The primary focus of this podcast episode is the profound impact of effective leadership on organizational culture and individual empowerment. In this dialogue, we engage with Tinna Jackson, a distinguished executive coach and management consultant, who eloquently articulates the necessity of emotional intelligence and resilience within leadership roles. Tinna emphasizes the importance of cultivating genuine relationships and self-awareness as foundational elements for successful leadership. Throughout our conversation, we explore the nuances of navigating modern leadership, particularly amid evolving workplace dynamics shaped by technology and generational shifts. By drawing upon her extensive experience and insights, Tina provides a compelling framework for leaders seeking to enhance their influence and foster an environment of trust and collaboration.

Takeaways:

• The significance of building strong relationships in leadership cannot be understated, particularly in high-stakes environments such as politics.
• Emotional intelligence is increasingly essential for leaders, particularly as they ascend to higher organizational roles.
• Resilience is a crucial quality for leaders, particularly when facing challenging situations and decisions.
• The new generation of workers demands flexibility and self-care, which presents challenges for traditional leadership styles.
• Creating a culture of open communication and trust is vital for effective leadership and organizational success.
• The transition from political roles to corporate leadership requires adaptability and a keen understanding of organizational dynamics.

Links referenced in this episode:

• TinnaJackson.com

As women we admire.

Tina has also a best selling author of the Power Play Journal, Battle Tested Strategies and Reflections for Impactful Leadership and a Forbes Coaching Council Thought Leader.

Her mission is to empower and clear to help leaders step fully into their power with confidence, self awareness and intentional strategy.

Welcome to the podcast.

Absolutely.

Thank you for having me.

Should be a fun.

I'm looking forward to talking to you.

We have a lot of things we can we share in terms of our wanting to impact people's lives through leadership.

So I'm looking forward to where we can guide the audience and help them do that as well.

Yes, yes.

Thank you.

I'm going to ask you my favorite question.

What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Oh, yes, the.

The best piece of advice I've ever received is make sure you build strong, powerful leaderships, powerful relationships.

You know, working in the Senate, working in politics, just being in D.C. in general, you can't get anything done without strong relationships at all.

Right?

Right.

You can't, you can't reach across the aisle.

You just can't get anything done unless you have those good relationships, good, genuine relationships.

So that was probably the best piece of advice I've gotten over the years.

I love that and it's so true.

I can, I can imagine working in that situation, how difficult it is to get people to work on the same side for things.

So.

Yeah, I mean, you've got to be genuine, you know, and people can tell, you know, I mean, I'm sure you probably heard in D.C. you know, the first thing people ask is, hey, what do you do?

Who do you work for?

Right.

Ah, okay.

You didn't ask my name.

You didn't ask my name.

But.

Okay.

Right.

Guess your name is irrelevant compared to who you work for, right?

That's right.

That's right.

That's right.

So you've spent 30 years advising leaders in some of the most intense environments.

Imagine book.

So how would you describe your early years in D.C. and how did that shape your leadership lens?

Yeah.

You know, growing up.

Here, let me start with this.

There are different versions of D.C. okay.

I think this is, I think this is why people love it.

Right.

You've got the political piece, you've got a really big cultural piece.

Right.

And you also have historically black college here in the area.

Right.

You've got Howard University.

You've got Bowie State University, Towson State.

Like, so it's just a very different town.

And I would say some of the most defining lessons, other than the building of relationships, is being open and recognizing the people that you're around.

Like, knowing the rooms that you're in, being open to the different personalities and what they have to offer in every room that you're in, every room that you encounter.

It's funny.

Part of my doctoral dissertation was we had to go to D.C. and learn how the sausage is made.

And it was fun.

Cause one of our trips was to the Department of Education.

And so we got a tour of that and found out how they make policy.

We talked to the people who were kind of on upper levels, but also the people who work behind the scenes and make sure whatever comes down gets implemented.

We went over to the State Department and saw that and kind of got a sense of what that was like.

And you're right.

It was interesting to see the different parts of D.C. because I also love history.

So there was this beautiful collection of historical monuments and places and people who've walked these things.

And when you try to parse those things out and figure out, how do you survive in a town with so much history, so much.

I'm sitting there thinking, this is the seat of political influence and power, yet it's also this incredible historical monument, as well as you're kind of doing walking around both of those places.

Yeah, it's definitely the epicenter of American politics, for sure.

