252. The Delegation Dial and Leadership Dynamics with Mick Spiers

Ever notice how the leadership qualities you aspire to can vanish under pressure? That calm, thoughtful presence replaced by reactivity and micromanagement when deadlines loom? You're not alone.

Drawing on wisdom from executive coach and former Microsoft leader Sabina Nawaz, this episode unpacks a profound truth: pressure doesn't create your leadership tendencies—it reveals them. When stakes rise, we default to ingrained habits rather than our aspirational values. As Sabina brilliantly puts it, "Power doesn't corrupt, pressure does."

The conversation explores four game-changing leadership concepts you can implement immediately. First is the Delegation Dial—a visual metaphor for adjusting your leadership approach based on the person and situation rather than defaulting to one style. Next, we confront the uncomfortable reality that power naturally isolates you from truth as people filter feedback and hesitate to challenge your thinking. This isolation explains why organizations suffer most when passionate people go quiet.

Perhaps most transformative is the deceptively simple Multiple Meanings Exercise. Before reacting to someone's behavior, pause and consider at least three possible interpretations. This creates space between stimulus and response—space where actual leadership happens. It transforms frustration into curiosity and judgment into empathy.

What leadership habits are you practicing daily that will emerge when everything's on fire? Who's telling you the truth when it matters most? How might your assumptions be limiting your effectiveness? This episode will challenge you to answer these questions honestly and provide practical ways to become the leader you aspire to be, especially when it's hardest.

Subscribe to The Leadership Project and join us next time as we explore creating cultures of creativity and inclusive storytelling with Jamie Wolfe and Dr. Chris Bell. What leadership challenge are you facing where these concepts could make a difference?

Chapters

• 0:00 Pressure Reveals, Not Creates
• 3:49 The Brilliance of the Delegation Dial
• 5:50 Power Isolates You From Truth
• 8:56 The Multiple Meanings Exercise
• 11:59 Reflection and Looking Ahead

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

What happens to your leadership when the pressure is on, when deadlines loom and expectations rise and you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders, how do you show up and, more importantly, how do you stay true to the leader you want to be, not just the one you default to under stress? In today's conversation, it's going to be a solo cast where I unpack what I took away from the amazing conversation with Sabina Nawaz, a celebrated executive coach and former Microsoft leader whose work has touched thousands of people around the globe. Welcome back to the Leadership Project. I'm your host, mick Spears, and today's episode 252 is going to be a solo cast where I reflect on the recent and incredibly insightful conversation with Sabina Nawaz. We spoke in this conversation about how pressure, not power, can push leaders into poor habits, the brilliance of what she calls the delegation dial and the confronting truth that power isolates you from the truth and, finally, a really deceptively simple but very transformational exercise called the multiple meanings exercise. That's what we'll be unpacking today, so let's get into it.

Mick Spiers: 1:18

The first point is that pressure reveals, not creates. Sabina shared a deeply personal story how, after returning from parental leave into a high-pressure executive role, she found herself becoming a micromanager, short-tempered and reactive, not because she stopped caring, not because she didn't have leadership skill, but because the pressure was relentless and she didn't realise the toll it was taking on her behavior. This hit home for me because we've all been there. Under pressure, the very values we hold dear can start to slip, not intentionally but subtly. We cut corners, we raise our voices, we stop listening and we justify it all with just this once or they, they'll understand, or this is what the situation calls for. But here's the thing your leadership is not defined by how you perform. When things are easy, it's revealed when things are hard. Power doesn't corrupt, pressure does. That's one of the most powerful lines from Sabina's interview, and it flipped the script on a familiar quote we've all heard before.

Mick Spiers: 2:30

So my question to you is this what do you fall back on when you're under pressure, and are those habits helping or hurting your leadership? I'm going to say this is when the moments really count, where you need to be even more intentional with how you're showing up. You need to be more calm, you need to be more deliberate, you need to do more listening. Some of the greatest leaders I've ever worked with were the ones that were able to remain calm under pressure, to be able to listen deeply to all of the viewpoints in the room about what needs to happen here, the one that made everyone feel that they were part of it but was still able to summarize at the end of the conversation and give clear direction about what we're going to do next. It wasn't those that just took over and started being directive everywhere. It was the calm ones that took everything in, was able to cut through the chaff and work out what needed to happen. So what is your leadership like? Under pressure, can you turn up the dial in terms of being more intentional, do more listening and then remaining calm and giving the team a clear direction as to what to do next.

Mick Spiers: 3:49

The next segment was about this concept called the delegation dial, and I love this. It's a brilliant concept. The delegation dial. It's a visual metaphor. Imagine a dial you can turn.

Mick Spiers: 4:01

All the way to the left is full control and micromanagement. All the way to the right is full control and micromanagement. All the way to the right is full autonomy and hands-off leadership. The point isn't to set and forget. The point is to adjust the dial based on the situation, the person and the context. This is what adaptive and situational leadership is all about. Adaptive leadership is adapting to the person. Depending on the person that's sitting in front of you, they may have different needs as to how much direction they need. It's very different to lead an intern compared to a 30-year veteran in your industry. So you need to adapt to the person that's sitting in front of you. And then situational leadership is adapting to what the situation is calling for. Are you in a crisis mode? Is it steady state operation? Are you going into new territory that no one's ever done before? So the true skill is knowing when to turn the dial and having the self-awareness and trust to do it intentionally. So ask yourself where is your delegation dial set right now and is it where it should be? Great leaders are the ones that know when to step in and step up and when to step back and empower and trust and let their team get on with it. One of the greatest things that you can do is get out of your team's road if they know what they need to do and they don't need you right now and knowing when to step in when they do need you, and having that right relationship with your team that they know when to escalate to you, when to bring you in. These are the things that can make you a truly great leader.

