Kris Safarova 1:05
Welcome to the Strategy Skills podcast. I’m your host, Kris Safarova, and our podcast sponsor today is StrategyTraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies. It’s a free download, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach. You can also get a copy of one of our books. It’s called Nine Leaders in Action, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/gift. And today we have a very special guest, Margaret Moore, who is a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, a former biotech executive, an Ivey MBA, just like me, a leadership coach and co-author of The Science of Leadership. She brings decades of experience at the intersection of science, strategy, and human development. Margaret, welcome.

Margaret Moore 1:56
Thank you, Kris. It’s just a delight to be here with you.

Kris Safarova 2:00
So excited to have you here. Let’s start with why leadership? From all the things that you could have been doing, why you focus on coaching leadership and helping people to be a better leader?

Margaret Moore 2:13
Yeah, thank you. Well, I came at it in an unusual way, because after my MBA degree at Ivy, I went into biotechnology, and I was a leader, an executive CEO, at age 35 of a biotech company and and so I was on the practice side, and I saw two things happening. One is that I loved to help people grow as much as I did care about the business success. I helped a lot of scientists learn how to operate in the business world. And I also saw in healthcare that we were missing out on the the opportunity to coach people to get healthier, not just hand them medicines and surgeries. And so I set out as a leader, transformational leader, to put the coach on the healthcare team, and I started three organizations, two non-profits and and a coaching school in order to do that. So I’ve been a leader, and we’re getting closer to the reimbursement paths now. It’s taken 25 years, so it’s been like three organizations, three sets of teams, an awful lot of work and And while I’ve given my heart and soul to getting the coach established in healthcare, i i Let go a long time ago of the desire to bring more integrity to leadership coaching, but I couldn’t do both until in the last five, six years, and so I gradually began to shift to working with I’ve been working with leaders A long time, but in a bigger way, and the book came along on the science of leadership, because, well, like in coaching, when I started out in coaching, there was no science attached to coaching competencies. I don’t know if you followed it closely, but even to this day, there’s very little we did that. We accomplished that in healthcare, the coaching competencies for coaches doing health and well being our science base, but the ICF and others are not yet. So I was part of a small group around the globe who were really committed to making sure that we were drawing on some excellent science and so so then it came time. I’ve been playing around with leadership science. I’ve written 100 articles on different are on different research papers and leadership and well being so I’ve been around it. And the opportunity to write this book came through my co author, which is a whole other story, but basically we we landed on a book on self, trans. Transformational leadership. But when we did the book survey title, like the marketing title on what do they want, hundreds of people wanted it to be called The Science of leadership. And I thought, Oh, that’s a lift to tackle, you know, all of it. But we responded and decided, you know, it’s just about reading a lot of papers and covering a lot of ground. All of it was familiar to me, so it wasn’t a strange land, but we did distill it into a manageable set of nine capacities, and we were able to put just about all the major frameworks and Lisa leadership topics in those areas, which made it accessible to everyday leaders, because certainly, leaders don’t read journals. And even the scholars get pretty focused, even at Ivy, you know, they’re focused on character, for example, which is one topic among many. So yeah, so it was sort of, it sort of came out of my background and seeing the need for leaders to be able to access good research in a more, you know, in a direct way, not just an indirect way.

Kris Safarova 6:11
Out of major frameworks that you covered. What are some of them or one that is closest to your heart?

Margaret Moore 6:18
Oh, thank you that for asking that question. I mean, we positioned transformational leadership at the end, because it is helped by everything before. I love transformational leadership. It’s kind of it’s been around for a long time. It’s not sexy any longer. You know, it’s not a it’s not a hip theory. It’s been around, and there’s always, you know, agile is interesting and conscious is interesting, but it is really all about getting people to change their mindsets and developing strategies that transform worlds and in small and large ways. And so that’s the one I’m drawn to. And it it directly connects to coaching. The building blocks and transformational leadership are the building blocks and coaching. So it was very easy for me to pull the two together. So it’s the real deal, I think. And, you know, we and it’s hard, but it is. It is transformation. Is strategy with a big S, it’s large scale strategy that leads to substantive change. So, yeah, that is by far my favorite.

