Amara Emuwa, Leadership Coach, Author "The Truth Behind Excuses"

  Welcome back, friends, to our podcast, Unlocking Your World of Creativity, and today I'm so glad to have as my guest Amara Emuwa, a leadership coach and author.

Her new book is The Truth Behind Excuses. Amara, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's good to feel your energy and see your smile. And, as we think about leadership as a creative practice, I'm so curious as these kind of defining moments you've had a lot of corporate HR experience in addition now to your own consulting practice.

What do you think influences executive and leadership development the

most? I am particularly very Passionate about authentic leadership. And for me, that answer the whole lot of questions that traditional leadership models did not. So based on my passion for authentic leadership, I would say that there are Two or three critical things that actually influence leadership, the self, the individual, the self, because authentic leadership, for instance, is self referential.

It talks more about the self than relationships, which then takes us to the outer environment, but these two play with the outer environment. So I would say the person, the individual at this time, let's call that self, the individual and then relationships. And then the environment.

That's great. And, the environment of work these days has certainly changed, more remote.

And I even think more multinational, more diversity even based on your own experience, Amara, you built your career in Lagos, Nigeria, now practicing and leading your company here in the States. What have you seen in this area of developing relationships across differences?

That's a good question, Mark, even though I think he's going to have a very complicated response.

It is a complicated

issue. Yeah, but I'm glad you brought that up because one of the things that I pride myself about is the fact that I see leadership from a multicultural lens. Inasmuch as leadership development principles are universal, I would say they are universal and I will explain. We all approach leadership and perceive leadership from cultural lenses.

And in all honesty, leadership is all about perception. Because that someone is effective is based on the perception of followers. Or what the people you're working with. So to a great extent, leadership is about perception. But I'll come back to your question, which is about that cultural nuances. That's what I think that, positions me stronger in this space.

And even in my studies of authentic leadership, I did that across Nigeria and United States comparing to see what kind of dynamics play in this field. Irrespective of which cultural categorization we use, Hofstede, anybody, you will find that Nigeria is at one end. United States is at the other end of whichever, let's even use hostage that talks about power distance, right?

That's number one or assertiveness, but let's say we part distance for a second. So Nigeria has a high power distance relationship. Us has low power distance relationship. What does that really mean for the leader? So it means that For people in Nigeria, Sub Saharan Africa, most, even most Asian countries that we see leaders as being superiors, right?

And the fact is also that leaders see themselves. as being superior over the people they are leading. That is completely different for United States and if you are that low power, ,distance culture. So things like that, even assertiveness, those things come into play. When you're leading a multicultural team simple things like eye contact, for instance, I was brought up not to look at superior people in the eye, but if I don't do that here, they will say, Oh, she's shifted.

She's hiding something. No. So when you work with leaders, you want to make them understand that you have different people in your team that are seeing you as the leader from different lenses. And so the honest is not on the followers is on the leader. And that's what authentic leadership for me is so powerful, because it doesn't only say this is what you need to do as a leader is tells you how to manage that process as a leader.

Yeah. Yeah,

so using this word power which I, it's very interesting. Now that I'm thinking about some of my multicultural multinational kind of meetings, sometimes it's knowledge power sometimes it's. Position powered that you respect the title but I do think in Asian markets, I saw this teacher power, that whoever was instructing, you deferred to them because they were the instructor.

So it's very interesting that you translate that into a power and a power distance kind of dynamic.

Yes, because that's really, that's also so important for the leaders to understand because it plays not just in your relationship, also communication. So sometimes you send out that direct unambiguous email and you find your Asian or Sub Saharan African team members.

reacting or responding differently. And in your head, that was supposed to be clear and direct, right?

Yes. And it's interesting. I was going to ask you about the juxtaposition of authenticity in the context of this power relationship that you're describing, how can the leader be real knowing that their team, their employees.

Their company might be looking at them not to be real , or to be stepping

out beyond that. Yeah. To be some superhero

that is something else that they're not.

Yes. Honestly, that's also a very fundamental good question. So authentic leadership has four dimensions.

