In this episode, Craig P. Anderson welcomes Tricia Naddaff, President of Management Research Group, to explore what it really means to lead through change, complexity, and feedback. Tricia shares how her earliest leadership lessons—like being a fourth-grade bus stop monitor—shaped her approach to self-awareness, responsibility, and building resilient teams. Craig and Tricia discuss why context matters as much as vision, how neuroscience reveals our leadership habits, and what happens when leaders shift from “I have to know everything” to “we’ll figure it out together.” Drawing from humanitarian work and years of coaching leaders, Tricia offers practical, human-centered advice for anyone who wants to grow as a leader—no matter where they start.
After You Listen:
Key Takeaways:
Things to listen for:
(00:00) Intro
(02:31) Why neuroscience matters for leaders
(05:44) Lessons from leading in humanitarian settings
(09:35) Defining leadership beyond style or vision
(16:24) Navigating raw moments and team dynamics
(18:25) Early leadership experiences and learning from feedback
(21:21) The importance of self-knowledge
(24:46) Tricia’s evolving leadership style
(29:50) Advice Tricia would give her younger self
Episode Transcript
This has been generated by AI and optimized by a human.
[00:00:00] Craig P. Anderson: I looked at my leadership team and said, when we leave this room, 75% agreement is 100% commitment. Welcome to Executive Evolution. I have over 25 years of leadership experience in corporate America. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way, and I created this podcast so that you won't have to.
[00:00:21] Craig P. Anderson: I had an opportunity to build out a whole new office structure for my team and for the organization. One of the things that was really important to me was to have the leadership team at the center of the facility, so we actually built a meeting room for the leadership team surrounded by the leadership team's offices surrounded by the people in the business.
[00:00:39] Craig P. Anderson: Why was this important? I wanted to have an area where the leadership team met and they could have the conversations that had to be, had to have the fights that had to be had to really have an area where they had the opportunity to feel safe to express their opinions. But what was also really important to me was that as they left that room, one of our key rules was whether you agree with the decision or don't agree with the decision.
[00:01:04] Craig P. Anderson: You support the decision a hundred percent because one of the things that can really undermine a team is, or a business is when one of the leaders undermines a decision that's been made. We really need 75% agreement is a hundred percent commitment, and that helped us stay on message stake on keeping the team's focused.
[00:01:23] Craig P. Anderson: That importance of shared responsibility in leadership is one of the things that comes up today in my conversation with Trisha Naddaff, who is the President of Management Research Group. So let's jump right in and hear the story of her executive evolution. Trisha, welcome to Executive Evolution. I'm so glad you could be here today.
[00:01:42] Craig P. Anderson: Oh,
[00:01:43] Tricia Naddaff: thanks Craig. I am really happy to be here. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
[00:01:47] Craig P. Anderson: It is always fun. And so, yeah, so let's dive right in. Are you ready to go into the quasi lightning round?
[00:01:53] Tricia Naddaff: I absolutely am. I just don't know how fast my lightning's actually gonna be, but we'll go for it.
[00:01:58] Craig P. Anderson: That's the best part.
[00:01:59] Craig P. Anderson: All right, let's go really quick 'cause you did tell me ahead of time. These are challenging questions to pick. Just one thing. So let's jump in. So with that in mind, what is the best book on leadership you have ever read?
[00:02:11] Tricia Naddaff: I would say that it's not a leadership book. I am a fan of understanding neuroscience, and so I would say if I, if you're forcing me to choose one, I would say your Brain at Work by David Rock.
[00:02:22] Tricia Naddaff: I think understanding the brain makes us all better leaders.
[00:02:25] Craig P. Anderson: Really. So what's, so what's kind of the thesis in that book? What does he pull out that applies?
[00:02:30] Tricia Naddaff: Yeah, so the whole idea of the movement of neuroscience from, from medicine and academia into our world is understanding things about our brain that help us.
[00:02:43] Tricia Naddaff: Understand, why do I react the way I react, and why do these other people react the way they react? So you learn things like our brains are incredibly threat sensitive. We are much more threat sensitive than reward sensitive. And you learn about how the different things trigger that. So that's an example of what you learn when you tap into neuroscience.
[00:03:04] Tricia Naddaff: And what I like about your brain at work is David does a good job of translating what the neuroscientists are telling us and how that applies into the workplace.