Kris Safarova 7:41
In working with leaders, what are some common blind spots you notice?

Margaret Moore 7:49
Well, I every leader has blind spots, and the book covers a lot of potential ones. The two I would talk about first is conscious. So we framed conscious as being conscious, being awake, seeing things clearly. And what gets in the way of the brain’s ability to see reality objectively is the noise in our minds are noisy egos, you know, the the worries, the I want it this way, the impatience that, like, let’s get it done. You know, all of the like, you know, arousal and and in today’s world, today’s world is noisy. Today’s world is full of noisy egos. I mean, you cannot go one inch without finding a noisy ego, but leaders really need to settle that ego noise and get to a calm present place in order to see things as they are, both themselves and others and and so we’ve, we’ve gone beyond emotional intelligence, which is awareness and regulation, to a bigger area of science that’s emerging around self transcendence and integration. So integration is the idea that you take the the arousal, the the the unsettled, the unresolved, the you know, the tension in you as a leader, and you integrate that. So basically, you know, one neural pathway that says, you know, I need to get these folks to take this seriously to if I introduce it calmly and gently, they may absorb it better, and those are opposites. And so what you’re when you’re integrating, you’re literally shifting to the opposite way of viewing it, and taking that on and that. And then eventually it becomes natural, and you’ve transcended the noise. So. So the ability to take the noise and turn it into maturity and is, is, is very important. And there’s a new concept that’s not well known in leadership, called the quiet ego. And you might have noticed the that in the in the conscious leadership chapter, the quiet ego is, I mean, I don’t have a quiet ego. I’m sure you don’t either. None of us have a completely quiet ego, but it’s good to know that it’s there and you can use it once in a while, and and that when you coming from the quiet ego place, you still have a strong sense of self. You’re still impactful, you’re still you’re still a forceful, a force in the world, but, but, but with a way of being quiet about it that people can absorb more easily. So, so when we say conscious and seeing clearly, we really mean quieting your ego so that you can so that would be, that is the most common thing you see with leaders, is the ego noise getting in the way of clarity.

Kris Safarova 11:02
I was actually told a few times that I don’t have an ego. I think I do have because sometimes I do get offended, but I can see how it can be really tricky when people struggle to control their ego, and how it impacts the decision making and behavior and the ability to lead.

Margaret Moore 11:20
Yeah, and you probably do have a quieter ego than most people, which comes from having been through a lot, I’m sure. I mean, you don’t. Some people are born wise and grown up, but most of us went through a lot to get to earn it. And I’m sure you’ve earned it. And so, yeah, you can see it when you can see people that are aroused and are not not able to see things as they are.

Kris Safarova 11:46
What do you feel currently, for example in United States, in large corporations, what do you feel leaders misunderstand about effective leadership?

Margaret Moore 11:58
You know that I would have to say that probably every leader has their own blind spots, but the thing that is coming to mind is to is to say that you know, Peter Drucker said, you know, play to your strengths. If you stay, if you stay with your strengths, you will better than trying to overcome your weaknesses. Build on them rather than overcome weaknesses. The book is really saying something else, which is that wholeness is better. So what that means is that you don’t overlook your your weaknesses. You recognize that you have those capacities too. They’re just not they’re underused. You know, the the the the framework for the book is really a personality structure that is universal, which is another story, but we have all of these different aspects. And so while you may never be the most relational person, or you may never be a person who puts serving others first, or you may be a very, you know, up and down emotionally like a you may and you may say, Well, that’s my strength, right? And I think I’m here to say that, you know, becoming a really impactful leader requires that you bring more of these capacities forward. So when I was in biotech, I, you know, I’m in Mars, Briggs, and in Enneagram, I’m an extroverted thinker. So that’s CEO, you know, I see through people to task. Empathy is something I have to pause. I have it, but I have to stop myself and feel it so. So I until my early 40s. You know, I was leading with that, and I also did not think of myself as creative at all. What happened in coaching is that I had to be both of those things. I had to really draw on my empathy, and I needed my intuition. Because, you know, as a coach, you don’t know people what, what’s going on for them. You don’t know the situation. Your intuition is your superpower. And so I discovered that I had those things because I had to use them and and now I’m more balanced. I mean, I’m still the extroverted thinker, you know, I’m still focused on achieving things and getting things done. But so I think my experience, I’m in my 60s, so I’ve been around long enough to have walked through a lot of different versions of myself, and I think the better frame is to build out an access more of you, and you’ll be surprised that you have it there. You know that you actually, if you pause, you can access like, like, like playing or being an orchestra conductor. You know you can pull on. The violins, and you can pull on the cellos, and you can pull on the timpani. You you have more than you realize. You still always be stronger at some things, but the wholeness is what makes it easier. You know, your ego calms down. So yes, I’m here to say that wholeness is a good thing. Strengths are great, but it’s good to round it out too.