Right.

You've got.

The White House is here.

The federal government is here.

Yeah, it's a lot, for sure.

Yeah.

So you spent two decades in national politics, especially 10 years in the Senate.

That comes a lot of pressure.

Most people have never experienced.

What were some of the defining lessons you learned in your time serving in that role?

Yeah, I would say probably resilience is a big lesson to learn.

You don't learn it until you are faced with, you know, tough decisions, you know, tough, tough issues, tough leadership battles.

You know, just like any relationship.

Right.

Sometimes you outgrow people.

Sometimes you outgrow roles, too.

And I could tell you one of the tough things is, you know, in you and your own ambition, you getting promoted into other roles, and you.

You go from peer to manager of the people that you had built relationships with over the.

Over the years, over your tenure in an organization.

That's a tough transition.

And so the other part of that, too, on the resilience piece, is having the right mindset to.

To elevate your mindset while also bringing the other people along in the same, in the same vein, if that makes any sense.

Right.

Some, some people, when they go from peer to manager, they gravitational pull to stay with the people that they've been peers with for so long for fear of not, not wanting to seem like they're better than those that they've surpassed.

Right, right.

People get promoted for different reasons.

Sometimes it's communication.

Sometimes, sometimes people fail up, you know, sorry, it's Washington.

I've explore.

It's not just Washington, it's also the church sometimes.

So.

Right.

Some people fail up, some people can be controlled, you know, and so that's a difficult transition.

You have to have a good mindset and the resilience to be able to bounce back from those kinds of leadership dilemmas.

So I follow politics kind of from a distance.

I've gotten more actively following it lately.

It seems to me like it comes in cycles.

In D.C. you have a two year window where you may actually be productive.

Then it's election season.

So how do you.

And then things could radically change every four years.

How do you in that role navigate as a leader the fact that your life could radically be transformed by an election?

You have to know it going in.

Don't go into politics if you are not prepared for the immediate change that that could occur.

Right.

I mean, look, I worked for someone for 10 years and the person made a mistake and ended up having to resign.

Right.

You have to go in knowing that anything could happen.

You know, election cycles like for.

In the House it's two years, in the Senate it's six years, you know, it's four years for, for a president.

And so you have to know going in that anything can disrupt, can disrupt the cycle.

Right.

As I look at it, it seems to me like there's a year where there's things done, then there's a year of campaigning, no matter what cycle you're in, and then another year of productivity and another year of campaigning.

Is that.

Yeah, you could view it that way.

I think in the House.

I think in the House you're always running no matter what.

It's, it's a very short two year cycle.

As soon as you're in, you continue to fundraise, you continue.

It's a constant campaign.

I think in the Senate there's a little bit of breathing room because you've got six years before, five years before reelection.

And I mean obviously President, you're somewhat, always campaigning in different ways, whether you're trying to keep your Campaign promises or you're making new promises for that reelection period.

Right.

So what was the transition like from the Senate to the C suite?

I want to believe it.

It was no different because the Senate position, a deputy chief of staff, is similar to a COO role in a corporate entity.

I think the difference in the Senate is the pace is so fast.

There's this crazy anticipation and strategy of what might happen, what could happen.

If it doesn't happen, you take another route.

There's just constant planning and anticipation of what could be, I think in corporate or just going C level in general, you still have those plans, but the execution might be slow because you have to consider, you have more time to consider all the other variables and make sure you're making the right decision.

I think in fast paced environments, particularly in politics, you're making quick decisions based on the information you have at the time.

That's good.

I'm curious.

So you started Jackson Consulting Group where you help leaders make decisive moves.

What inspired you to be build your own consulting firm?

Oh, this is a good one.

So, you know, I realized throughout my career over the years that I had always been a senior advisor.

I'd always been the person operating under confidentiality and discretion.

And I've always had like the principal's ear in many ways.

Because of, by virtue of my role, I decided that I needed to take action on a lot of what I was seeing.

I saw a gap in general that in many organizations, not just in the Senate, not just in politics in general, but across the board, I felt like people were missing a really important piece in leadership, which was emotional intelligence.

Over the years, you see a lot of ego, a lot of things being ego driven, a lot of things being title driven, but no consideration for the people that implements and executes the vision and the work.

And I was like, there's a way to close this gap.

I wonder what it is.

And I just continue to investigate.

I continue to observe leaders in different environments, from nonprofit to, as you know, politics in trade associations.