[00:03:14] Craig P. Anderson: Yeah, that's so interesting because even if you're, you know, you're in a leadership role and everybody kind of assumes like, oh, you've got it all together.
[00:03:20] Craig P. Anderson: You got it all figured out, and then that thing happens, right? And no matter how seasoned I think you are, right, there's that moment of like, ugh, of that anxiety spike and that cortisol spike and. It's really hard to know what to do and, and to, you know, so it's native to all of us, right? Yes. We can't avoid it, is what I'm hearing.
[00:03:39] Craig P. Anderson: Yes,
[00:03:39] Tricia Naddaff: absolutely. Absolutely. And we also, the other part of the brain is we're very habitual. Our brains love habit because it doesn't take that much brain energy, and so we tend to do the same things over and over again, and our brains are very agnostic. It doesn't care if you're doing the same thing over and over again.
[00:03:58] Tricia Naddaff: That's constructive. Or not constructive. And so we get into these habitual responses. And in the, the situation that you just described, the first thing that happens is not, oh, this is gonna be a great opportunity. I wonder what wonderful thing is gonna unfold. It's, oh no, we're going down. We're going down, you know.
[00:04:16] Tricia Naddaff: So the beautiful thing about the brain is we also have brain mechanisms that let us override those more unconscious or automatic responses. That's why I love learning about it, and actually when we work with leaders teaching them about it, because it's sort of the keys to how it all works.
[00:04:34] Craig P. Anderson: Yeah. You know, and this is probably not neuroscience, but there I was a big fan of the show lost, and there was a scene in Lost where he was talking about, he said, you know, he did something in a surgery and he panic, you know, and it's the panic.
[00:04:46] Craig P. Anderson: And he just said, I let myself panic for five seconds. I count the five. I experience it in full. And then I move on. Yes. Right? Yes. It's, it's hard to deny it when it's there.
[00:04:57] Tricia Naddaff: Absolutely. I don't think we need to deny it. I think relative to our conversation about leadership, we've done some not helpful things in the framing of leadership.
[00:05:07] Tricia Naddaff: Like you're supposed to show up in a very specific way. In a way, it's almost like you're supposed to leave your humanness. Yes. Off in the parking lot or Yeah, in the kitchen. I think what, what we can do to really help leaders is help them constructively be a human in their leadership role. Yes. So that's a great example though.
[00:05:28] Tricia Naddaff: So yeah, feel it for or five seconds and then come back into center and then do the work.
[00:05:34] Craig P. Anderson: Right, right, right. Love it. All right. Question number two.
[00:05:39] Tricia Naddaff: Yeah, the lightning question number two.
[00:05:41] Craig P. Anderson: Yeah, this is the lightning question. We just burned five minutes on the first one. Who is your leadership crush?
[00:05:47] Tricia Naddaff: I am going to allow myself a category here instead of an individual, so we do a lot of work in the humanitarian sector.
[00:05:55] Tricia Naddaff: And if you spend your whole career working in different sectors, supporting leaders in different sectors, you see over and over again that there is a lot of similarity, whether it's somebody in healthcare or in banking or in pharmaceutical. But when we started working in the humanitarian sector, particularly working with leaders in the field, and they are working in areas of armed conflict, so think of.
[00:06:19] Tricia Naddaff: Gaza or Ukraine or South Sudan, or they're working in areas that are, are in or trying to recover from a natural, natural disaster or extreme poverty. And so they have these teams that they're just like any leader, right? They've gotta make their teamwork, they have to accomplish something, they have to keep everybody going.
[00:06:40] Tricia Naddaff: And the circumstances are often not. Stable. So their team is often made up of members of the community, people who live where they're trying to serve, as well as international staff that often rotates in, sometimes with very short contracts, six months, 12 months. So they have all the things that all of us need to do as leaders.
[00:07:02] Tricia Naddaff: Communicate, delegate, keep people engaged, keep people moving forward. In this context, Craig, that is almost hard to even imagine and that amazes me. And yet when we work with them, they don't wanna be called heroes. They don't wanna be highlighted as special to them. This is my work, this is the work I have chosen and I've chosen to be a leader in this context.
[00:07:27] Tricia Naddaff: But it is quite extraordinary to imagine what it takes to move people forward in a team and to accomplish things in that kind of context. That's extraordinary to me.
[00:07:39] Craig P. Anderson: Yeah, to just kind of do it when the heat is on. Not half the time, but all the time.