Kris Safarova 15:22
Margaret, and for someone who’s listening to us right now and thinking, You know what, I also haven’t yet fully discovered my intuition, can you share with them how you discovered yours?

Margaret Moore 15:33
Gosh, yeah, my mean, my creative intuition was definitely the last part of me to come alive. It took a decade. Let me say that now I would say I love being creative. I mean, I’ve set up my work life so that I can be often so in the working world, where on Send make things happen, move things forward, get things done. And intuition is not sending, it’s receiving. So you’re not leaning forward, you’re actually receiving. And it’s a non linear process so it doesn’t follow logic, so there’s no checklist, there’s no steps, and you sort of have to find it in yourself. So creativity is flow, and flow is when you let go of control. It’s because the send is controlling. The perceiving is not being in control. So I had to sort of notice when I could do it, and realize it was not my drive, but it’s a habit. But I really have to do the opposite. I have to sit back and receive. So I have to have time alone. I have to write. I have to, you know, use my exercise to let go control. I had to recognize that not controlling is actually the way to perceiving. So that’s the extroverted intuition, the, you know, receiving the Introverted Intuition is strategy. So that’s assembling their what you received. So it’s an introverted thing. And I would say that was already there that that I didn’t have to go find, I just had to see it and realize, I mean, it was a problem before, because I would see things. The thing about strategists and introverted intuitives is that we we see where things are going before other people do, and then by the time, you know, five years later, they catch up, and we’re already moved forward. So we never fit in. We’re always seeing and interested in things, doing things that others don’t see as relevant. And so we’re kind of outsiders, naturally. And I didn’t realize that was a strength. I mean, it was an IV, because Ivy’s all about sitting back, taking the whole case in, and then having a strategy, right? That’s how I found that strength. And so, so it’s, it helps working with a coach, because they can help bring out. So you have it in the cracks of your life, these, these, the intuition is there, but it’s asleep, and so you have to bring it online. And so you just have to notice, oh, that was when I was being an, you know, a strategist, or I was being creative. So, yeah, so it’s there, you can trust it’s there, but you have to, have to sit back and to find it, not you can’t go, you don’t go hunting for it. You’re not finding yourself. It’s not that way. It’s not finding anything. It’s actually just there to receive. So it’s a it’s the opposite of our main mode. So it’s not easy, but it’s there. It’s there, for sure.

Kris Safarova 19:03
Do you remember some moments that really stood out for you when you were coaching someone and you were leveraging your ability to use intuition to help that person in a more effective way?

