Evoke Greatness Podcast

Where Real Leadership Begins with Laurie Maddalena (Pt.1)

• Episode 192

Share episode

Send us a text

🎧 Episode 192: Where Real Leadership Begins with Laurie Maddalena (Pt. 1)

In this powerful episode of Evoke Greatness, I welcome leadership expert, executive coach, and author Laurie Maddalena. Laurie shares the pivotal moments in her own leadership journey that revealed why traditional leadership models often fall short and where the real work of leadership truly begins. Together, we explore what it means to move from fixing and managing to leading with intention, awareness, and influence.

She offers insights on:

Recognizing the moment when doing more no longer creates better results

 Why leaders default to fixing instead of facilitating growth

 The internal shifts required to elevate leadership effectiveness

 How intentional leadership begins internally before it ever shows up externally

 The quiet leadership saboteurs that limit even high-performing leaders

🔑 Key takeaways:

Leadership evolution begins with self-awareness, not control

 Fixing problems can unintentionally limit growth in others

 Intentional leadership requires slowing down to lead more effectively

 Sustainable influence starts with mindset before skillset

 Elevated leadership creates space for people to rise, not depend

💡 Quotes to remember:

 “Leadership stops working when we rely solely on performance instead of presence.”

 “Elevated leadership isn’t about doing more. It’s about becoming more.”

If you’ve ever felt successful on paper but stretched, reactive, or disconnected in practice, this episode will meet you where you are and invite you into a deeper way of leading.

Part Two goes even deeper into confident coaching, navigating tough conversations, and elevating culture without burning out.

Connect with Laurie Maddalena:

 Website: https://www.lauriemaddalena.com/

 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriemaddalena/

 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriemaddalena/

A rising tide raises all ships, and I invite you along on this journey to Evoke Greatness!

Check out my website: www.evokegreatness.com

Follow me on:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonnie-linebarger-899b9a52/

https://www.instagram.com/evoke.greatness/

https://www.tiktok.com/@evoke.greatness

http://www.youtube.com/@evokegreatness








SPEAKER_01:

In the beginning, I felt like my job was to know everything and to have the answers. And people look to their managers for that a lot. My job was really to help others step into that and not always be the fixer. And this is something I see is a really common challenge for many, many managers, particularly when we're promoted to a leadership role.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Evoke Greatness, the podcast for bold leaders and big dreamers who refuse to settle. I'm your host, Sonny. I started in Scrubs over 20 years ago, doing the gritty, unseen work and climbed my way to CEO. Every rung of that ladder taught me something worth passing on. Lessons in leadership, resilience, and what it really takes to rise. You'll hear raw conversations, unfiltered truths, and the kind of wisdom that ignites something deeper in you. Your courage, your conviction, your calling. This show will help you think bigger, lead better, and show up bolder in every part of your life. This is your place to grow. Let's rise together. Lori Maddalena is the founder and CEO of a leadership development firm dedicated to helping leaders create thriving, high-performing teams. She's an executive coach, keynote speaker, and certified speaking professional, a distinction held by fewer than 17% of speakers worldwide. She's also the author of The Elevated Leader: Level Up Your Focus, Energy, and Influence, where she unpacks how to move from managing tasks to inspiring transformation. Lori's work is rooted in intention, emotional intelligence, and the belief that leadership isn't just what you do, it's who you become. In this conversation, we'll explore how leaders can elevate their mindset, master the art of intentional leadership, and build cultures where people thrive even through change. Lori, welcome to the show. Thanks so much, Sunny. Wonderful to be here with you. I always like to dive in and go a little bit backwards before we go forwards. You've built a career helping leaders be more intentional, more self-aware, more effective. But I'd love to start with your why. What was the moment or season in your own journey where you realize this work is the real work of leadership that had to be done?