[00:07:44] Tricia Naddaff: Yeah. Yes. And the kind of heat, right? Yeah. The kind of heat of that we see.
[00:07:50] Tricia Naddaff: They see in those situations the worst conditions that humanity is encountering. And of course, we all know the energy you get when you've completed a project or when you've achieved right, a goal. But in these situations. They're not going to make it complete. They can't feed everybody. They can't get water to everybody.
[00:08:10] Tricia Naddaff: They can't make sure everybody gets the healthcare they need. They can't make sure everybody is as safe as they need to be. Right. But they have to keep going. Yeah. Keep leaving, keep doing what they can. It's a different, I think, psychological framework that you're leading within than I think most of us experience in a, in a more standard context.
[00:08:33] Craig P. Anderson: Yeah. And I can imagine not only Tricia, kind of that piece of the context, but the piece of the context of you're getting kind of a new team every six to 12 months. Yes. So you're having to build those relationships. You're having to centralize the vision in the midst of this chaos, knowing that maybe, one, you're never gonna be totally done.
[00:08:52] Craig P. Anderson: But two, it's like I have to mold this team. I have to kind of. React and balance to a different personality set. So I go from my trusted lieutenant to, oh, now I have a whole new lieutenant. I have to understand if I trust.
[00:09:03] Tricia Naddaff: Yes, exactly. And think about it in terms of the multicultural element of it, right?
[00:09:08] Tricia Naddaff: You have this resident staff who. Live and work in the village here, and you have people coming in from all different cultures, so you, you have different philosophies and expectations that are merging together. It has been, I think, one of the greatest privileges of my career to, to work with these people.
[00:09:27] Tricia Naddaff: It's quite extraordinary and it's inspiring, right? Sure. It's inspiring.
[00:09:32] Craig P. Anderson: Love it. All right. Last question. In 10 words or less, how do you define leadership?
[00:09:38] Tricia Naddaff: I love this question because we ask this question a lot and Okay. When most people answer it, they don't answer the core description of what leadership is.
[00:09:50] Tricia Naddaff: They answer in the style that they prefer to think of leadership. It's inspiring, it's visionary. It's. Compassionate, it's collaborative. That's not the definition of leadership. It's a particular way of leading. So I'm going to answer just what is leadership And leadership is accomplishing objectives with and through people taking into account both context and resources.
[00:10:17] Tricia Naddaff: So that's it. And if we anchor there, then we can say how does objectives, context and resources influence the how? Then we might talk about is visionary important or is collaboration more important, or is innovation more important? So I really like helping people start with the core because if you start with the style or the preferences or some version of ideal that you read about or heard about.
[00:10:50] Tricia Naddaff: Then it boxes you in and you don't think about who you are. You don't think about what you're trying to achieve. You don't think about what's happening in your environment right now, and you don't look around and say, who and what do I have to work with?
[00:11:03] Craig P. Anderson: And, and it's kind of an interesting way to build it there because.
[00:11:07] Craig P. Anderson: You do have that kind of foundational piece of what leadership is, and then those personality pieces come in at a very different level, right? There are times where the visionary leader is crucial to the organization versus the strong detail focused leader. Right? And is organizations evolve? Either you evolve as a leader or really it's.
[00:11:24] Craig P. Anderson: It's kind of like, you know, maybe my time is done and it's time to hand over the reins. And sometimes people don't realize that. Yes. And they stick around trying to be a visionary leader. Yes. Well, after the time when actually you need to be shifting to a different kind of leadership style.
[00:11:37] Tricia Naddaff: Yes. Yes. A hundred percent.
[00:11:39] Tricia Naddaff: I agree with you. I was also, I have to share with you, Craig, I have loved the questions that you've sharing. 'cause I had been having conversations with you in my head for a couple of weeks now. Based on the question, so thank you. But I was just thinking, is there something that's so fundamental to leadership that we would never leave it out?
[00:11:55] Tricia Naddaff: And I started thinking about integrity and I thought would, could we ever leave that out? But then I thought, well, you might say we would never bribe an official, or we would never sell arms to a terrorist group. But if it was the only way to get passageway to get food to a million people. Would you do that?
[00:12:16] Tricia Naddaff: It keeps going back to the objectives and the context and the resources and what do you need to do right to right to accomplish those objectives with what you've got going on. So I've had some interesting conversations with you in my head, Greg.