And I mentioned this not to sound theoretical, because I actually just want to practicalize it for once. Okay, so it has four dimensions, right? It has What we call self awareness. Everyone is like, Oh, that's the foundation. But so it has self awareness and I will come to that. It has relational transparency.

It has what we call balanced processing and it has internal moral perspectives. So as a leader, let's even start with that self awareness and relational transparency for one second. So as a leader, one of the things you need to be aware of is In addition to who am I is what are my biases. What are those things that I have been subject to not because I wanted to, but because of the culture and everything else that I have imbibed.

And we expect leaders who, who want to be authentic, to be upfront with themselves, but you do a whole lot of soul searching ahead to actually identify those. And it's not a weakness, it's not a, it's not a struggle of any sort, it's the fact that I know who I am. And I know that I have this biases, and sometimes they do come into play one in my relationships in my interactions in my decisions.

And so being aware of that is so important. And it's, it then takes us to the second dimension that I mentioned, which is. Relational transparency, and sometimes you want to even acknowledge that openly, to your team, because all you're trying to create is that access. Not so that they are aware that you're just like any one of us on that.

You're also working on something. And the fact that you know that this exists actually endears you to your team members.

And that is an interesting balance. You were just there are some traditional leadership expectations. We expect leaders to play this role or to be sometimes a cheerleader. Sometimes, true manager, certainly a strategist. And yet. Your biases, your experience. This worked at my last company, so I'm sure it's going to work again.

Or it didn't work in my last company, so we're not going to try that again. It is a position of impact either way. Yeah, they're looking to make a difference.

And so we believe that your impact is increased as well when you're able to carry people along. We actually encourage authentic leaders or anyone who wants to be authentic, lead authentically to your stories, use your stories, use the stories of your of your failures, use the stories of your success, use the stories of your doubts, the risks you took, talk about it so that people.

Because that's what connects you and that's how you're able to sell your vision. That's how you're able to sell that to them that shifts their mindset from, Oh, that's not Superman. That's a human being. And as soon as you're able to make that in road, you win. You win everyone in your organization. And that's how impact grows.

Really. Yes.

Can you think of a leader and maybe this is somebody you've coached? Maybe this is somebody you use as a, as an example, but can you think of a leader who made that kind of transformation that said, I know I'm in the role to make a difference, but I also need to be self aware, transparent, build relationships.

Can you find a story that you might share with us?

I did write this story about former CEO of Alco sometime like that when he was given the Aluminium Company, the American Aluminium Company, that when he was given that responsibility, and I will come to a leader that I have worked with, but I think I wanted to mention this, that people in this place would remember, and I'm trying to remember his name right now.

Anyway, at the time when he was given, he ended up being also like energy secretary for George W. Bush. So when he took over that company, his first meeting and his first meeting with shareholders and all the stakeholders. And everybody was expecting him to come talk about how they're going to cut costs and all the great things that he was going to achieve.

And he got into the meeting and he says, I want to talk about safety.

The way I went, at least that's how this was written. Everywhere was quiet. Actually, somebody said, who this guy must be crazy. Like I'm leaving. I'm going to tell my clients to sell their stocks this afternoon, because this guy must be crazy. Fast track. It didn't take up to two years. He actually believed that if he can connect with what is important to the people, and if he can bring down that safety accident rate in the company, what that, that is important to the people as well as it is for the company, history and whatever has it that the stock of Armenian company doubled.

But all he started with was what was important to the people. It wasn't what was important to the lenders or to the shareholders. Eventually he worked in, he worked his way to that. But it's interesting to know that most great leaders, and I worked with one. With a leader who, when he came to Nigeria said, I know nothing, which was very different from all the leaders we've had, he says, I'm going to depend on you people to build this company because you have the relationships.

Your uncles and your people you went to school are the ones in the government. So I am going to depend on you people and I'm going to work with you people, and I'm going to use everyone in this organization strategically, I am open to listening. Again There are people you know who are big time leaders out there, and there are people, I don't want to call any political leader because I don't have any political affiliation, but there are political leaders also who, irrespective of what noise is going on, want to connect with what is important.

To their people. So I think that the point I'm trying to make is when a leader is also able to empathize when a leader is able to be vulnerable. That's the word we use in this when you are able to show vulnerability for the authentic leader. It is not a weakness. It is a strength.

