Lead Into It
Lead Into It is your go-to podcast for real, actionable leadership insights—no title required. Whether you're leading a team, a project, or just yourself, host Sara Greco brings you powerful conversations with leaders from corporate, nonprofit, hospitality, the U.S. military, and beyond. Each episode delivers tactical tools, fresh perspectives, and lasting inspiration to help you lead with confidence in your career and life.
Because leadership isn’t about a title—it’s about action.
Are you ready to lead into it?
Lead Into It
53. Season Wrap-Up: On Commitment and Community
It’s the end of the season, and in this finale episode, I’m reflecting on what I’ve learned from the incredible leaders who joined me. We’re talking about the ripple effect of leadership, why commitment matters more than motivation, and the reminder that no one should lead alone.
If you’ve ever wondered how your words as a leader echo beyond the workplace — or felt the weight of trying to get it all right — this one’s for you.
Tune in for a heartfelt wrap-up and a few of my favorite takeaways.
I'm also getting ready for next season and I want to hear from you. What leadership challenges are you facing? What do you want to explore next season? Drop me a note at Sara@leadintoit.co.
Let’s keep growing, together.
Let’s keep the conversation going—connect with me on Instagram and LinkedIn, subscribe to my Sunday newsletter, or reach out at sara@leadintoitco.
Excited to be back with you!
You're listening to episode 53 of the Lead into a Podcast. Hello and welcome to the episode that is going to close out the season of 10 episodes. I'm so excited to talk with you all about this past season, all the things that I've learned, what still resonates with me and just kind of a reflection of what I have seen and heard and what I hope to continue for the next upcoming season that'll happen in the fall. So we've reached the end of the season and I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on all the things that I've learned still, what sticks with me and why the season meant so much. In a newsletter a couple of weeks ago, I shared what my word of the year was, and that word was commit and I felt very determined to commit, especially to the season of Lead Into it.
Speaker 1:For some weird reason, as I mentioned earlier in the intro episode to the season, it was very challenging for me to kind of hop back on board this podcast. I love this podcast. I learned so much every single episode and I wanted to make sure that I committed to finishing out this season of 10 episodes and let me tell you it was hard. It's very challenging to do these episodes and to make sure that they get done. And then, when I started out the season, I always feel like I have so much content, so much information, and then, as you get closer to the end of the 10 episodes, you're like, oh, I need another episode, I need another episode. And with me, using the word commit, I was realizing that I was bringing it up in my conversations on a day-to-day basis. It was something that was top of mind for me, because I was very focused on making sure that this goal of mine was going to be completed, and so, with that and that determination, I was able to complete it. Without that, without that word of that reminder of committing, I don't think I would have finished the season, because there's literally, I think, two or three episodes that came up because I was having conversations with people about the podcast that I was committed to completing, and I'm so grateful for that, because I was able to see how these all came out to fruition and became completed. All came out to fruition and became completed, and this podcast season was worth every minute, every episode.
Speaker 1:I learned so much from every single person I had on the podcast, and each guest continues to teach me something new, something I didn't realize I need to learn, or they reminded me of things that I needed to do, that I had forgotten, and so I think the episodes that I mean every single episode resonated with me. I learned so much from every single person I brought on the show and I think what I continue to learn through this experience of learning about leadership is one how important leadership is, the leadership around you, the leadership that is surrounding you impacts so much of your day-to-day life, and whether it's informal leadership or formal leadership, I mean me personally. While the season was going, I had experienced all different forms of leadership bad, good, in between, neutral, my own leadership and I could see continuously how these little moments of leadership built and helped me grow, not only for this podcast, but for my own leadership and what I hope to provide for others. I see how every person is different when it comes to leadership. Every characteristic of a leader is so different, and each person provides their own perspective and own form of leadership. Nothing is going to be cookie cutter for every single person and, in addition to that, everyone's reaction to the different forms of leadership is never going to be the same. So, even if there is a cookie cutter response to a form of leadership. Your response is not going to be that cookie cutter response. You're going to respond differently because you are human and everyone is different.