[00:12:32] Craig P. Anderson: Oh, very good. I don't know, I don't know if that's a good thing for you or a bad thing long term.
[00:12:36] Craig P. Anderson: It's been very
[00:12:36] Tricia Naddaff: enjoyable. You've been a fascinating listener.
[00:12:39] Craig P. Anderson: Oh, great. So I'm almost like AI Craig. Uh, I love it, but it is true, right? Because you don't get to pick your issues when you, you go in with all the best of ideas, and this is all the things, and I, you know, I got the plan and we're gonna do this and that, and the other thing.
[00:12:51] Craig P. Anderson: And then Right. COVID hits, you know, there's an organization I work with, right? She'd been there less than a year, and then COVID hits. Well, everything we thought we were gonna do is now a very different context of what we have to figure out. Exactly. And so all these things kinda shift. 'cause we don't get to pick what we're gonna run into.
[00:13:06] Craig P. Anderson: It's not a perfect scenario. We have to react to what we're presented with.
[00:13:09] Tricia Naddaff: Yes. Yes. And that's why, back to your original Lightning question about the book, it's why I don't gravitate to leadership books, because leadership books usually are promoting a particular point of view. About leadership and that point of view is only gonna work if everything lines up around that underlying concept or hypothesis, right?
[00:13:34] Tricia Naddaff: I'm a person who could lead like that. The objectives align with that. My context aligns with that. What I have available for resources aligns with that. So it, it is, I like the neuroscience and I like the psychology I'm reading just. Josh Davis's new book on NLP Neurotic programming. I like getting up underneath because I feel like it gives myself and the leaders that we work with tools that are foundational and work no matter what.
[00:14:06] Craig P. Anderson: Yeah. I mean, we are who we are, right? I mean, it's the, the way we work and, and it is just so interesting because I think when we're. You know, when you just look at like high functioning leadership teams or, or low functioning, whatever, there's so much of that part of brain science and how you were raised and how you react to different things and what.
[00:14:23] Craig P. Anderson: How you contextualize things differently from other people. And that so often is the thing that just blows teams up is because they don't take the time to realize, well, they're not really reacting to me. They're reacting to this thing. So now how do we find that communication piece right, to figure out, okay, you know, if I always assume positive intent, most people really aren't out to blow up your business fair.
[00:14:43] Craig P. Anderson: But it seems like they are. Yes, it seems like they are. 'cause it's like, well, how come you're not on board? So to get under the hood, as you say, to understand really like what's driving me and what's driving my reactions and what's driving their reactions is really interesting. And you know, when you've been on leadership teams.
[00:14:57] Craig P. Anderson: And you get to those really weird moments where suddenly everybody is kind of like emotionally raw or emo, you know, the person cries. Like, I'll never forget we had one where it's, I am not a hugger, right? It was just for a variety of reasons that are personal as well as, you just have to be careful. But I remember in a leadership team meeting just one of my direct reports and she just relayed this story and you know, started crying and it was like that was just like the best human thing to do at the moment, right?
[00:15:22] Craig P. Anderson: So we have to kind of meet people where we are, but when you get into those raw moments where. People are really talking about why it changes the whole way your leadership team works. Yes,
[00:15:33] Tricia Naddaff: yes, yes, and I think. Craig, sometimes the inclination is to try to either ignore it or squash it down or move on. But just like your example of the surgeon who panics for five seconds, it's like lean into it, right?
[00:15:48] Tricia Naddaff: Just go acknowledge it. Be there, because the only way out of those intense situations is to go through it, right? Because if you squash it or try to ignore it, it's gonna pop up in another space, right? So. Good job with the hug. Great.
[00:16:06] Craig P. Anderson: Yeah, trust me, it was awkward. And then afterward and I caught no head to flack for it, but it was to the extent where the team, at one point my assistant would come up and sabotage, hug me and then they would take pictures.
[00:16:17] Craig P. Anderson: 'cause it was funny. And I now have coasters. That they made for me of those moments. Great stuff. Great team. Anyway, enough about that. Yeah. Let's talk about your leadership journey. You know, you've been in leadership. Talk to me about what was your first time in leadership and what was that like for you?
[00:16:33] Tricia Naddaff: If you want indulge me, I'll share, you know, I guess all throughout our. I guess there are little leadership moments, right? If you were on a captain of a sports team or the, you know, you were on the, the president of National Honors Society of Student Council, right there, there is, you know, your training wheels, right?