Very good.

I'd like to talk to you about your new book. Now, the truth behind excuses and there's tension right in the title excuses. We want performance. No excuses. I'm sick of excuses. We're going to win or we're not going to win, but we're not going to make excuses. And yet, there's truth behind the excuses.

Tell us about

ed to work with them up until: 2016

And I realized that They were always coming up with one excuse or the other about why they wouldn't do their work. And at this level in organization, I was like, this is not real. There's something that is not working for me here. And then I said, I need to know a bit more why we make excuses.

And I started paying attention because Prior to this, I hear, my kids make excuses all the time but it's never hit me to the point where I wanted to pay attention to what kind of excuses, when do people make excuses, and then started probing, why do we make excuses? And so that was what led me into the research for the book is to understand why humans make excuses.

And it was particularly important for me because when I was with this group with myself, or others, and that I made excuses devalue us as human beings. They actually reduce our values and we've never really paid attention to it. So that's what led me into that.

And where did you find the line, and I know it's a fine balance, right?

But, it was the economy. It was the weather. It was the holidays. So I couldn't reach anybody to make sales. It was a pandemic, which we've all used. And but CEOs and on down the organizational lines they make. Now, that means they found a reason or there must be an obstacle.

There's something we couldn't overcome, whatever that would be, but where do some people find the challenge in those obstacles and overcome them? And where do people just rationalize sort of their shortcomings?

I like the word rationalize. Okay. First, let me. Start by saying that we make different kinds of excuses, and it's important to make that distinction, right?

Excuse is excuse, but it's not always excuse. I don't know if that makes any sense. But, so we make different kinds of excuses. Sometimes we responsibly to want to accept I would, I accept responsibility. And then you hear the next sentence is like, So there are situations where we want to discount the failure a little bit.

Not that we want to completely take ourselves out of it. So we discount the failure a little bit. And there are situations where we find a consensus, look, this happens all the time. , so please cut me some slack right here. And so there are situations also where we want to, what I call the when we stretch the accountability a little bit, for instance.

Mom, this exam room today was so hot. Everybody was sweating. I don't think anyone finished. This person has absolutely no clue whether anyone finished or not, but is setting you up to lower your expectations. He's not making, he hasn't made any excuse so far. Just setting you up to lower your expectations.

So there are times when we do that. Athletes do that a whole lot. Press conference. Watch the next press conference before any big event. They want to lower your expectation. They haven't made any excuses whatsoever. Again, what I'd say, oh, there are different routes we take. What the key thing I really want people to take from this book is

there are things that Others are now, and that is to answer your question, there are things that people have done. It's not like they didn't have excuses to overcome that excuses, and that one of them is not procrastinating. pRocrastination and fear were the two main excuse inducing factors. And there are two types of fear we can get, we may or may not have to discuss that, but procrastination and in procrastination comes so many things comes this whole idea, part of it is fear, part of it is time.

No I try to say not having value for time. That's the way I put it because time is something that if you don't have value for it, you're done for, you're finished. Yes. So there are those dynamics that play in excuses. So there are ENTs to excuses. There are, strategies to managing excuses, but primarily we give excuses because we want to. Defend our ego. We want to manage our impression of how others see us.

You mentioned taking responsibility, and accountability for our decisions and our value of time, for example, but is there A habit of excuses that develops, when you're early in your career and you say, sorry, I was late.

Traffic was awful. The train was late. My plane was late. There was snow. Whatever the excuse is, does that build up? Do you get a habit of making excuses? And then all of a sudden you're a leader, you're an exec VP, you're a leader in government and you find yourself saying, it wasn't my fault.

They were external.

Exactly. Mark, I'm glad you brought that up. Excuse giving itself is defined as a pattern of ascribing or attributing failures to external influence, external factors. That's, you actually just define the excuse by that thing, by that expression. That's what it is.

So it becomes habit, because There are two words, right? A pattern is a pattern. That means it's something that we do so often. And if you don't check it, it becomes a habit. And it actually follows what psychologists call the three Q, there's a Q for excuse. There is the action you take and there is a reward.