SPEAKER_01:

That's a there's a few touch points I would say, Sunny, that led me to that point. And I didn't realize it at the time, but my first experience as a supervisor, I was probably about 24 years old. And my manager said that they were going to hire someone on the team to help me, and that person would report to me. And no one sat me down and said, Here are the expectations of how you manage someone. I didn't have a leadership course. There was nothing like that. And so I just started leading by default, I would say, in what I saw other people do. And that was to answer people's questions and to give direction, but I wasn't doing anything really inspiring or developing at that time. And then fast forward a few years later, I um ended up working for a credit union and I was in human resources. I loved the people side of business and realized that learning those skills and getting some training, understanding how to manage people in a way that evoked their greatness, where they bring their best to work, was really would be helpful for my career. So I started taking some classes outside of work and learned so many things. I took a coaching certification that helped me bring coaching into our organization. And that was at the point where I realized there's there's some really great strategies that could help people be so much more intentional and effective as leaders. And we lack that in many ways in our workplaces today, that often people are promoted because of their technical expertise, or that they're fantastic in a technical role and they aren't set up for success by training them in competencies. And that really inspired me to eventually start my business and go into organizations. And I tell people my goal is to help make your job easier for you to leave the program or the skills we're working on, feeling more confident, feeling like you can handle challenges like difficult conversations with respect and much easier. They don't have to be confrontational and just giving people strategies where they could really again evoke to greatness from others, but feel much more influential in their leadership.

SPEAKER_00:

It's so fascinating that you say that because I think that is one of the biggest potholes in leadership is there isn't a leadership 101. Typically, your traditional company oftentimes has an open position for whatever reason. And then the person who may be like the up and coming next person who you feel like has capacity and can maybe handle a baptism by fire, gets put into that. And yet we don't necessarily have the skills. I think back to my first leadership position. I certainly wasn't equipped. I didn't come in with it equipped, but I and I became a leader that I thought I was supposed to be, which was totally incongruent with who I was authentically. But I didn't, you know, it took me a lot of years to realize that. But even the the some of the most important aspects of our role as leaders, such as difficult conversations, when we'd get no guidance into that, we enter those conversations, probably not navigating or leading them well. Sometimes we're overly, we let our emotions decide for us. And so I absolutely love, we talked a bit before we hit record, but so very aligned in how we look at leadership and the equipping people to be able to rise to that elevated sense of where they need to be.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And you talked about your earlier, you know, experience as a leader of not feeling that congruence. And I think for a long time, we had this more traditional style of leadership that was very um just the how leaders led, you know, more of that tactical, traditional style, maybe command and control, but certainly more of a top-down. No one was talking about engaging employees or coaching them. And that worked for quite a while. And a lot of us came into that type of environment, that work environment that was traditional and we were conditioned that way. So, like you, I did what I saw other leaders do. I don't think I was a terrible manager. I cared about people, but I wasn't doing these higher level things, like, you know, really um emotional intelligence or being able to navigate these conversations or how to help people see their own promise and potential. Those weren't things that were very valued in that traditional environment. What was valued was tenure, loyalty, sacrifice. And then I talk about in the book this evolution of leadership, how over the past few decades, things have evolved in our society, in our workplaces, that we've had, we have five generations in the workplace now. And many, uh several of those generations have been conditioned in a different way to advocate for themselves, to feel a connection to their company. They value quality of life. And so, what it takes to be a leader today, the competencies are a lot higher than they were 20, 30 years ago or when I entered the workplace. So you could kind of get away with that more traditional approach for a while. But now I'm finding that even very seasoned leaders are struggling because their leadership style has not evolved to keep up with what is needed and required to engage and keep people in today's environment.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, couldn't agree more. You describe elevated leadership as both a mindset and a skill set. How do those two dimensions work together to create that sustainable growth for leaders?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I believe it starts with the mindset, and this is often overlooked, that we focus on skills and strategies and the doing. And that's important, but we often miss the other pieces that are, I call them the internal elements. So one is self-awareness. I believe that to be an exceptional leader, you need to build your self-awareness. And we're constantly building this. It's not that we're always 100% self-aware, but we can probably each think of someone in our career, perhaps a leader that lacked self-awareness and didn't understand the impact their style had on other people. And that can range from someone who's very toxic. And I've certainly seen and experienced that, or it could even be someone who monopolizes conversations and they don't realize the impact they're having on the team, not feeling like they can get, you know, their ideas heard. So self-awareness is a huge piece of understanding how we work with others, understanding other people's preferences and styles and how we adapt to be able to get the best out of them. Reflection is an internal skill, and I believe one of the most underrated skills of leadership. In today's workplace, thinking and reflection, I think, feel like a luxury, that so many leaders and managers are reacting to their day, running from meeting to meeting, just trying to get through the day. And I hear often from leaders I work with that they're in meetings so much that when do I have time to do the real work? And that's a problem that we don't have that space and we're not intentional about creating that space to have time to really deeply think or to strategize to think longer term. So that's another element. And then the third element is energy. And I talk about three different aspects of energy, our core energy, which is our own personal reserves, like do we get enough sleep? Do we take care of ourselves? And what's the energy that we're bringing to work every day, the stamina in our own personal energy? And, you know, I know for me when I lose an hour of night's sleep that I feel like my memory isn't there and that I don't have that energy to really get through the day very well, that when I get a full night's sleep. So that part I also think is underrated, that we don't take care of ourselves as much. And we're, you know, again, reacting and working so many hours and trying to catch up, that having that space to really make sure we're bringing our best to work helps us with our performance energy, which again, most leaders are not very intentional with how they're spending their day. And there are practices we can put in place that help us to get the best out of our own energy and to get to the key result areas we need to achieve. And then the energy we bring to our team. So this could be how we're showing up to meetings. Are we coming in scattered, overwhelmed, kind of shuffling our papers, or are we present thinking about what we want to get out of here in this meeting, you know, intentional with our team members? They feed off our energy. There's that concept of emotional contagion where people will take on the mood of the people they're around within five minutes. And so these are all elements that we often don't consider. The tactics are important, but these things also set us up to be able to perform the best in our leadership roles.