Margaret Moore 19:16
Yeah. I mean, I would say every coaching session so the so let me explain this So, and this comes back to strategy again, because when people come to coaching, they want to go somewhere that they’re not whatever it is they want. I just had a coaching session yesterday with a woman leader who wants to build out her relational not creativity so much, but more, um, relational, uh, skills. So it’s hard to be a senior leader without relating well to people in today’s world, because people don’t trust you, they don’t like you, they don’t want to work with you if you can’t. Listen and talk to them and show that you care about what they value, and all of that. And so that was her, you know, the thing that she wants to to shift. And so, so the intuition is when you ask a question that opens things up. And so, um, we, um, we talked about her um, controlling kind of behavior, and how the controlling had probably had its place, you know, and it was protecting her, and empathy is kind of soft and vulnerable. And so we, we went there and then found situations where she could be relational, and then we brought it forward. So, so the intuition is sort of knowing where to take the conversation in a way where they might discover something that that they didn’t know. You know, the part of the art of coaching is helping people see what they they already have access to, and and sort of showing it to them. So what the intuition helps us see the blind spot, see what they’re not seeing. And that does, it comes from a lot of experience. You know, if you’ve gone through many 1000s of these conversations, you you you’ve seen a lot of different things, and then if you’ve worked with yourself, but it’s really knowing where the blind spot might be, and how to show them the blind spot, and how to show them that there’s another way to look at it, in a way that they can receive and don’t feel threatened. So that’s the core of it. There’s a challenge to something unresolved, and then you help them see a different way of looking at it. And it comes as coaches, we comes into our minds. I mean, I know we’re not supposed to direct the coaching conversation, but we do have a sense of what they’re not seeing. That’s that’s the gift of being a coach. You can see what they’re not seeing. You might be wrong, but you can guide them, and they’ll find what they but you have a sense that they don’t say. So What? What? What that means boiling it down is that they don’t have a sense of strategy around what is, what is in the way, and where they want to go. They don’t have a strategy. They’re stuck. And so we’re bringing our strategic approach to, you know, shifting yourself so that they have a strategy, and then they can see, oh, that could work. Oh, that might, maybe I can shift that. Well, that could be possible. So, yeah, so we’re using our intuition. We’re being strategists. And, you know, it’s some, it’s a, it’s a gift to help people, because they won’t necessarily see it, and other people will, they’ll feel threatened by other people or vulnerable, or they won’t want to share it, and we make it safe. I mean, we all have these things, right? We all have things we do that we don’t want other people to know, and that we, you know, we know that there’s a better way and we can’t find it, right? So, yeah, so it’s helping people feel safe and going to where they need to shift, and helping them see a different perspective on it. And then they go, oh, yeah, there’s hope here.

Kris Safarova 23:04
Margaret, and in going through so many studies, I think you went through thousands.

Margaret Moore 23:10
Well, we went, we read, you know, close to 500 papers. But then those papers often were reviewing 100 or 200 studies and coming up with conclusions. So that’s the multiplier to get to 1000s. You know, the we stayed with the large studies that summarized many studies. Mostly there’s some individual smaller studies where there was something unique there that’s new. But mostly we went, you know, the leadership literature is growing up, because now, in the last five years, there are many meta analyzes of 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years of research. So that means when you add it all up, you get to the signal through the noise.

Kris Safarova 23:54
And in going through all the studies, were there one, or maybe a few findings that really changed how you looked at leadership?