And that's what makes, that's how we do it. That's how we form habits, right? And so that's the same pattern. That's the same thing as cases does. So when a situation arises, I just said the truth is that you woke up late. It wasn't, there's always traffic between here and DC where there is, if you don't live at six 55, you will be late.

So it was not traffic is actually that you didn't wake up on time, but you're not about to tell your boss that you didn't wake up on time. So it is. Traffic. And that's content. And when you say that you feel better, like the boss is not going to think that you are sloppy or you're tied to your because so that's what excuses do for us.

They are like, they make us feel good. And we feel like We have impressed the other person and sometimes even though we look foolish, we don't realize that.

And our audience, is filled with designers, artists, authors, and other creative practitioners. And we are the kings and queens of excuses.

And you must have experienced this yourself as an author, right? How many excuses did you come up with about why this book isn't finished yet? One. Like, why are you gonna do it? We've all done it. I'm not doing the whistle on you. Why ?

Yeah. Why are you doing this to me? Honestly it's interesting that you asked that.

Someone asked me also why did I write the book? I said it was. An idea whose time has come as, and it's not like this is a new idea I said is, it's like one of those times you receive a message from God, or from the universe and you're wrong with it because honestly, I, my first book was going to be on leadership, basically, not on this so to answer your question.

There wasn't a lot of excuses about writing it there was a lot of excuses about publishing it. Yes.

Yes.

So I was going to publish it last year. No, it was two years ago and then it was going to be last year. And I was like, okay, I'm researching editors, who is going to edit the book.

And I was like, it would take me this. But yes, like every other person. One of the things that pushed me. To get to the end with this book was actually what I tell every other person begin with the end in mind. I always believe that if you have an anchor of the end in mind, it should, it drives everything else.

And no matter what excuses you come up, you're able to actually overcome those excuses because You are focusing on what you have seen everything is created twice, right? I got into COVID. So that create that first creation where it had gotten to the end, because with the first creation, you've gone from beginning to the end.

And because that. picture is right in your head. It helps you overcome everything else behind. I have said it is not so easy. There are other things you have to do. Like I said, key for me is to begin with the end in mind. And the second thing is to actually set very clear goals for yourself, break it down.

That's why I was so impressed with the gentleman that, you spoke with the podcast, I think that you posted last week that said, if you're going to, don't say you're going to sing at the opera, say, I'm just going to sing a song tomorrow or something like that, so break things down like that into smaller texts, but between the end and everything else, another key thing for me which I have written and talked a lot about is causal exploration, because most of the times when we hit a block, we stop and we're like, we, that's it.

You won't explore why that and if forget what You're writing like, what's that block. So you hit a block in chapter five, deal with chapter. Don't worry about chapter six or seven that hasn't happened yet, so what is it about chapter five that is causing this block. Does it mean that chapter four.

Didn't end how it should have ended. Just exploring a little bit about that is also helpful. I won't want to talk about time management here at all because so many people have talked about that. In the book and what I tell myself, great people, you wrote a book, everybody, great people have achieved everything with 24 hours.

God is not about to change it for me. We all

have the same time so that to dig a little deeper. And again, I am not trying to call you out

because

you mentioned that hey, writing the book, became smoother, maybe than publishing the book. Yeah, so you got to this stage and you said. Is it time?

Is it fear? Am I questioning myself? Am I saying is a good enough? What? What were some of those creative obstacles that came up for you and actually getting the book

out? One of them is. What you just said who wants to read this book, by the way, so that was one of them. The first class we had in my PhD studies, the very first class we had the professors.

We're like, don't ever love anything you've written, do not love anything you've written. So I in my writing, never that the reason they say that is so that you're open to, you can call it criticism, but you're open to all the ideas about the book, right? So one of them was what you said. Is this good enough?

Who else should look at this book for me? And so that was one of them. Second was when is the right time? Forgetting that when I wrote the book is the right time, right? So there was then again, is this the right time? Is this not the right time? So there was also that like everyone else.