[00:16:52] Tricia Naddaff: I guess they're leadership training wheels. And I know I shared this story with you, but I wanna share it because it relates to what happened in my actual bus first business leadership scenario. So I would say, and I, and this sticks in my mind, even though it's so many years later, I was in the fourth grade and I was given the responsibility to be the bus stop monitor.
[00:17:14] Tricia Naddaff: The bus stop is at a place that. No school would ever have a bus stop. Now. It was the intersection of three busy roads on a corner, and it was an elementary school. And so our elementary school was grade 1, 2, 3, and four, and I was the bus monitor and I had a healthy dose of fear that under my watch. A child was gonna get run over in this place.
[00:17:37] Tricia Naddaff: And so I was militant about them lining up right on the line between a, a lawn and the road. And they had to keep lining up and every time they didn't line up. And of course, he's are first, second, third, and fourth graders, so I demanded they get back in line. And a neighbor watched this approach to leadership over a couple of days and finally called the principal.
[00:17:59] Tricia Naddaff: So I got called into the principal's office where it was my first coaching experience. She was amazing. She didn't scold me. She simply shared with me what, you know, a ask what I was trying to do and why, and, and helped me think about different ways of doing it and how the kids might feel a first thing in the morning having this experience.
[00:18:20] Tricia Naddaff: So it was, it was. Really notable to me. So fast forward, my first real leadership experience in organizational, I was a small team. I had the person who was heading research, the person who was heading technology, and the person who is heading product management in the company that I, um, uh, and in now. Yes.
[00:18:41] Tricia Naddaff: This was years ago, and so we were a small team, four of us. I had experience in two of the areas. I was not an expert, but I had experience in two of the areas and none in one. And I didn't make them line up on a line and not move, but I was more directive than was healthy. I felt like I needed to have all the answers.
[00:19:02] Tricia Naddaff: I felt like I needed to be the one providing direction. I felt like I needed to be the one establishing boundaries. However, I thought I was doing it in a very inclusive way, and we have a a 360 assessment, and so when I took it with this and they gave me feedback, one of the dimensions in our assessment is called consensual, which is how much do you seek input from others?
[00:19:27] Tricia Naddaff: And use that input in the way that you lead. I rated myself very high. 'cause of course I'm facilitating and I'm asking for input. They rated me very low, Craig, they rated me very low. And so I, at first I was in shock, like, how can this be? And then as we were talking about it, it was. My opinions were expressed very strongly, often, first, instead of letting them talk first, often I had done so just like I talked in my head to you.
[00:20:02] Tricia Naddaff: I would have meetings in my head and they were essentially all done by the time we actually sat down to have meetings. It was such helpful feedback and I really have to thank them because they were generous and kind in. Letting me know how I impacted them and it's not an unusual thing. Now, coaching, for all the years I've been coaching and there's a great book called Immunity to Change by Bob Keegan and Lisa Leahy, that this comes up a lot.
[00:20:29] Tricia Naddaff: This I need to be the smartest person at the table. I need to have all the answers. In your example you had earlier or. Like, why am I even there? Why did I get the role? So yeah, it's, there's probably also a little bit of oldest child syndrome in there too, Craig. Speaking of backgrounds.
[00:20:47] Craig P. Anderson: Yeah. Well, so it's like a couple things I think about through all those stories, right, is one, and just the first thing, I've never done a 360 where everybody said, yeah, that's pretty much right.
[00:20:55] Craig P. Anderson: It's like they're wrong. I don't know who they were thinking about, but it certainly wasn't me. But I, there is this kind of. Instinct to want to control everything when you get the leadership title. Well now I have this responsibility for these three 10, however many people, so I have to control everything.
[00:21:11] Craig P. Anderson: Otherwise I look stupid because controlling everything is how I was successful as an independent contributor. Right? Mostly. So you have this kind of intent, this kind of like, I must control everything. But then the other thing that I think we really have to develop and as hard as a young leader is self-awareness.
[00:21:27] Craig P. Anderson: The 360 helps with that, but it has to be that self-awareness that we start to learn how to develop to say, Hey, maybe I'm not the answer person for every question. Maybe I don't have to be the one who drives every idea. My job is not that. My job is to kind of harness all this and keep it moving in one general direction, but if I get totally slavish to it has to be my way.