Margaret Moore 24:05
The first ones that come to mind so authentic leadership and humility, okay, so authentic leadership has gotten has kind of moved into a discussion around sharing your vulnerability and being authentic about who you are in that in that way. But that’s not what the researchers are studying. The researchers are studying two things. One is that, first, as an authentic leader, you are living from what you is important to you, and I don’t mean your worst self, your best self, like your this is you. You know, this is what really matters to you, and this is why you’re the leader, and this is the purpose of this endeavor, this team or organization, and that’s really meaningful to you. And so that’s one half of authenticity in the research. The other half is that you can. Just as much about what the rest of the workforce values and the outcomes, the positive outcomes of authentic leadership are that if you are authentic about what you care about, that’s good for your well being. And others will say, good for that good for you, you’re living your values, but what improves their performance is that you actually know and care about what they value. Your your being authentic doesn’t change their performance. Your caring about them. Being authentic is what care that’s, to me, a really big point, right? Because you think I’m being authentic, I’m helping their performance. No, I’m i by helping them be authentic, I’m helping their performance. So human humility is similar that a meta analysis of 100 studies, 100 studies on humility in leadership, this is separate from servant leadership, which of which humility is core. So just humility. And so it turns out that humble leader, so if a leader is humble or not humble, it doesn’t change their performance. So you can be very effective performer and be arrogant, but other people’s performance is improved if you’re humble. So you don’t do it for yourself. You do it for them because it makes sense, right? You don’t want to outshine them if you’re like all about you and you tell and you’re saying how great you are, then they’re not going to feel like there’s any space for them, and they’re not going to sit, they’re going to say, I can’t keep up. And, you know, they probably can’t. So, so the humility is for them, so the authentic caring is about other people, to get the leadership impact that, to me, was really important and motivating, because if that’s what it’s all about, then okay, yeah, it’s okay that I care about. I know what I care about, and I’m humble, but I’m not doing it for me. I’m doing it for them, and that’s more that’s for me, more motivating than if I’m just doing it for myself. And and it’s a higher order thing, you’re actually helping others that way. And so if you know you’re helping others by caring about what they value, their best values, not their worst, their best values. And and you play yourself, you don’t, you don’t, you’re you’re objective, you’re confident, you know what you can do, but you you make sure that you don’t fill the space and that they, they feel that you, you do appreciate their input, and you are teachable and you want them to learn. So yeah, I found that that, I hope others do too. You know that that, and there’s caveats. So in humility, there’s a study in China. These studies are all over the globe, by the way, and the phenomenon seem to hold across all cultures, which is kind of fun. So, so you know, study in China is actually relevant, believe it or not, to probably not in every domain, but in this one. So the studies called it not the time to be humble. So when is it not the time to be humble is when there’s a crisis and then employees want a leader out in front, in charge, telling everybody what to do, because they’re scared and they are not sure what to do, and they know that that the ship is, you know, been hit or, you know, something bad happened, the leaders need to step up and take charge and move things forward. That’s when they don’t want humble leaders. They want strong leaders that are in charge. So it depends so, humility is great when the stakes are low and there’s not too much pressure, but if it’s a really tough situation, people want to you know, like the pilot that landed the plane in you know that was not the time for him to ask for help. Then say to his staff, what do you guys think? It’s not the time for humility, it was the time for strength, confidence and and getting it done. So yeah, I think that’s that. And that also shows you that however you are in leadership, it may not work in this given moment, and that you have to shift shape shift to whatever is needed. And so sometimes you have to be tougher than other times, sometimes you need to be more relational than other times. Sometimes you need to be more agile. Sometimes you need to stabilize things. Sometimes you need to challenge sometimes you need to help people feel strong. You know it just knowing that every moment calls for different different leaders. Leadership ways is really helpful, and that fits with mindfulness, right, being present and knowing what you need to bring forward, which makes every moment interesting.

Kris Safarova 30:10
Margaret. What will be your advice for someone who is coming across as so nice and so that is viewed as weakness? So let’s say it’s someone who is very kind and they really hopeful. They want to succeed around them. But it is viewed as weakness by many people.

Margaret Moore 30:29
It is, yeah, you know, there is a, there’s a book on the benefits of being nice. I would say, I mean, I work more with people who are tigers that need to find the kitten than the kittens who need to find the Tigers? So there’s more leaders who are tigers than kittens. But you all, we all have a kitten side, a softer side. We do, right? I mean, if you’ve got kids, if you got a pet, you don’t boss them around. You don’t treat them like you can’t be a tiger everywhere. And so you have to find your inner, your inner Tiger, if you’re a kitten and, and, and you’ve got it, because there’s certain things you’re going to stand up for. You’re going to be mother bear or father Tiger, or whatever, you know, the lion, not the not the Pussycat, you know. So, so people need to see the toughness and the determination and the backbone. So that’s there. I mean, we all have a backbone, and if you, if you, if you, if your backbone isn’t tough, you probably it’s going to get tougher, or you’re not going to survive. I mean, that’s the world of leading. It’s a jungle, right? So, so you’ve got to find your inner toughness, and you’ve got to show it once in a while, and you have, you may have to do it intentionally, just so that people realize the nicest the way you get things done. But sometimes the toughness is underneath, you know, the velvet gloves. So there’s a, there’s a, you know, a new model around Compassionate Leadership, which is really all about this. Compassion is different from empathy. Compassion is, is so empathy is, I feel you. I’m feeling, I might even have a few tears, I feel how you’re suffering. I’m sharing and actually carrying the emotional load for with you. You know, I’m grieving with you. I’m feeling for what your situation. So that’s empathy, compassion. Is respect and understanding and appreciation with a little bit of sharing. And then, how can I help make it better? So it’s doing something, it’s active, and that’s easier on you, less burnout and and so the compassion is genuinely caring and genuinely doing something about it, and compassionate leaders are able to have compassion for all of the moving, all the people that are impacted inside, outside their organization. And when you feel all of that and resonate with all of that, then you can be tough, because people know you care. But people do need to grow, or to shift, or to, you know, they get off course, and so you’ve got to hold people accountable. You’ve got to you So, you’ve got to you’ve got to find a way to have both to make it in leadership. But you know, there’s really no nice is, is really great, because people want to be around you. You send off warm vibes. They want to hang out with you, because you get them talking, your, your, your, but then you have to get things done, right? So it’s being able to, you know, use both. Well, that’s the nice people need a bit of tiger and the Tigers need kittens.