Speaker 1:So, understanding that, as I continue to move forward with these conversations and that's why some of these conversations, I love them dearly, some of the stuff I'm like I don't know if that's my specific type of leadership, but I always publish what I have because I think that everyone takes a little bit something different from each episode, and I love that. I think that everyone takes a little bit something different from each episode, and I love that. I think that that shows that leadership is different for every single person and there is no specific or exactly correct response. I will say, though, that, coming from these leadership conversations, is that I am continuously reminded how important leadership is, and also from my personal experiences. There was a gentleman, in his podcast episode, talked about the worthiness of being a leader, and it's not your worth because you have gained the respect or you've gotten a promotion or a title, or you have the experience in that realm. The worthiness comes from you understanding the responsibility of what it means to be a leader for others and to carry that weight with you as you continue to grow and be a leader for others, understanding how that worth can impact so many people. And I was recently reminded of this because of a situation where I had a leader that and it was several levels above, but it was incredible to see how this leader could impact so many people and their lives and bring.
Speaker 1:This is hard to share, because it's like I don't want to share too much, but also I want to share just how impactful like one person's decision and one person's reaction can have to a group of like 20 people, and I mean or even more than 20 people, because I've saw churn. I saw people being impacted trying to figure out what was wanted, what was needed, because all they wanted to do was support and help this person, but the person couldn't provide specific guidance or the feedback was varying throughout the time that we were working on this and there was just a lot of churn, a lot of extra energy trying to figure out what was wanted, because the leader did not provide specific enough feedback or it just wasn't correct. And me personally, I realized how much I was impacted by it because of, like my own previous experiences when it comes to the leadership world, and I could see how that, how I was reacting, how I was showing up, and there was a lot of moments where I was like, am I doing something wrong? And I wasn't sure. And this person's, this leader's reaction made me unsure, which is fine, like take the feedback. But I guess what I'm trying to say is I could see how one sentence from a high level leader impacted a group of about 10 to 20 people to either do more work 10 to 20 people to either do more work, adjust how they were doing the work, being unsure if they were doing the work correctly and thus creating multiple options, spending hours upon hours trying to figure out what the right answer was going to be, because they weren't sure, and, in turn, that affected their personal lives, because what extra hours were being spent at work was not being spent at home. And even if that extra time was being spent at home, how much of that emotional or mental energy was continuously being spent at work, even when they were in the home space. And so I wanted to bring that up as a reminder to everyone, saying if you lead one person, if you lead yourself, if you lead a hundred, understand the worth and the responsibility of your leadership and how that impacts every single person around you, because you might not know that you sending one email saying one thing could impact the mental energy of somebody's night.
Speaker 1:I think I brought this up in a previous episode, but there was a good comment that one of my previous guest messages from an earlier episode, jason Barnaby, and he brought up a conversation where his manager, as he was promoted to a new leadership role, he said to Jason are you ready to be the topic of conversation at dinner amongst your couples and families? And I think that's an interesting reminder to understand that when you are promoted into a role of leadership and you are supervising others, that your actions and what you do and your decisions are going to impact those around you and thus become topic of conversation between the people you supervise and their significant others. And that shows how impactful your role is in people's lives. And so I say this to say do not take that for granted. Take that for granted, understand the responsibility you carry as a leader and know that the decisions and comments and ways that you approach things is not just impacting yourself or your projects. It is impacting each person individually every single time you talk about those things or every single time you take an action and the season, the episodes and my personal experience continuously remind me of that. All of that to say wow. You, as a leader, have impact around others.
Speaker 1:I understand how much control you have as an individual, too, and you can lead yourself in ways that you and I mean me personally I continuously forget. You can choose how you show up. You can choose what you take responsibility for and how you respond. You choose what mental energy you get to be at home. You choose how much control you have. There's a lot of things that you do have control over, and there's a lot of things that you don't have control over. One you don't have control over other people's reactions. You don't have control over how people are going to take information that you provide to them. You don't have control over what's going on in somebody else's life when it comes to outside impacts. That is just part of their personal life. You do have control over your reactions, your response, how you want to take things and interpret things, who you want to be ultimately.