Mick Spiers: 5:45

The next topic from Sabina was this comment the power isolates you from the truth. Now think about that for a moment. When you step into a position of leadership, the dynamics change, often in ways you don't even notice. At first, people begin to filter their words, they sugarcoat feedback, they hesitate to challenge you, not because they don't care, but because you now hold positional power. Whether you like it or not, this is how it'll be perceived, and over time, if you're not intentional, a dangerous gap forms between how you think things are going and what your people are actually experiencing.

Mick Spiers: 6:29

It reminds me of Tim McClure's famous quote the greatest fear of any organization is when their most passionate people become quiet. Now let's unpack that for a while. It's not that they've got nothing to say, it's that the power dynamic has changed and they feel like it's not worth speaking up. So why do they go quiet? Is it because they feel like no one's listening? Because they've tried to speak up before and they've been ignored, dismissed or punished? Or because the truth became too costly to share? This really comes to the heart of psychological safety and about fear, and there is fear in organization. There's no such thing as fearless. But when we have psychological safety, it's because people perceive the benefit of speaking up being greater than the fear of doing so. And if you have achieved that, people will still find their voice and you won't have this issue that Tim is talking about, where people go quiet.

Mick Spiers: 7:30

But this is the risk of leadership without awareness. When people stop telling you the truth, it's not because everything is fine. It's because they no longer feel safe. And here's the scary part most leaders don't even realize it's happening. So I want to challenge you today who tells you the truth? Who's willing to challenge your thinking or push back with care and courage? And are you creating the kind of environment where the truth can surface despite any fear? Because real leadership isn't about looking like you've got it all together. It's about being open enough to hear what's really going on, even when it's hard.

Mick Spiers: 8:11

A true test of this is when someone does speak up. How are you going to react? And if you come down on them like a ton of bricks, I can guarantee you they're not going to speak up again next time. So when someone comes to you with an uncomfortable truth. Pause, take a few deep breaths and get curious. Ask them powerful questions, thank them for speaking up, say thank you so much for telling me this. Tell me more. That will be what creates the environment where people are willing to tell you the truth. And the final one from the conversation with Sabina this was a really amazing concept. It's very simple but also very powerful the multiple meanings exercise.

Mick Spiers: 8:56

The premise is simple Before you react to someone's behavior, pause and ask yourself what else could this mean? If someone's curt in a meeting, it doesn't necessarily mean they're disrespecting you. Maybe they're stressed, maybe they're distracted, maybe they just got some bad news. By exploring at least three possible meanings, you create space between stimulus and response and in that space you get to choose your response. You get to lead, not just react. I've started using this myself and I'll tell you it changes the tone of your conversations. It turns frustration into curiosity. It makes you a better communicator and makes you a more empathetic leader.

Mick Spiers: 9:41

So if you find yourself making assumptions about someone else's behavior, you start having questions in your head going oh, that person only did that because, or why did that person do that? And start going into almost an accusation mode. Stop and pause and think. Think of at least three different meanings as to what the person is doing and why they're behaving in the way that they're doing. And here's the funny thing Usually the simplest and most innocent explanation is usually the right one. It doesn't mean that there's not an issue there, but take the time, before you react, to think about what are three possible meanings for why they're doing what they're doing, why they're saying what they're saying and the way that they're behaving. So think what else could this mean? Then ask again, and ask again and make at least three meanings before you then get curious and go and ask them.

Mick Spiers: 10:39

So hey, notice that you weren't quite yourself in the meeting today. What's going on, are you okay? Get curious, notice that you weren't quite yourself in the meeting today. What's going on, or are you okay? Get curious, and then you can go and explore which of those meanings that you've come up with, or even a fourth meaning that you didn't think of. Get curious first, don't react.

Mick Spiers: 10:57

So a final reaction, like leadership, is hard. That's why you're listening to this podcast. It is hard, especially under pressure. But if there's one thing I took from Sabina's wisdom, it's this we have more power than we think, not over others, but over ourselves, over our tone, our presence and how we choose to respond. Pressure will come. Power dynamics will always exist, but we get to decide the kind of leader we become. So I'll leave you with this when are you feeling pressure right now? What's your delegation dial set to? Who's telling you the truth and what assumptions are you making that need to be challenged?

Mick Spiers: 11:42

Some of the keys to great leadership are intentionality about how you show up, and curiosity, to make sure you always remain curious about what's going on around you and how the people are in your team and in your business. So that's it for today's episode. In the next episode, I'm going to be joined by the amazing Jamie Wolfe and Dr Chris Bell and we're going to be exploring about how to create a culture of creativity and how you can create inclusiveness in your storytelling. Until then, remember to stay focused, stay intentional and stay curious.

Mick Spiers: 12:25

Thank you for listening to the Leadership Project at mickspearscom. A huge call out to Faris Sadek for his video editing of all of our video content, and to all of the team at TLP Joanne Goes On, gerald Calabo and my amazing wife Say Spears. I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to the Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey, as we learn together and lead together.