What Is the Real Work of Leadership?
Most people are promoted into leadership because they were excellent at their job. They were the high performer on their team. Then almost overnight, the job changes. You’re no longer responsible only for what you can accomplish. You’re responsible for creating outcomes through other people, and no one really prepares you for what that work actually looks like.
That’s what I want to talk about on this show. The difficult conversations, managing up, navigating organizational politics, leading across the organization, making decisions when every option has a consequence, and figuring out how to hold people accountable while still remembering that there is a human being in the room. Leadership is messy because business is human, and a lot of the real work happens in the parts nobody really talks about.
In this episode of The Real Work of Leadership, I’m sharing why I wanted to have these conversations, what you can expect from the show, and some of the leadership moments that shaped the way I lead today. We’re going to talk about the actual work of leadership as it happens in real life, including the mistakes, the wins, and the things nobody prepared us for.
1:08 – What the real work of leadership actually looks like
2:39 – Difficult conversations, empathy, and accountability
4:26 – Making tough decisions with humans at the center
6:32 – Navigating organizational politics and competing priorities
7:35 – Moving from high performer to leading and developing a team
10:04 – Leading across, up, and through the organization
12:29 – Putting the human element at the center of leadership
14:50 – Transparency, trust, and the limits of what leaders can share
16:36 – Elisa’s first leadership identity shift
19:34 – The conversations this show is here to have
Mentioned In What Is the Real Work of Leadership?
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Elisa Hawkins: Leadership theory is easy. Leading actual people while you're managing up, putting out fires, thinking strategically and still trying to hit the number is something else entirely. Hi, I'm Elisa Hawkins and welcome to The Real Work Of Leadership. We're getting into the conversations, decisions, organizational dynamics and real-life pressure that come with leading a team and being responsible for the results.
You know, most people are promoted into leadership, because they were excellent at their job. They were the high performer on their team. And then almost overnight, that job changes. You're no longer responsible only for yourself, only for what you can accomplish. You're responsible for creating outcomes through other people. And no one really teaches you how to do that. No one really teaches you how to lead in the real work of leadership. Welcome listeners to The Real Work Of Leadership with Elisa Hawkins.
Leadership looks so different, once you're responsible for those people, the outcomes and the decisions. And really, most leaders are never prepared for what that real work looks like. So in this podcast, we're going to be having really frank, great, casual conversations about what the real work looks like. Not leadership theory, not corporate buzzwords or advice about becoming more polished, or having that buzzword of late executive presence. We'll get more into that in another episode, because executive presence is, no one ever actually tells you what that is, just like they don't also talk to you about cross-functional collaboration and what that really looks like. Everybody talks about it. No one actually describes it.
And that's what this podcast is about, is to actually talk about what goes on behind the scenes, what no one tells you. And even if you have gone through a leadership training, no one teaches you about some of the real work, the real challenges, the things that you're going to face as you go on this journey of being a leader. And this is not a performance in leadership. This is actually the work as it happens in real life. You know, we're going to talk about some of these things that nobody prepares you for. Certainly, I was never prepared for and we'll talk about that more in the next episode. But giving difficult feedback. No one really talks to you about having those difficult conversations in an empathetic way, right? You can hold people accountable, but still be empathetic and still address the human in the room, while still giving that difficult feedback. It's about managing someone who used to be your peer.
Or in my case, as a first-time leader, I actually had to lead the former manager who had been demoted. Talk about having to navigate some pretty difficult things with that. Talk about that in a future episode as well. But it's also disagreeing with your boss without damaging the relationship. Because let's face it, you're going to have to have difficult conversations, not only with maybe members of your team, but you're going to have to have difficult conversations with your leader. You're going to have to have difficult conversations, maybe with some counterparts, or some cross-functional partners that you have. But you can do that in a way that is not only professional, but it's also human-centered and trying to agree to the outcomes that everybody wants. Because let's face it, we're all charged. Every single leader is charged with their own sets of responsibilities. Every single leader and every single team member, they're human beings who have life pressures, who have the work pressures that you're under.
And so it's how we talk about that and how we talk to and with, whether it be our partners, our counterparts, or with our team members, that's so super important. You know, it's about also making decisions, when every option has a consequence. Like, there are a lot of tough decisions that have to be made in business. One of my favorite quotes is and I can't remember who said it, but, business is like sausage. Everybody likes the end result, but nobody likes to see how it's made. And that's often true, especially if you're in a growth stage startup, things get messy real quick, right? Because humans are at the center of every organization, of every business, whether it is the humans that have built the business, running the business, or the humans that are buying from the business. Business is human. And in my personal estimation, it's about high time that we get back to the human-centered business that we used to have.
Because when we make tough decisions in business, there is a human that is either going to be responsible for the new way of doing things, the change management, or it's the human that is going to be affected by it. If heaven forbid, we have had to, there have been having to be tough decisions made about roles being eliminated. We have to understand that that affects those livelihoods and it's how we handle those humans that are at the center of either are going to be affected by it, or that are going to have to actually move forward with a different project than what they had been working on for the last six months. Talk about a difficult conversation, right? There's going to be tough decisions that have to be made, or there's tough decisions that are made above you that you are going to be responsible for communicating. And sometimes there's no good way to do that.