And there was a common thread and it was, it was just ego and lack of emotional intelligence.

And so I stepped into my business full time at Jackson Consulting Group and I started to do executive coaching, organizational management consulting.

All of the things that I had done over the years in my previous roles.

I just decided to go out on my own and just do it externally.

Emotional intelligence is something that's kind of come on the scene a lot more recently and people starting to kind of pour into that part of my work in my studies, realized Came across a book that said the higher up the level the CEO goes or the leader goes, the less likely he is to understand emotional or she is to understand emotional intelligence.

Have you discovered that in your work that the farther you are from the people that do all the lower level work or the important cogs of the machine, the less likely you are to understand their emotional needs?

Yeah, I think it's the opposite.

Oh, okay.

I think you, I think it's important for everyone to know, but I think it's more important, you know, the higher up you go, the more you need to learn self awareness and the more you need to learn self regulation and transactional analysis.

Like the way that you're showing up in your ego in every situation so that you can control how you react and respond to things.

You know, as much as people would like to think that they're not offensive or they don't say anything, or you know, use nonverbal communication that people don't pick up on, I think as leaders it's important to, to learn how to react to those things.

And the only way to do that is through emotional intelligence is through self awareness and learning how to control your emotions.

But, but before that, understanding why you react the way you react, because there's always something there, there's always something uncovered.

There's always some sort of unresolved trauma that could be triggered in the workplace.

I'm reading a book now, Digital Body Language.

I'm curious, what challenges does the digital space contribute to, especially for executives realizing the digital language that they're putting out?

Like I was reading a part of the book where it talked about one leader would get an email and they would give a short answer back to a very long email.

The person receiving the email thought that they'd angered the executive and so they were all hyper about the fact that they didn't give a long, detailed thought out response.

I'm curious, do you also deal with the fact that the digital space is making communication even more complicated than just the face to face interaction?

Look, I think it's a digital space.

I think it's also the fact that Covid did a number on us and many people are still remote.

I think it's difficult to build and maintain relationships.

It's worse than ever because there's something to be said for being in the same space with someone when you're working with them.

And instead of sending an email, going next door and walking down the hall and having a conversation, instead of having meeting after meeting after meeting on zoom about nothing okay, so the long email, you could have picked up the phone, right?

We don't, we don't talk anymore.

Everything is, everything is text, everything is email.

It's okay to pick up the phone every now and then.

But the thing is, is that people don't want to.

I think we've, I think we've lost the desire for human connection.

Yeah, that's a challenge.

You're right about that.

I mean, look, people are swiping and choosing their dates,.

Right?

Remember, what do we have, look, what do we have to do?

Before, when you wanted to go on a date, you would meet them in person.

You get their phone number, you talk on the phone for hours on end.

Clearly I'm telling what my age is.

Right?

Before you went out on a date,.

We had to dial the phone.

He had to remember the number.

You couldn't just like push a button to get the number.

You actually had to remember what the actual number was.

Listen, now people are just like, hey, what's your Instagram?

That's right.

And before you know it, you're, you're falling in love with the digital pop.

Up in your dm.

Right.

I'm curious about that regard too, because as you think about the work, the leaders you're working with, especially the high, high functioning leaders, are they also kind of a little frustrated by the new workforce and the workforce mindset that they're trying to navigate?

Because I, my understanding is that the younger generation really does like the idea of remotely working, but it's harder to build teams.

And I think my mind, be as productive as you are if you're in person.

So how are, how are you coaching people, executives who are looking at this new workforce that's trying to figure out how do I do this in the way that I'm used to leading?

Yeah.

You know, I think there's so many things here.

You know, we didn't grow up with chat, GPT and perplexity and all these other AI tools that can increase efficiency.

Right, right.

So this new generation, they have that.

However, I think as a result of having that, there's a loss of critical thinking which is still needed for strategy in organizations.

Right.

For these big seats at the table.

I think that people, leaders are disheartened by how this new generation is functioning.

Like you said, they want to stay remote.

A lot of times they don't know how to dress when it comes to the interview process.

Right.

Sometimes they want their parents with them during these interviews.

They, they do.

I've heard that actually,.

But, but see That's a confidence issue.

I think the other part of that too is people don't want to conform to this new generation because they didn't, they didn't have the flexibility to do the things that this new generation is demanding.

Right.