Speaker 1:And so I had a coaching session recently and we were talking about, uh, how to get better feedback, and something else that continues to come up in conversations throughout these episodes is, uh, how to set expectations and hold people accountable. I think a lot of times, we expect to hear that from others, but we don't even know what our own expectations are of ourselves. That from others, but we don't even know what our own expectations are of ourselves. So, when you're asking for feedback or to be held accountable, what is that measurement that you're asking to be held to? Who do you want to be as you continue to grow, and if you are holding yourself accountable to that, what does that look like? And so I would encourage you to ask that question moving forward as you're growing in your career, as you're reaching for those goals, who do you want to be and what expectations do you have for yourself and how can you hold yourself accountable? And then, how can you ask others to hold you accountable in those moments as well? Because that's a huge aspect of what you can control and how you can determine how you want to show up.
Speaker 1:Another thing that continuously came up in conversations throughout the season was that leadership is not about being perfect. In fact, I would say it's about feeling as much as you can, because that's how you learn, and I know Sarah Blakely from Spanx talks about how she grew up and she had dinners with her dad and her dad would ask their entire family how did you fail today? And that would be the topic of conversation. And when it comes to leadership, there's a lot of moments where we have to make decisions and I've felt this personally. I know others have too when you're afraid to make a decision because you're afraid it's going to be the wrong decision.
Speaker 1:When I was at Charleston, I was leading a team of about 20 people and that's when the Afghanistan withdrawal was happening and our team on the ground was going in Charleston, was going to be involved in a major aspect of the Afghanistan withdrawal. And when it comes to public affairs, I had to figure out how to provide the historical coverage because it was going to be a newsworthy event, and so we had to preemptively decide how we were going to take photos, take videos. And I remember thinking this was on a Friday that I had to make a decision of are we going to go on 24 hour ops and on Friday I had to tell my team that we were going on 24 hour ops for the weekend, and it was a decision I did not make lightly and honestly I hate that I had to take away people's time, but the decision was made because I knew for the future of the military aspect of what we needed. The video and photos of what was going on was going to have a major impact on the news coverage. Leadership is about making decisions and it is hard to make decisions.
Speaker 1:This season also reminded me that leadership isn't perfect. Being a leader, you're going to make a lot of mistakes continuously. That is just part of the process of being a leader and there's many ways that you can try to approach the aspect of not being perfect. What's come up a lot in these conversations is everyone's human. If you're an individual contributor and you're butting heads with your leader, your leader's probably thinking we're butting heads and I don't know why. I think the biggest thing is giving grace to all those people that surround you when it comes to being a leader, because you don't know what people are going through personally and being a leader is a human endeavor. It is something that will forever evolve, forever change, and how you approach it will evolve and change.
Speaker 1:There is no perfect leader.
Speaker 1:There's no perfect leader.
Speaker 1:There's as much as I have leaders that I admire as much as there are people who I think are really great leaders. There will never be a perfect leader. Everyone will make mistakes, everyone will make a wrong decision, and that is part of it. And part of the reason I'm saying this aloud is because it is a reminder for myself too, as someone who really tries hard to be, probably, a perfect leader, because I would love to think that, as a leadership coach, that I would be a perfect leader, and that is absolutely 100% false. And I would love to say that I have all the answers and I've seen all the things. But I can tell you from a day-to-day experience that I myself have to remind, as well as my friends have to remind me, that, oh, this experience is going to be a really good opportunity to learn about leadership.
Speaker 1:Why don't you talk about this experience on your podcast? Why don't you talk about you know? This will only make you a better leadership coach. Oh, it's so frustrating to hear, because sometimes, you know, I just want all the answers too, as I'm sure everyone does. If we had all the answers to being the perfect leader, wouldn't that make the world so much better? And I will say that's part of the intent of this podcast and my leadership coaching is because I would love to create easier, simpler experiences when it comes to being in the workplace and growing in your career and growing in your career.
Speaker 1:But it's messy. Leadership is a messy experience and while we can try to be the best leaders that we can be, I think the understanding that giving grace is probably the best experience that you can have on both ends. So earlier I talked about the experience with I saw a leader who, like, impacted a lot of people. There's moments where I take a step back to and, while it frustrates me to no end to see somebody who does not understand the impact of their decisions and how they react to others, I also remind myself that I need to give them grace because I don't know what their personal experience is in this moment. They might be under a lot of stress, they might be going through a lot of other personal aspects of their life. So it is understanding that maybe it's not personal and maybe this is me just expressing how I'm feeling when it comes to experiencing moments of different types of leadership over the course of the past six months, but leadership feels personal because it does impact a lot of different aspects of our life, but it isn't personal overall.
