, you know, after that, you know, after they were reporting to somebody else and like, oh my gosh, I miss you. You were so why? Because I wasn't spending any time telling her how to do her job. I was giving her your own input on I don't know how to do your job. I was spending all my time saying, let's focus on how you're growing your people, or let's focus on where you're running into obstacles, or let's focus on how you are presenting yourself and your ideas to to the company. I'm not going to spend any time telling you how to do HVAC stuff I don't know anything about. Yeah, my time on helping you with the things that maybe you haven't had as much instruction on, and that's what they really appreciate. And I so I think what was happening, and this is why I said as a benign overmanage, like I was not trying to micro I was not trying to micromanage me. I was not trying to force things to happen, but I was giving my opinions about what I thought should happen, and that that felt to people like micromanaging, even though I was, even though, ultimately I was letting them do what they want to do. Fascinating to me that people who have given me that feedback, I can point to specific moments when I would like I let this person do something, and I was not comfortable with it at all, and I their way, and I am not sure I made the right decision, letting them do that I did, and then to kind of get this sort of feedback back of, oh, yeah, but you were, you know, I felt like I was being over manager. I felt like was being micromanaged, or whatever is, is it's, it's fascinating, because I think that micromanagement and over management, or whatever you want to call it, is more complicated than just, I'm, you know, there absolutely is a version of it where you're like, literally, like, Okay, do this and put this here, and I'm going to correct everything you do, and I'm going to redo everything that you do, and whatever that is, one brand of micromanagement or whatever. When I say over management, what I mean is, how do you give people enough free reign to do the things that they know how to do? Now we could unpack for another hour why people do that is almost always because there's somebody above them who is, you know, nitpicking at everything. And our reaction to my boss is nitpicking at me is to nitpick at other people,
Collette: Yeah, yeah. And I think what you're highlighting is something that is just so common with feedback, and why it's so difficult is because you have your truth and you know 100% because it was a struggle for you. You know that you let go of the reins when you didn't want to. You know you gave room when you felt like not doing that because it was so difficult, and that's so true for you. And at the same time, the people, some people who were working for you, experienced you differently than that, and that is also completely true for them. And it's just the crazy thing about feedback is that it isn't facts, it's truly just, this is how it felt to me. This is how I saw it, this is how I lived it, and this is how you lived it. And it's not that your your perspective needs to be absorbed by that person, but I like what you said of just I have to take that in. I always like to say acceptance, because it would be so great if somebody understood what we were saying. But it's also with people with different histories, different backgrounds, different thought processes, like unlikely that somebody's going to. Totally get your perspective, and vice versa. So, yeah, yeah.
Jeff: And I think that's, I mean, it's a really good point that you're making, which is that one of the values of feedback, and one of the values of asking for feedback from people is to help you see what you can't see, right? I mean, I probably could have solved some of those, you know, some of that over management feedback. I probably could have solved it by being more open to asking for feedback, right? Yeah. And I think that actually asking for feedback, and this is, you know, one of the things I love about the work that you're doing is you need to normalize asking for feedback, because feedback, again, we we avoid, and just like managers avoid giving feedback because they, they're like, I don't want to give this because I don't want to make them feel bad, and it's really that not that big of a deal. They didn't this thing. I don't want to make this into a big thing, and blah, whatever. The same thing is true of people who are, you know, being managed, right? Who are afraid to ask for feedback, right? Yeah, if I ask for feedback, I might hear something that I don't want to hear. The reality is, if you think about this again, if we can get everybody in the mindset of my boss is giving when my boss gives me feedback, they give me feedback to help me grow, if I could get if that's not true in all cases, but if we could create a world in which that was always true, and we knew that when somebody gave us feedback, that they were giving us that feedback to help us, then would we be more willing to ask for feedback? Because you if you don't get the feedback, you will not grow. You cannot, you won't know, right? Because you can't see what you can't see. And so it's fascinating. This I was somebody told me this story, probably, I don't know, it's probably like, six months ago, and they were telling me about this person who was, like, feeling tortured by their relationship with their boss, with their boss, you know, felt that they were doing a terrible job. They felt like they were on the verge of being fired, and they would not ask for feedback, because if I asked for feedback, was the thinking, then I will be fired. And you know, when you think about that, I understand that thinking, but when you think about it from a very logical perspective. It's kind of a weird thing to think right strange perspective. If my boss is so upset with me that they're about to fire me, the thing that is going to push them over the edge is that I asked that makes sense.