Kris Safarova 34:05
What was the moment? Maybe it was a conversation. Maybe it was certain value you had to overcome. Maybe inside that really transformed your personal leadership philosophy.

Margaret Moore 34:18
I mean, I would say learning how to become a coach, because I’m both today, and that’s not typical. Most people do one or the other only, and I really do both. I mean, I my time is pretty much split between leading and coaching. So being a coach, you realize that people know a lot more than they know they know, and that you know they know, and when you see that they’ve got way more wisdom and way more resources and way more insight and way more than you you know because they just because they’re not like you, and they don’t move so quickly, and they don’t think so far. How. And they don’t get as much done in a day. That doesn’t mean that they don’t have real strengths. And so coaching is about drawing out people’s strengths and desires, and I have to say that, that that’s what brought out my intuition and empathy. So I think, I think all leaders should go to coaching school to be honest, to get the other side of relating to people in a way that’s still powerful, and then, and then toggling between the two. So, yeah, I think coaching is, you know, if you know Taoism, the Taoist, Taoism is about leadership. I mean, I know there’s a spiritual side, but it is really a leadership deep framework. And in Taoism, you lead from behind, and you help everybody else be creative, and you’re invisible as much as you can be. And that’s pretty hard to do, but, but the idea is that it’s much so when I was in China doing coach training, I had a Dao master in my course who had dinner with me every night and with a translator, and he explained Taoism, and he said, You’re a Taoist coaching Taoism. So I take that to mean that it’s another form of leadership, and it’s the, it’s the opposite of the, you know, in your face out in front Tiger. And I can still default to that very easily, but I really had to. The coaching really allowed me to step back and relax and be with people in a different way. And, you know, just sit on an airplane and chat with people, and they come away at the end of it saying, Wow, I just told you all this stuff, and that was helpful. And, you know, just doing that in the world, you know, being able to be a listener and to have compassion and to help people, it’s a side of me that I hadn’t fully developed. And so, yeah, I think the two are amazing together.

Kris Safarova 37:02
Margaret, I will wrap up with one or two of my favorite questions and such an important topic, we could have been talking about it for much longer. Over your entire lifetime. Was there two, three aha moments, realizations that really changed the way you look at life or the way you look at business?