Speaker 1:And so what you're hearing, what I'm hearing myself say, is two different perspectives. One is that you should understand the worthiness and responsibility of the being a leader and what it carries, but also understand that leadership is a human endeavor and we're not perfect. Leadership is a human endeavor and we're not perfect. And so, with those two bookends which sometimes feel like the opposite ends of spectrum kind of meet in the middle, and I understand that leadership is a journey and there's going to be ups and downs and it's going to be a roller coaster and it's all about who you want to be in the end.
Speaker 1:As I build the next season, I'm really excited. I have some people lined up for interviews and, again, I just love talking with people and the best thing about these podcast interviews for me personally is that I get to have the conversation once and then I listen to it when I'm editing it and I gain so much through that second time of listening. And so I'd love to know what is on your mind and what you want to hear about, and what topics are you craving. I talked to my friends about this and I have received feedback on some of the episodes and I'm glad to hear that so many people are getting a lot of good information from these episodes and learning from them. But I really want to make an impact on. Maybe there's an area in which you want to hear about personally, and I'm in a silo sometimes when it comes to leadership, because I have my own experiences. So what is that experience that you're like? Oh, I just I have no idea how to approach it, and there's a lot of things where I think we're just kind of told to deal with it.
Speaker 1:And what if there was somebody out there who had an answer? And I'd love to try to find that for you. So send me an email, sarah at elite into it. That's in the show notes. Feel free to Instagram, dm me or follow up through my newsletter, and I'd be happy to find these answers for you, because no one should have to go through a leadership journey on their own. It is a commitment and it is a community event being a leader.
Speaker 1:If you are doing leadership on your own, you're doing it wrong. There's no way to be a leader on your own, no way, and so I will tell you right now if you are like I'm just doing it on my own, I'm not seeking any advice. That is the absolute wrong way to do it. There is a community out there. You should have at least one person that you are bouncing ideas off of, and so let's create that community here of your sounding board, of your cabinet of people who you have, maybe a devil's advocate, maybe somebody who is somebody who you admire. Let's create that community here, and I'd love to create that sounding board or that cabinet or that mentor for you in this podcast in some way shape or form. So send me your questions, send me your concerns, send me a situation that you're encountering that you're like I have no idea how to approach this, and we will work to create. It might not be the answer, but maybe a path or a way forward for you. And, last but not least, thanks for being on this journey with me.
Speaker 1:Again, I have so much fun doing these episodes and, yes, they're a lot of work. I think they're worth the time and the effort If it helps one person to either explore an experience in a different way or help to be a better supervisor, because if we have better leaders in the world, then people see what good leadership is like, and then they also create the world of better leadership for the people that are after them, and it is a 100% trickle effect. I just I know that people are going through hard times all over when it comes to trying to figure out the next step in their career building a business, uh, working with somebody who they're just like. I like this person, but I feel like I'm not working the best that we can together and we can help create that experience to help make it a little bit easier and to help grow in ourselves and in others.
Speaker 1:And I love this journey. I love it. It's hard, it's messy, it's. It has really good moments. It has hard moments. I mean there's laughter tears, I mean it's. I mean there's laughter tears. I mean it's the whole wicked of leadership, is the whole thing. But ultimately, I'm loving this journey and I hope that you continue joining me with it.
Speaker 1:The next season will come out in the fall. Look out for another set of episodes coming out in the fall. Until then, you can find me on Instagram, which is linked in the show notes, and feel free to sign up for my weekly newsletter, which comes out on Sunday. But ultimately, I want to make this leadership journey easier and more fun and more approachable, and I just I hope that you take this journey with me. So thank you all again. This incident's been so fun and I can't wait to talk to you further in the fall. Thanks for listening to another episode of lead into it. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean a lot to me If you would leave a review on Apple podcast or Spotify to help future listeners. If you want to learn more about the podcast or me, go to leadintoitco. That's leadintoitco. Thanks again.
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