[00:21:48] Craig P. Anderson: I'm not nearly as smart as I think I am. Yes,
[00:21:51] Tricia Naddaff: exactly. One of, um, a, a quote that's attributed to Aristotle that. I love it is self-knowledge is the beginning of all wisdom and maybe Aristotle said it. Maybe the butcher said it, who knows? But it's really that how do we grow and learn if we don't start with yourself, if you don't have a good understanding of how am I motivated?
[00:22:17] Tricia Naddaff: What do I believe? What are my values? How do other people see me? And so I, I think you're exactly right that we really have to have as leaders, a deep understanding of ourselves. And as you mentioned before. Relative to the hugging, right? We carry with us our, our life story comes into leadership with us, right?
[00:22:39] Tricia Naddaff: And so doing the work to have a deeper level of self-awareness so that we can move forward with a level of accuracy, right? How was it that I thought, oh no, I, I ask input all the time. They so influence my thinking and the very people who I'm saying that about, say, yeah, no.
[00:22:59] Craig P. Anderson: Two things I, I think that are interesting in your story too, right?
[00:23:02] Craig P. Anderson: Is the importance for young leaders to have that mentor your fourth grade story, right? That leader who actually takes you under their wing and helps you grow, which I think is criminal, how often that doesn't happen in most organizations, right? The leader's just like, oh, you're promoted. Go do it, and I'm not gonna engage with you.
[00:23:19] Craig P. Anderson: And so having that boss who was willing to say, alright, let's talk about what's going on, Tricia. Where your challenges are. Right. So that's one. And then it sounds like for you, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but that 360 was kind of a crucible moment for you on your leadership journey.
[00:23:35] Tricia Naddaff: Huge. It was huge.
[00:23:37] Tricia Naddaff: And I think things are momentous when they have a real emotional component to it. Right. Otherwise, there's so much noise in our lives, sort of skidders across our awareness. I was shocked, Craig. I was so shocked. And I would also say. These three people made it easy for me to hear their experience, right?
[00:24:00] Tricia Naddaff: When we give each other feedback, there is a way to do it where it, it lands easier, right? Uh, I didn't get scolded. I didn't say, how do you not already know how to do this? I didn't get shamed, uh, was just like, no, this is, this is what it feels like for us. This is what it looks like to us. Right. And of course then you can see yourself in the description.
[00:24:24] Tricia Naddaff: Yeah, they do that. I do that. My siblings would probably agree with you,
[00:24:30] Craig P. Anderson: but they were always wrong and needed the guidance. So what's the problem
[00:24:32] Tricia Naddaff: exactly. And I'm the oldest.
[00:24:35] Craig P. Anderson: Yeah, I have to know more. 'cause I'm the oldest. So this is interesting to me because you've been with MRG for the bulk of your career.
[00:24:42] Craig P. Anderson: Correct. And you've started kind of as an entry level ish head, your first leadership role. Now you're kind of, you've risen through, which is an interesting leadership experience I think, in many ways because when you progress through the company, I think there's unique leadership challenges 'cause everybody's kinda watching you grow.
[00:24:57] Craig P. Anderson: So thinking about that kind of journey, how has all this kind of grown and developed into your leadership style now?
[00:25:04] Tricia Naddaff: Really good question, Craig. When I coach leaders, I tell them there are things that they will probably never develop because either it's not interesting to them or it's a, it's a bridge so far that they won't go there.
[00:25:18] Tricia Naddaff: And there there are things that they'll develop. Not without effort, but if they put the effort in, they'll develop and there are things that they will work on for their entire career. And I think this thing that started in the fourth grade, actually, my siblings would probably say it started a lot earlier than that.
[00:25:35] Tricia Naddaff: Um, that where is my role around facilitating versus telling? And I think about it. As I understand more the origins, it is a strong sense of responsibility for myself and others. And what has really helped me is now I have a leadership team. I now own this company and run this company, but I have a leadership team with two other people, two other women who are extraordinarily smart and can speak.
[00:26:13] Tricia Naddaff: Truth to me. And so I think that the idea of leadership as this lone wolf bit of work is such a fallacy and who you have around you influences. How you lead and oftentimes how effectively you lead. I have certainly grown as a leader, but they help me continue to grow and I can still feel the vacillation of, you know, I think the continuum is hyper responsibility that, as you said earlier, makes you feel like you have to be on touch of everything.