But it is how we handle those, the human conversations that we're having, is what should be at the top of every leader's mind. You know, it's about navigating competing priorities and organizational politics. Let me tell you something, nobody talks about that at all. Everybody understands it, but nobody really talks about it. And it's high time that we talk about that, because it happens in every organization, there's politics involved. And boy, once you get into leadership, that is even more true. Then if you get into executive leadership, that pressure and the politics are more relevant and more predominant in your day. And so how do we navigate that? And how do we navigate the politics? We are not here to manipulate people. So how do we navigate the political structures in our organization, understanding the humans that we're partnering with or we're working with, or that we're having to navigate maybe a complex issue? How do we do that? And how do we do that effectively? How are we going to be accountable for results that we cannot produce by ourselves?
So if you were new into leadership and you went from being an individual high performer, expert, right? And now you're responsible for coaching and building your team. How do we do that in an effective way, without always being the one that's coming in to close the deal? Because I will tell you, an ineffective leader is one that is always coming in and closing deals for their reps. If you do not let reps learn from mistakes and coach them through that and you're always saving them, you're not helping your team, right? You're not helping them grow. You're not helping that individual grow and prosper in their career. So how can we effectively do that without micromanaging? Micromanaging is going to be something we talk about a lot, too, because micromanaging is not an effective way to lead. You are leading typically adults. So, you know, these are adults who have responsibility, who were hired, because of their talent and their expertise. And we have to give them the room to run with that, while we also can coach and develop them in the opportunities that they have to grow and learn more from and still also hold them accountable, right?
Leadership is about building. It's not managing. You know, leadership is building people. It's building trust with your team and throughout the organization. It's building clarity with your organization, building clarity with your team, building systems. We have to have operating systems. We have to have systems and processes that we're constantly evolving, because business changes so rapidly, especially in this age that we're in right now, right? And so how are we building those systems with clarity, with trust, with the people that we lead, with the people that we partner with and work with throughout the organization? And we're building outcomes as leaders that's not entirely dependent on us as leaders. We will examine a lot here together. And we will examine how we lead across, up and through an organization, not just down, to our team.
Because one of the things that a lot of people do not talk about is when you are in leadership, that sandwich that you find yourself in. You know, you were prepared or you should have been prepared, in terms of the perception of leadership and leading the team that you're about to take over. But then no one prepared you that you're going to have to lead across, up and throughout the organization. So you're in the sandwich between your team and then the leadership above you, your partners across from you. No one prepares you for that. And so we're going to talk a lot about that, because believe me, I have made some mistakes there. I've actually had some great wins there, but you know, the wins I had was from me learning from the mistakes I made with that and not understanding that that was now what I found myself in. I thought if we hit the number, you know, or exceeded the number, hit the goal, that spoke for itself. Let me tell you, it does not. It only gets part of the story.
So we will examine from a direct operator experience as well. So y'all are going to hear some solo episodes from me, where I'm going to be talking about particular subjects. You're going to be hearing from guests. I'm going to have guests who are current leaders and who have been leaders for maybe a little bit. Some of who I have worked with, some who I have not, but are experts in their field. And we're going to talk about, we're going to have great conversations from the operator experience and what it really looks like and challenges that we faced. These are going to be great conversations, casual nature. There might be some cussing, so let me just go ahead and prepare you for that. We will have the explicit for those that we do do some cussing in, because this is meant to be very real conversations between leaders and what we've experienced.
And so I want y'all to listen to it with that. This is not some boring theorized leadership, corporate-y podcast. This is real world stuff. And hopefully we're going to be making it fun for you as well. Much of the leadership training and work that I do, I hesitate to call it training, because it's really not, it's really leadership work that I do with companies and individuals, is also injecting the human element throughout. Because that is a huge, huge part of leadership, is the humans. And I really want for us in every conversation to talk about that, because people are not interchangeable resources. They're not sets of data points, even though a lot of organizations, unfortunately, handle leadership this way right now. I'm clearly on a mission to change that. We need to change the way that we look at leadership, because the people are at the center of every organization. With leadership also comes the responsibility to listen. We talk a lot about it in sales, about listening to our prospects, listening to our customers, but we don't talk about listening to our team. Whether it be in individual one-on-ones and team meetings.
We don't talk a lot about listening to our counterparts, or our partners in another part of the organization, because listening should be at the core of leadership. And that's active listening. When we're listening to understand where this person is coming from, what pressures are they under? What are they feeling? Or the positive side of it, hey, what are some wins that they had? And I don't mean just wins from a customer. I mean just wins, period, across the board. Have they recently done something phenomenal in their life that they're super proud of? But listening, even when you're having difficult conversations, has to be at the core. And doing that empathetically does not eliminate accountability at all. I've been told a lot, throughout my leadership journey, one of the common themes, whether it be in surveys that organizations do, or whether it be in conversations I'm having with my teams, is they always want transparency.