Margaret Moore 37:20
I would say that the world has changed more than I have. So, you know, when I was at Ivy in my 20s, I fit better today with the generation that’s concerned about about saving the planet. You know, I was a wilderness hiker and canoeist, and saw the acid rain kill the lakes in Canada in my 20s. And, you know, I’ve been, you know, I did a project on solar power in the 80s. 40 years ago, I was really interested in the things that everybody’s interested in now, healthy planet. And so I feel as though I’ve I stayed the same, and I’ve been able to stay young enough in spirit to feel like I’m in the right place. Now I’m actually living in a world with values that I had like when I started well coaches, I went to a meeting with venture capitalists, and they, they giggled when I said the word Well, coaches like, coaches like, are you serious? That’s a business. I mean, it was not well being, and coaching was now, I’ve got Harvard MBA people calling me all the time and saying, What a cool business. You know, isn’t that great? You’re focused on well being and coaching and leadership and science. So I have to say, I haven’t changed. I just feel more at home in today’s world and feel relieved that I I’m I’ve been in the game long enough for it to move to these more social, socially responsible values. I mean, when I saw the announcement that meta is, I do. I do think that the climate change crisis is terrible and that burning up more oil is not a good thing. And and it bothers me that AI is using up so much water, clean water, and and so much electricity, which is weighing on the grid and causing more, you know, depletion of resources and more pollution and all that stuff. And, you know, the that now there’s, there’s just news today that the Microsoft and meta are aligning with nuclear power plants. Nuclear energy is can be done safely, and it is the answer, and AI should be using it. So now that’s like, that’s happening. You know? That didn’t happen. Most business people were not trying to save the planet until now. They really didn’t care. You know? They really. Didn’t, I mean, they were, you know, they’re, you know, I mean, just think about plastic toothbrushes and so all that kind of stuff that has become a new form of businesses has arrived finally, and I feel like I’m part of this world. It not, not, not this weird, you know, social capitalist who will put purpose over money and change it, you know, transforming things over wealth. And I think there’s more of us now, and not that we don’t like to make a living and like to live well and enjoy life. I’m not saying that, but, but at what expense? And so, yeah, I think I’d say that I think the world has moving in that direction, and I’m really happy to be part of this, the world with this next generation. I’m sure you relate to that at your at your stage.

Kris Safarova 40:56
And the last question for today, if you could instill one belief in everyone’s minds and hearts, every person who’s listening right now? If you could instill one belief in their hearts, what would it be?

Margaret Moore 41:10
Yeah, so I re-read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance last summer. It was just coming out when I was doing a philosophy of science course at university in Canada. And the simple idea is that if you’re really present in the moment, there is the potential for transformation. It’s physics. It’s what’s called Quantum criticality, the shift and and and the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance showed how that operated when you were fixing a motorcycle, how you could feel the sense of what part to work on next and where to go and what like this. And it isn’t. I don’t think of it as a spiritual thing. I I think that in every moment there’s potential for something good to happen. And if we’re judging and trying to get somewhere and and pushing and, you know, trying to impose our way on the situation, then we miss the potential in the moment for something good, and that, I don’t pick it up in every moment either, but there’s always the potential for a little transformation, a little bit of shift. There is a creative universe. There is a there is a move towards better, and we can pick it up and and ride it and and you can feel it. And I think in coaching, we’re trying to feel it. We’re trying to feel what’s potential, the potential for something good to happen in this conversation. So I would say that in the moment, there’s always the potential. If you’re just awake, you will feel it, and you can do something about it and act on it.

Kris Safarova 43:05
This is very powerful. Thank you for everything you share today. Where can our listeners learn more about you? Buy your book? Anything you want to share?

Margaret Moore 43:13
Well, the book’s coming out very soon, so I’ll start there. It’s at scienceofleadership.com and we’d love for people to pre-order it and spread the word, not because, I mean, obviously we want, would like to sell lots of books, but mainly we want people to read it and benefit from it. It’s meant to help good leaders be validated, and leaders who are good some of the time to be better more of the time. So it’s meant to do good, and so we help do that my own. I’m on LinkedIn, and I’m active and at Coach Meg, and then my website is coachmeg.com and then my co-author, we didn’t get to talk about him, because you were asking, but my perspectives, but Jeff Hall is my my collaborator, close friend who wrote the book with me, and he’s at jeffreyhall.com,

Kris Safarova 44:05
Margaret. Thank you again, so much for being here and for writing the book, reading all those thousands of studies and integrating it all together and creating this book and doing your work and for everything you shared.

Margaret Moore 44:18
Thank you, Kris, it’s great fun.

Kris Safarova 44:21
Our guest today again have been Margaret Moore. Check out her book. It is called the Science of Leadership. And our podcast sponsor today is StrategyTraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies. You can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach. You can also get a copy of one of our books, which we actually co-authored with some of our listeners, some of our clients. It is called Nine Leaders in Action, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/gift. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I’m looking forward to connect with you all next time.