[00:26:49] Tricia Naddaff: And then boomeranging too far. When most leaders now, like I have, you are an individual contributor as well as a leader. So you can. Leave your leadership space and embed yourself in your individual contributor thing. So at any given time, where are you on that continuum? And how aware are you? And how quickly do you become aware that you are on the right or not the right part of the continuum?
[00:27:16] Tricia Naddaff: And so it really helps to have people who can reflect back to you, you, you know, you can give us space, now we've got it. Or we need you to come in closer. It really helps to calibrate. And having the flexibility to do that also helps that you're not a one trick pony. This is the only way I know how to lead.
[00:27:36] Tricia Naddaff: As you said earlier in our conversation, context is so unpredictable. We don't know what's gonna happen, and so if you've only got one way to lead. You're sort of stuck into a particular set of objectives with a particular context and with a particular set of resources. 'cause that's how you work. So hopefully as we grow as leaders, we're becoming more versatile in the leadership space.
[00:28:02] Tricia Naddaff: But I will retire. Who knows when that will be Craig? Still knowing there's so much more that I could learn to grow as a leader. It's a lifelong thing.
[00:28:12] Craig P. Anderson: I a hundred percent agree. When I kind of reflect back on my corporate career and building on a business, doing all these things right, what I had to do and how I had to adapt into these things was so different that there's kind of the core of who I am, but how I had to lead and how I had to show up is always different depending on.
[00:28:33] Craig P. Anderson: The people around me, the environment around me, what's going on in the business, and having gone from kind of like a small bank to a large bank to a not-for-profit and going through all these things, right? And then all the vast and myriad crises that blow up either, you know, on a mega level or a small level every day.
[00:28:50] Craig P. Anderson: It's like you have to adapt. And I can remember seeing leaders within those frames. Mm-hmm. Who just were always like. This kind of leader. Usually it was like the mean leader. Uh, but it was like, this tool works, right? If I just beat 'em all hard enough, I get what I want. Yeah. And that tends to be the, the worst kind, but also the people who weirdly succeed sometimes in corporate.
[00:29:08] Craig P. Anderson: But it's just so interesting 'cause you have to adjust to it all the time. You can't be, you can't show up the same way every day. But there's gotta be a core. But the way you do, it's gotta change.
[00:29:17] Tricia Naddaff: Yes, and that's, you're exactly right, right? That's the walking on the tight rope of consistent enough that people can trust you, right?
[00:29:26] Tricia Naddaff: I, I know who this leader is, but agile enough with the appropriate skillset to be able to do the dance, do the dance, and leadership.
[00:29:38] Craig P. Anderson: Sometimes the hug is the right thing. It just doesn't feel like it.
[00:29:42] Tricia Naddaff: Sometimes the hug is the right thing.
[00:29:44] Craig P. Anderson: Yeah, but not very often at any rate. No. That's awesome. Alright, so, so let's do, I always like to close.
[00:29:51] Craig P. Anderson: You can go back in time, however you prefer to. Time travel. There's lots of ways. Yeah. Yeah. Go back to you in that early leadership role. What is the one piece of advice? 'cause I keep pigeonholing you into one thing.
[00:30:02] Tricia Naddaff: I know, I know. I feel like my daughter's called you Craig and said, you really wanna stir her.
[00:30:07] Tricia Naddaff: This is the, I'm not gonna say
[00:30:08] Craig P. Anderson: they didn't call me. What's the one piece of advice you'd give yourself that would make you better, more comfortable, more consistent? What's the one piece of advice that would help you the most?
[00:30:19] Tricia Naddaff: I would say that. Leading well is a shared responsibility. If I had that mindset, Craig, I had a very talented team, right?
[00:30:32] Tricia Naddaff: They were smart people. Leadership is a shared responsibility. So Tricia, your responsibility is to create space where the four of you can do your best work. That mindset shift would have moved me away from what we. Often, lovingly call our lady of perpetual responsibility. So move away right from that, as you said, it's just you, it's just you.
[00:31:02] Tricia Naddaff: It lives and dies on you, and it does it, it it is about the collective. We're all here. The reason you have leadership at all, the reason it exists is it's something that can't be done by one person alone. So if we start with that leadership is there because it can't be done by one person alone, then we have to open up the space so it can be done by the fewer the many, right?