And so then I start asking, what does transparency look like? Because transparency looks different for everybody. The one word may have an actual definition, but everybody views it differently. And the other thing that you're not prepared for and I wasn't prepared for and I learned this lesson quickly, is that there are some things that you can't be transparent about. There are discussions happening. There are things going on. There's a lot of things that cannot be communicated writ large to the organization, either not yet, or maybe not ever. But I also found it very, very, very useful to also communicate, when I couldn't share things. Like, I will be as transparent as I possibly can, but understanding there's going to be some things that you can't say. And being honest about that is okay. And I think people appreciate that, because people appreciate when you have built that trust with them, when you say, hey, I don't know something, let me go find you the answer. Or I cannot, you know, I really have no clarity into this, or I have really, I do not know. And they also understand when you can't share things as well.
So I will say, I'll start with my first leadership moment and one of the light bulb moments I had, because I went from being that high performing individual contributor to leading a team. And I was a district sales manager. And one of the things that I was not prepared for is making that identity shift from being a high performer to coaching the team. Now, I love to coach and mentor and I had done it previously as an individual contributor, but I was actually at a happy hour with a counterpart of mine, and it was a Friday evening, we were having some Sangria and some tapas. We were in Tampa, shout out to tapas and Sangria in Tampa, because it's excellent. But we were just trading war stories from the week. And I shared how frustrated I was with the team, because I'm like, I do not understand and it wasn't with the full team at large, but just a few individuals. And I shared, I'm like, I do not understand why they are not doing A through Z.
And it had to do with the sales motion, the sales process. And I was like, I don't understand why this is difficult. And I don't understand, you know, I did this, this is not difficult. And she looked at me and she said, Elisa, one thing and she'd been in leadership for a while at this point, she said, one of the things you need to understand is your team is not you. And that, I had a full on light bulb moment at that point, because she was absolutely right. Because every person is different. Every person has opportunities, areas to grow. Every person has things that they're phenomenal at, but they are not going to do things the same way I do them. And for me to expect that was ridiculous, right? But I was coming at it from the I, from the me in it, because I had been for my entire career an individual contributor, so I was only responsible for my results. And from that day forward, that light bulb moment changed how I coached and led the team. I really individualized their one-on-ones. I really, you know, individualized feedback. I really understood that, you know, they were likely going to be better at some things than I was. There's going to be people that are better, that were better at a lot of things than I was. And I love that. That was a light bulb moment for me that nobody prepared me for, because no one prepares you for the leadership identity shift.
I really do hope you'll join me for these phenomenal conversations about what the actual work of leadership looks like. I am so excited to go on this journey. I'm really passionate about how we develop our leaders in business, because we do not do an effective job of it at all. I've seen it throughout my entire career, which has been a long one, that we do not do an effective job at preparing new leaders. We don't do an effective job at continuing to develop our leaders. We do not do an effective job of developing executive leaders and continuing to develop them. And I am really on a mission to change that practically and in a real way. As much as I am on a mission to change women in leadership in this country. Women in leadership has dropped significantly in the last 18 months, from an already low number. It has dropped from 34% in 2024 to, in 2026, it's now at 30%. And that goes into single digits once you get into the C-suite.
So I'm on a mission to also develop women in leadership. There's going to be some very specific conversations surrounding this topic, surrounding women in leadership and the challenges that we face and some of the really bad advice that we're given and the systems that we find ourselves in. So I am really passionate about leadership writ large. I'm passionate about women in leadership. I'm also passionate about revenue, because when organizations are building revenue, they're supporting their communities, because they're hiring more people. They are really helping to drive… not, I'm not talking about shareholder growth, I'm talking about people growth within the organizations, because when the people in the organizations are thriving, business is thriving, we take care of our customers, but revenue is immediately affected by poor leadership.
So I really hope you'll join me for these candid, thoughtful, sometimes frank, sometimes funny, sometimes it's going to challenge you too. Y'all, I'm just going to tell you, it's going to challenge you, because there's going to be some uncomfortable conversations that we have and like, stay through, stay through it with us, because we have to challenge what we are currently thinking. We always have to challenge norms. We always have to look for better ways to lead. And some of those conversations are not always comfortable. Just because, guess what? Leadership, just like life, is messy. They're messy in beautiful ways. They're messy in some not-so-beautiful ways. But life and business and leadership is messy. It just is. And the sooner that we are OK with that and learn how to work through those messy bits and appreciate some of the beautiful messy bits, the better off we are all going to be.
Please feel free to send in any topics that you would like to hear from, because I love to build our topic structure off of what you want to hear about. So I don't want to be just about what Elisa says you need to hear. So please feel free, there's going to be links in the bios, links in the show notes. Please feel free to reach out with any suggestions on topics in which you would like for us to discuss. And who knows, maybe I'll have you on the show to discuss why you wanted to talk about it. All right. Thank you so much, everybody. I'm looking forward to walking through your path along leadership with you. Thank you.
And thanks for spending this time with me today on The Real Work Of Leadership. If this episode gave you something to think about, or better yet, something to act on, please take a minute to rate and review the show at ratethispodcast.com/realwork. And if you would like to learn more about working with me for my advisory services, our leadership accelerators and my one on one coaching, please visit HerRevenue.com. Until then, I'll see you next time.