Collette: Back to your relationship with your parents as a kid, I think relationship with authority has a lot to do with what our expectations and our behaviors are around feedback. And it's possible this person has had an experience where, you know, as long as things are kept under the surface and not directly addressed, then they're let go. But if you bring something up to the forefront, then things are, you know, I don't know how to say it, but hastened, they happen quicker. And so, yeah, I know it's, it wasn't, it's, but it's so real to that person,
Jeff: I totally get it. It's just, you know, it's just this fascinating thing of like, that's the logic we learn. And I don't even think that the logic is that unusual. I think it's actually right that people feel like they can't ask for feedback, for fear that if they ask for feedback, they are going to find out something horrible, that is going to be some horrible outcome. And it's like, you know, the flip side of that is, but if you don't get that feedback, you can't solve that problem, right? You can't you can't know what the problem is. So you have to ask sometimes, because, frankly, you know, because your boss wasn't trained to give the feedback, one way to get them to give the feedback is to ask them for the feedback. And I, you know, when I do trainings, I actually train people like when somebody gives you positive feedback, you should ask them thank you for you should say, thank them for the feedback. Thank you for the feedback. I think we should all learn to thank people for feedback, whether it's positive or negative, right things or whatever. But when somebody gives you positive feedback, thank them for the feedback, and then ask them, Can you be more specific? Like, tell me, like, you know, when your boss says to you, good job. Say, Hey, I'm really trying to learn and grow. I want to make sure I can replicate this in the future. Can you be more specific about what it is that was a good job. I think that's really
Collette: Yeah, I do too, not only for the reasons we talked about earlier, which is that you can replicate what you know is valued where you are, but also that it it gives you that positive interaction of you really start to build. Those the that emotional response to feedback as something different than negative when you're getting prolonged positive feedback or more positive feedback is kind of helping you shape that for yourself. Yeah, I know we are. We always come up on the end of our conversations just like, oh, you know, it's time. I have one question for you. I have so many questions for you, but I have one question that I'm just curious. So how do you think I wonder how timing plays a part in this? Because I know you had said, you know, in the past, if I had asked for more feedback than I would have done differently, but I really wonder what you think about the timing of this powerful feedback that you just got, and how it might have struck you differently at a different time.
Jeff: I think that's a really good question, because, and I've been saying this a lot, you know, just a lot of things that have happened, for example, for me over the last year, I am not sure if I hadn't gone through that year and all the things that came before it, I'm not sure I would have, you know, I might have kind of pushed that off. I might have said that, or whatever, or you don't know what you're talking about, whatever it is, I would have been much, I think I would have been more dismissive. And so this is, you know, I think this goes back to this idea, like we have to, you know, give ourselves some, you know, I don't know the best word for it is probably grace. Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too. We have to give ourselves some grace in that we are, none of us are perfect. We are all learning, and that in many cases, we can't learn the things. You know we there's a sequence right to your there's a sequence we have to learn thing one before we learn thing two, and if we don't, if we don't do it in that sequence, we won't learn thing two, or we'll learn something else. But it won't be that. And I think for me, you know, like I said, I it didn't dawn on me until, you know, my book was already published. When I realized this point, I think it was just from talking a lot to people being on other podcasts, whatever it is that I suddenly had this realization I could not have written this book if I had not had the experience of managing people who knew things that I did not know how to do, and I would Never like it, like, if you had asked me that, you know, sort of, you know, even two months before the I published the book, I would not, I would really, I don't know what you're talking about, right, but it was because I was talking through it. I'm going, huh, that's really interesting. I'm talking a lot about leadership and how people become overly controlling of leadership. And it sort of, that's when it dawned on me. I'm like, Oh, when I stopped being, you know, again, I don't, I mean, I don't know. You'd have to ask people. I don't think I was a terrible leader. I'm not like, whatever, but I can't imagine Jeff. But as somebody said to me, when I said something, I said something in a in another podcast, or whatever, about being a benign over manager, and one of my former direct reports sent me a note and said we always appreciated your benign over a little validation, right? But I think that I you know, but I don't think, I don't think I would have understood any of that without going through the process of writing a book, of thinking about this, talking about this all the time, seeing what's happening in companies that I work with, and so forth. I would not have understood what was, you know, this, this feedback about me as a manager. And then if I hadn't understood that feedback about me as a manager, the feedback about me as a parent, wouldn't have meant anything, right? Yeah, oh, that's really interesting. I used to do this. I've learned not to do it, but I'm still doing it over here, and I am sure after I'd say I still do it. I'm not perfect, but we learned right? And that's what
Collette: We learned, Jeff, I am so grateful. I just, I'm so grateful for you and that we got connected. It's the craziest thing. Kendra got us connected on LinkedIn, and like every conversation we have is just agree it feeds my brain and it feeds my soul. It's really energizing. And I think part of it is because you are so authentic, you are thoughtful, and I mean that and like, uh, the fact that you came up with the term benign. Of over management like that is the thoughtfulness I'm talking about you really it's you are so thoughtful and smart and open, and you're like, at one of the best people I know. So I just want to say, seriously, thank you for being you, for doing the work that you do. And how can people get a hold of you? By the way, I don't think we ever made it live. So we're, I'm gonna post this since we get done, how do you think? How can people get a hold of you, or who should be contacting you? Sure,
Jeff: So a couple of things. First of all, I just want to say thank you. It is such an honor to be the first guests on your podcast, but best way to get a hold of me a couple of things. One is to connect with me on LinkedIn. You just look me up under Jeff Siegel and look for the middle management stuff, and you'll figure it out. Or you can go to my website. I have an author website that's literally my name, Jeff siegel.com, and is a great place to reach me. And who should reach out to me? Anybody who is really looking to help, particularly their middle folks, or even their more their individual contributors, but help them to be more empowered, to have more ownership and accountability, but also to feel more empowered in their work. That's who I find that I can have the most impact with, and in companies where the senior leaders are like, we need this, this layer, this layer, to be more empowered. That's really the best group. And then, and of course, anybody who wants to talk to me, I do also, do, you know individual coaching anybody sort of either in those middle or roles, or is leading middle folks and wants to have a conversation? I would love to have them reach out to me.
Collette: Awesome. I highly recommend five. Five out of five stars!