SPEAKER_00:

When you talked about self-awareness and reflection, it brought a thought to mind around what place does honesty have in the workplace? And what I mean by that is oftentimes we as leaders, our job is really to grow other leaders and to multiply leaders by setting a really good example of a lot of those things. And oftentimes when someone is lacking the self-awareness, you have to outwardly bring that to someone's attention because again, they're it's not a strong suit of theirs to have self-awareness in the first place. So you really do have to bring that attention to them. When you think about honesty, and there's obviously a way, right? There's a it that's a an art, I think, that comes with providing productive feedback. But I'm just curious what your thought is around being able to provide sometimes that hard feedback in an honest manner, in the spirit of hoping that this will help someone grow.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. It's so essential. And clarity is important for people to be able to thrive. And I think that, you know, traditionally, when we look back on feedback in the traditional environment, we waited till the annual evaluation. And that's where someone might receive that feedback. And I still think there's some challenges in many companies today where leaders hold back on some of that honest feedback, and we're really doing a disservice to our employees that way. We're not helping them grow and develop if we're not giving them that feedback. Now, I do believe we can be respectful and we can be kind and also be clear. And I talk a lot about in the book and in my programs of one of my favorite phrases is I've noticed. So instead of going to someone and having to just tell them, you know, extremely directly about something they're doing wrong, it's more being curious and going into these conversations curiously and stating, you know, I've noticed that in the past few meetings, you pick up your phone very frequently. And you may not have noticed that, but it's impacting how people see you and that you don't seem as engaged. And so there are ways that we can provide the clarity of that feedback that opens up the conversation. It opens up the person hearing it and being receptive to it as a growth opportunity rather than a blaming or something they're doing wrong.

SPEAKER_00:

Early in your career, you said you longed for a framework to overcome obstacles. What did that framework ultimately look like? And how do you feel like that's impacted your trajectory?

SPEAKER_01:

I think that, you know, overcoming challenges when, again, we talked about that evolution of leadership and how to be effective, you need to be able to engage your employees. And so the old framework, I think, was really around fixing. Like we were taught as leaders to get in the trenches, to fix issues, to solve problems. And I think the shift we need to make now, and I talk about this a lot in the book, is to facilitation. And so moving from this place of having to be the person who knows all the answers, having to be the person who jumps in and keeps things going, and where people are always looking to the manager and maybe we become the bottleneck and having to shift to this model that's more of facilitation. How do we facilitate performance through others? How do we get others to take ownership of that and to also build their skills and develop them to a place where they're professionals in their roles and we're trusting them and we're giving them the autonomy to bring what they bring to the workplace and in their roles? I mentioned coaching. That's a great example of facilitating that, of having conversations with people, asking them questions, helping them think deeper. And that's been really impactful for me as I've been on my own leadership career. You know, in the beginning, I felt like my job was to know everything and to have the answers. And people looked to their managers for that a lot. And I really had to learn in that coaching certification I talked about that I ended up doing outside of work really helped me to see that my job was really to help others step into that and not always be the fixer. And this is something I see is a really common challenge for many, many managers, particularly when we're promoted to a leadership role. We talked about most of us don't receive training. And I think the value that we think we bring to the organization is often our technical abilities, but it's really the leadership competencies. And so when we don't make that shift to the leadership competencies, we're not as effective and we're staying in that fixing mode, which isn't helping us succeed.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, that reminds me of oftentimes you'll see, like in a whether it's a board meeting or just even a leadership meeting, and you have the leader, the the head of that that will be the first one to speak. And I this was something I had to become self-aware of was we should sometimes be the last ones to say anything. Like, how can we facilitate the meeting in a way we're actually drawing out answers and responses and thoughts that others have? And then how can we weave ours in to add some guidance, direction, some navigation to it afterwards? But that kind of opens up the space and allows people to have a voice, to have an opinion. But when we when we want to say something real quick, and oftentimes it's because it's reactive, not responsive. So it's that knee-jerk reaction that we have that can actually make the room and the thoughts and the ideas become stagnant.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a perfect example because again, we think as the leader, we have to come in there and run the meeting. Right. And this is a great example of facilitation. Like you said, asking questions. And something I think we can also do better as leaders is to ask for people who disagree. In many companies, there is artificial harmony where employees are just agreeing because they're afraid to disagree. Or maybe, you know, this goes back to that self-awareness piece. We may not be aware that we're creating an environment where people feel like they can't disagree. And it may not even be intentional. I had a leader once who would say the right things. He would say, I want you to share your ideas. I want you to feel like you own your job and you're like an entrepreneur of your own department. But I remember an instance where one of my colleagues disagreed with him in a meeting and he got very mad and he walked out of the meeting and didn't speak to the team for a few days. And I mean, this is a pretty egregious example. Right. But the words and actions didn't align. And so even asking people who disagrees with what we've been talking about so far, or who has a different idea that we haven't explored, or when someone does speak up and says, you know, I have, I'm not sure that's gonna work, and here's why, that we acknowledge that. Thank you. I appreciate that you felt comfortable sharing, you know, your perspective on this idea. Who else has thinks this won't work, or who else has an idea that is different from this? The more we do that and we cultivate that in our teams, the more we build that psychological safety where people feel comfortable to bring out their ideas and they want to be part of that process.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And anyone who is ever a part of that meeting or a meeting similar to that will. Forever because it was a lived experience that was one of those things that kind of sucks the room out of the air, it will impact their engagements and their ability to use their voice in meetings, you know, for the rest of their career as long as they allow that. It's the psychological safety that is what that's going to need.

SPEAKER_01:

I can tell you that experience was very interesting because I think a lot of employees go through this at their workplace a lot, where even subconsciously, you're thinking to yourself, do I want to have a good day today or do I want to have a bad day? If I speak up and disagree with the boss, maybe it's going to be a bad day and there will be consequences to that. So we even subconsciously choose, well, I'd rather have a good day. Most people are going to choose that good day. And so they're going to not speak up and not share and start to retreat. And that's something we have to be really careful of. You know, the example I gave is a pretty extreme one. But they're, you know, even jumping in, or like you said, as the leader being the first one to speak, you may not intend for that to guide the conversation, but it could be subtly giving that message to people that they shouldn't speak up or hey, I want to please the boss. And so I'm not going to disagree. And so I believe we have to be active in that. We have to actively cultivate that kind of environment where people feel that comfort. And then over time they realize, hey, I can share my ideas here and they're listened to. We may not always go with that idea, but my leader and my colleagues are creating an environment where I feel safe to share that.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the important piece is creating that space and that environment for people to disagree. I am a firm advocate for heated debate, not in a way where it is uh disparaging to others or where it kind of creates a divide. But I think if we truly embrace a space of that psychological safety where people can have differing of opinions or to the point where it gets heated, but we can all walk out of the room and be in agreement with the direction we're going. I think that is probably one of the most healthy things an organization can do. But I think that that there's some fear around that for a lot of the reasons that we just talked about. For a lot of years, I didn't feel like I had a voice that I could really use. And it wasn't until I started to grow into a leadership role. I took a role as a chief operating officer for a large company. And I remember within the first handful of meetings, my very first executive leadership meeting, uh, the CEO came in and we're having a conversation. And he and another person on the team started to get in a little bit of a tiff, ridiculous. It was actually over snacks. I can still like it still plays out in my mind. And he got our CEO got up and he slammed his hand down on the table. I am brand new to the organization. The HR leaders in there looking at me like, oh my gosh, I can't even imagine what Sonny must be thinking right now. And I just thought, you know what? This is, I recognize now that I need to assert my position and my voice. And so I ended up sharing with everyone on the team that there is something that you need to know about me. And it was, it, it felt pretty um, felt like a very courageous step for me in my leadership role, but I had a big role. And I said, look, I'm gonna tell you right now that I will probably never choose the popular opinion. I that's not a way that I'm gonna lean. Uh, I won't always be agreeable to what we talk about, but you will never wonder what I'm thinking. I remember sitting there in that moment thinking, this is the time. Like I have to plant my flag in the ground to say, I'm not gonna be the yes man. Uh, I'm gonna have some differing of opinions, but I will never just stay quiet. And that that in my mind today, like there was a line drawn there for me personally. It was like, okay, now I have to lean into this. Now I have to live by this, and I have to have the courage to have a voice, whether I agree or disagree, so that I can never sit back if I didn't agree with the outcome to say, well, I didn't say anything about it. And I thought I'm just gonna put it out there.

SPEAKER_01:

That's so powerful, Sonny, and really a reflection of your own values and standing in your own values. And I'm just curious that for you, you said this was like a line drawn in the sand. What was the impact of your experience with the team after that? Were they much more open? Do you feel like it had a positive impact? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And it well, what was interesting is this team had worked together for quite a few years. And so I was kind of the new person, the new kid on the black, if you will. And I think hit historically, there probably hadn't been quite as much honesty around that. I think there were probably a few kind of fits that had been thrown by people. And then what are you gonna do? Question who's throwing these fits? No. And I just thought, you know, for it's almost needs to be that permission for the whole room that sometimes it's like it's what everybody's thinking. It's the quiet thing that no one wants to say, right? And and so it just felt for me in that moment like number one, I feel like I got to take the reins in this new role. Like this is a new role for me, and it's a big role. But I also am a people for the people. And so I've always been very much an advocate. I don't ever want someone else's voice pushed down. And I just thought, if I'm gonna put myself out there, like I'm gonna give that permission. And so I think that really allowed for, and we had some very heated conversations a lot of times, but we didn't walk out of the room, you know, disgruntled or not liking each other.

SPEAKER_01:

You set the tone for that team, which is so important. And even an intact team for that long, having someone new come in and state that can really make that shift. And I I see this all the time where this artificial harmony happens and people don't want to speak up, even at the executive level. And you're you're absolutely right. This is not only is it healthy, it's necessary for a thriving team. You have to have constructive conflict. And if you're not having constructive conflict, that's a sign to look at what is it, if you're the leader of that team, what is it about this that is making people not share their ideas or their opinions? And how can I start to ask more questions and invite that? Okay, you know the routine.

SPEAKER_00:

This is where we hit the pause button. Before you go, make sure to come back for part two. In the next episode, Lori and I move from awareness to action. We talk about how leaders can stop living in constant reaction, how to coach through uncertainty with confidence, and why the habits you protect as a leader determine whether your leadership is sustainable or silently draining you. If part one helped you see where leadership begins, part two is going to show you how to live it out. If today's episode challenged you, moved you, or lit a fire in your soul, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with somebody who's ready to rise. Can I ask you to take 30 seconds to leave a review? It's the best way to say thank you and help this show reach more bold leaders like you. Because this isn't just a podcast, it's a movement. We're not here to play small. We're here to lead loud, one bold and unapologetic step at a time. Until next time, stay bold, stay grounded, and make moves that make mediocre uncomfortable.

Head Shot

Sonnie Linebarger

Host