Yes, I hesitated a little bit about putting it out there. I also wanted to find understand publishing journey. Honestly, publishing is a journey. So I didn't know beyond, okay, you need an editor. I didn't know you need different kinds of editors, by the way, anyway. So there was also that. So I wanted to, so I had, I wanted to I thought.

Publishing is publishing. And then when I had two of my professors read the book and come back with comments, and then it was time to look for it. So those, but yes, I went through the whole thing. If you had a person, is this good enough? Should I put myself out there with it? Or should I not?

Is this the right time? Or is it not? Yes, I did have those questions like, yes.

But it's good that you distinguish between the self doubt side of things and that I need more information to push ourselves to learn more and to say, I don't really know this process or I don't really know this industry or whatever the case might be, it's like we have to continue to push

ourselves.

Mike, that can also be a cop out. I have to tell you a little bit about depending on which personality type, but. I use cultural talk. This Cynthia will be very happy with this, but so there's the search part of me, which does research all the time, which is probably the reason I read a lot on research.

So I can research something. I recall researching something for so long. My son said, mom, you've done enough research get on with it. So I can be here researching the same thing. And I talked to him all the time about it. And then I talked to him again about my findings. I think it was like three months or four months.

He says, mom, you've done enough research. Get on with it. So sometimes it could also be a compartment I'm hiding. Intentionally, but because for me, it's like another excuse where you haven't failed or you have not it's not like you haven't done it, you're doing it, you're doing something, but honestly, you're just boiling water and it's going on and on and nothing else.

It's been added to it. Yeah. And

finally, it's time to push the send button. Let's get it out there. Yes. Yeah. Tell us where we can find the book and learn more about your work.

Oh, thank you. Anyone listening you can find the book. The truth behind excuses is on Amazon. And you can also go through my website, authentic transformations.

I would say that If anyone listening there, you're looking to get a good coach, a career coach, executive coach for yourself or for your organization, please contact me on LinkedIn. I'm Mara Imua, I'm on LinkedIn. My website is authentictransformations. net. So please get in touch and let's talk about how we can help you.

The managers in your organization differentiate themselves and build capability to deliver at high level.

Wonderful. I hope people reach out. And what else are you working on? What's next for you? What are you up

to? So I have a leadership roundtable coming up in

January where I want to explore some of the things you mentioned here.

What are those issues that managers are dealing with in organizations today that, that they need help with? So I want to get the views of decision makers in organization and how they're working on that. Also working, believe it or not, on another book leading from the core of excellence.

How, how authentically does lead with courage and purpose. So that's in the, that is, that's in the works. And I also have another podcast coming up in January, I believe. Yes, please go to my, pardon? Yeah,

wonderful. We'll look forward to hearing all this and reading more of your research.

Amara, as we close, I'd love for you to give us a piece of inspiration and motivation to overcome some of these excuses to act more authentically, but to get our work out. What could you speak to our creative listeners?

I would say one thing and I said it at the beginning. Do not let excuses bring down the value of your life, because the problem with excuses is that they kill the desire to aim higher.

So I would want all the listeners to please watch How excuses could rob you of the value and of the talent God's given to you and for all the leaders there that I've talked about authentic leadership when I talk about two things how to lead as uniquely you, you have everything it takes to lead effectively, you don't need to be a fake.

You don't need to copy anyone else. And so when you work with me, I'll help you to bring out those strengths. And like I said, there are tools that you can use to be as effective as you want to be and to get your performance to that level that you desire.

So terrific. Great insight that these excuses can rob us of getting our talent out there and getting the light and attention it deserves.

Thanks for sharing that. And thanks for being on the show. You've got a great energy and so much insight. You can tell it's well researched, but it's also, inspirational, which doesn't always happen together. It can be very factual, but it's got to be motivating too. And so thanks for sharing all that.

Thank you, Mark. Thank you for

having me. You bet. Unless there's my guest has been Amara Emuwa. She is a leadership coach. Her company of practice is Authentic Transformations. And her new book is called The Truth. behind excuses. So come back again next time, listeners, as

we're continuing our Around the World journeys, talking to practitioners about how they get inspired and how they organize ideas and how they gain the confidence and the connections to launch their work out into the world.

I'm Mark Stinson, and we'll be unlocking your world of creativity.