[00:31:31] Tricia Naddaff: I think that would've helped me move away from that singular view, and it would've helped me therefore not always have to be first with a solution. I would've asked more questions. I would've let the answers emerge. I would've let there be some silence, right? Mindset shift.
[00:31:50] Craig P. Anderson: It really is. It's just realizing that you're in charge, you're the one responsible, but ultimately you can't do it all yourself.
[00:31:58] Craig P. Anderson: And you know, especially in the work, I do a lot of work with small businesses who are kind of moving from, Hey, I'm the founder, I have the vision, I have the mission, and I'm gonna pull this thing through and I get to a certain point. And that works great. Yes. Yes. Until it doesn't. And suddenly you can't do everything.
[00:32:13] Craig P. Anderson: And instead of being the person who's driving, you're the person who's in the way because everyone's waiting for you to say what to do. But making that pivot and figuring out how to make that pivot in ways that allow me to still feel like I know what's going on is a huge thing that differentiates the company that's gonna stick it 2 million to the companies that that's gonna make it to 5 million.
[00:32:32] Tricia Naddaff: Yes. Yes. And realizing
[00:32:34] Craig P. Anderson: it's not just you is a huge part. Yes. Yes,
[00:32:38] Tricia Naddaff: and we don't help with that though, Craig. I think we hold leaders up. So individually when we talk about CEOs or presidents or picker category, we talk about them as a person singularly. We don't often talk about who's around them, who is enabling them, who is part of the, an important part of the work.
[00:33:03] Tricia Naddaff: We talk about the person.
[00:33:05] Craig P. Anderson: Yeah. And, and you know when, and this is a whole separate podcast, but building the right team around you is really the key and people don't think about it that proactively. And, and even, I know a lot of times when people move into those roles and suddenly they inherit a leadership team.
[00:33:21] Craig P. Anderson: Kind of what you were talking about early on with the challenges that people, the clients that you're working with, right. Where that leadership team perpetually changes Yes. Is really a challenge. Exactly. Tricia, I love this conversation. If people want to find you, learn more about you, what are the best ways for them to do that?
[00:33:38] Tricia Naddaff: Yeah, so our website has all kinds of good stuff in terms of ability to access us. It's www.mrg.com. We're lucky to get a three letter, uh, website way back when. Um, I'm also on LinkedIn, as is everybody. Yes. So she finds there as well.
[00:33:55] Craig P. Anderson: And we will drop links to all those. So, Tricia, thank you so much for coming on and sharing the story of your executive evolution.
[00:33:59] Craig P. Anderson: I appreciate it.
[00:34:00] Tricia Naddaff: Thanks for the invitation, Craig, you're fun to talk to.
[00:34:03] Craig P. Anderson: Thank you, Trish. I so much appreciated that interview and all the insights that she provided us in so many key areas about how leadership is contextual and self-awareness is so important for leaders and that's, you know, where you can get a 360 for your.
[00:34:21] Craig P. Anderson: That is a great opportunity for any leader, but I like to break down these interviews into the three key takeaway areas of confidence, competence, and calm in the area of confidence. What Tricia talked about today was how she took awareness of that 360 interview, right? We can get 360s and ignore those results.
[00:34:40] Craig P. Anderson: Say, oh, those, and then this happens a lot when I'm coaching people through 360 interviews. Oh, that's not right. They're wrong. I think. I know what that's about. No, truly we have to have the self-awareness. When we don't have self-awareness, we do have feedback reflected to us. We have to take that seriously, so kudos to her for doing that in the area of competence.
[00:34:59] Craig P. Anderson: What I love is that Tricia really is somebody who's always learning. She talked about her early embrace of neuroscience and how she takes those lessons and builds that into her leadership training and her coaching practices. That ongoing ability to learn is so crucial for us. As leaders because we live in a changing world and things can move very quickly.
[00:35:17] Craig P. Anderson: And then finally, in the area of calm, what was so meaningful in our conversation today is her work with humanitarian leaders who are in some of the most difficult places in the world, and how they have to kind of stand in all that chaos that can surround them as a calm presence for their teams to actually be able to grow and develop.
[00:35:38] Craig P. Anderson: So. Thank you, Tricia, for sharing the story of your executive evolution. As always, you can go from being an accidental leader to the greatest leader of all time. All it takes is developing your competence, competence, and calm. See you next time.