They're demanding more money for less time in the office.

They are demanding personal space.

They are, they are demanding, you know, their peace over all of these other processes.

And I mean, they are, they are the epitome of self care.

They are the epitome of I'm putting myself first.

And as a generation Xer, we didn't, I didn't know that that was an option for us.

No,.

I didn't know that.

You could just, you could cut it off at 4, you could just slam your laptop and just be like, okay, I'm done.

I'm the work, the workday is over.

So I don't know if I'm.

Sometimes I'm conflicted.

I respect it, but I'm like, what?

I might be a little jealous that.

You can actually get away with it.

You can do that.

That's, that's great that you can do that.

So I think, I think the big, that's the big challenge is people don't want to conform to what this really is, what it's become.

And I mean, look, this new generation, they have more choices than we had.

They could decide to be a TikTok millionaire tomorrow.

They could decide to develop a product or service and sell it pretty quickly, go on YouTube and become a millionaire.

They could be, they could be millionaire influencers.

They can film 100 videos a week and boom, there they go viral.

One video goes viral and before you know it, they're famous.

That does create a challenge.

But I've also seen where that, that money also disappears as quickly as it comes and you're not exactly sure what to replace it with.

So I've seen both sides of that, that very dangerous coin.

And something else you mentioned with the AI addition, there's also the accuracy and information knowledge.

I mean, I wonder sometimes if AI is generating it.

How much personal knowledge and expertise do you have if you're not the one actually generating all of it?

So I keep going to.

At what point we realize that the thing I invented or created, I didn't create.

And I don't know much about it because I didn't do the work of the trials and errors of the failing and honing of it.

So it may not be, it may, it may be effective, but it may not be accurate.

Yeah, I think people have to remember that these are, these are tools to maybe to help ideate and help you come up with ideas and to maybe, you know, to develop things.

But if you don't know your why and the core reason why you're doing the work that you're doing or the work that you're producing, someone's going to ask you a question.

If you can't answer it, then people will know.

Don't get me wrong, people, there are some people out here winging it across the board in, in every industry, right?

They are, they're just, they're just winging it.

No one's asked them the right question yet.

They haven't got, haven't gotten caught yet.

And I, I mean, look, hey, the way to get out of some of this stuff is to just say, oh, I'm processing that.

Yeah, let me get back to you, let me get.

Where's my computer?

Right.

Go to ChatGPT again and help get that question answered.

Oh my goodness.

Let's talk about your book.

I'm dying to get into that too.

So you have a best selling book, the Power Play Journal, Battle Tested Strategies and Reflections for Impacting Leadership.

You created a journal rather than a traditional leadership book.

I love that fact that you decided to do something different than what's already out there.

Why did you pick a journal?

Yeah, I picked a journal because I wanted people to self reflect.

Right?

Like the, the first, the first section in the book is, is on resilience.

You know, I give a personal, I mentioned a personal story and example, other examples of resilience.

And I want to ask the question, you know, how do you show up as a resilient leader?

You know, I think though, I think it's important to self reflect after each, after each strategy, just as a check in for yourself for the development.

I mean, look, and honestly, I think there are a lot of people out there that are in senior level positions that don't have mentorship.

I think you still need mentorship.

As you continue to grow in your career, no matter what stage, even as a CEO, even as a VP or a senior vp, you still need community.

You still need people to exchange ideas with and you know, to get feedback from.

I love your, your first chapter, Resilient Leader.

And, and you, you picked one of my favorite people to have a quote from.

Bruce Lee.

I love Bruce Lee and I love this quote.

Do not pray for an easy life.

Pray for the strength to endure difficult one.

And we were just talking about that.

As you look at this new workforce, this new challenge that, this.

That we're dealing with.

How do we create resilient employees as well as leaders?

They don't become resilient employees unless they've had something difficult to endure.

Right, right.

Unless they've had a challenging project, something that they have had to question and think critically about.

You know, it does not.

It does not happen overnight, for sure.

And I love how you break it down and you give steps along the way in that, like take a lesson for.

From misfortune, assemble a leadership team with resilience, accept change as a chance, techniques for stress management.

And then you kind of let people, after they process that, add notes to the back of what they're learning.

Because I think it's so important that we.

That we write things down, which we lose that so much because everything is so digital.

There's still.

There's still a great study that says you learn more by the things you write down on, you know, pen to paper than just what you type on a computer.

So I love the fact that you're making people actually write down the notes of what they're.

They're learning.

Yes.

Pull out a pen.

Pull out a pen.

These thumbs that.

Pull out a pen.

Sometimes.

It's okay.

It won't hurt.

It won't hurt.

As you wrote this book, I'm always curious.

As a writer myself, you always have some aha moments in your writing.

What was your aha moment in putting together this book?

Yeah, I think the biggest aha moment was the fact that this book was born out of a void.

You know, over the years, me not having mentorship until I was almost 12 years into my career and recognizing that, oh, man, if this book was available like 10 years ago, I probably would have done things a little differently.

I probably would have taken on that project I was afraid to take on.

You know, I probably would have stepped up more, I would have communicated more.

Probably would have been further along in my career had I had something like this.

In many ways, this book offers mentorship to leaders at every stage.

I love that.

Yeah.

As you coach people and being.

Being a coach myself, I always hope that for my coaching, people gain something for you.

What is the first mindset shift you try to instill in the leaders you work with?

The first mindset shift really is reframing.

People have a lot of negative thoughts that come into play on a daily basis.

They might have a bad day based on one situation.

They let five seconds take over their entire five seconds of bad feedback or a bad situation take over their entire day.

And I Always ask people to try to reframe what you're getting out of this.

It's good to have the data.

I ask people to make sure that the information they're receiving, the way to emotionally disconnect from it, is to view it as data.

Okay.

Someone that you thought you could trust, you realized in one moment that you could no longer trust them.

Okay, I understand you're hurt, but now it's data.

Now that you know, how are you going to reframe and view that relationship and move forward?

It's difficult when you're emotionally tied to a lot of this stuff.

But I think it's important to always think about how you can reframe these situations.

I want to get into a word that your book starts out with, the word power play.

And it can be seem as an aggressive word, even sometimes a negative word.

But that's not how you use the word power play.

How can you define that in a healthy, strategic way?

Today's, for today's leaders.

Yeah, look, I think it's, I don't want people to overthink it.

And it's not, it's not a negative connotation.

The reason I use the word power in general is because people don't realize how much of it they have because they haven't figured it out, they haven't harnessed it yet.

Because there's a lack of self awareness.

There's lack of self awareness.

So I would easily define a power play as the option that you take to better a situation.

Right.

Someone says something negative to you, you're getting upset about it.

Okay, how are you going to react?

If you care about that relationship, how are you going to react?

One thing you could say is, I'm receiving what you just said negatively.

I just want to make sure that that was not your intention.

That puts the person in either a defensive posture to explain what they meant or to give them a minute to, to think.

Right?

Now, if I received, if I receive it negatively and I just respond negatively in, the conflict ensues, right?

And then where, then where does it go?

How long are you going to argue?

How long are you going to go back and forth?

How long are you gonna, you're, you're not going to speak to each other?

How long are you not gonna, you know, pass each other in the hallway and avoid one another?

And you take one, you take the stairs, they take the elevator, or you don't show up to a zoom meeting because you don't want to talk to the person because of what they just Said, you see all that drama that, that happens based on how you might respond to something that you received.

To me, making the choice, making the conscious choice and how you respond is the power play.

Because we don't like having crucial conversations typically.

Well, apparently we don't like having any conversations.

I'll just send you, I'll send you a nicely worded text, right.

Or a very long email that could have been a phone call.

Right.

As you wrote this book, what kind of leaders were you trying to target this book for?

I could easily say any leader, every leader.

But it's really for those executive directors, those CEOs, those top level, that top level.

Because I think over the years, you lose truth.

You know, the boss walks into the room, everybody straightens up, everybody's tense, no one wants to say anything negative.

Leaders still need feedback on it, on everything, on how programs are going on, you know, the pulse, on the organization, on morale.

If you're in a place where everyone's telling you yes, and you think everything's rosy and you know what's funny is leaders don't realize that there's informal organization.

There's an informal organization, there's the organization that you think exists, and then there's the one that happens when you leave the room, that's the real organization.

What people are talking about when you walk away, when you are not in the room, that's the real organization.

Right.

And how, as a leader, do you identify that organization?

Well, the way to identify it is to identify a few people that you can trust on every level of the organization that will just, hands down, tell you the truth with no penalty.

But you have to be open to that.

You have to be open to that feedback.

You do.

You have to be open to that feedback.

So you have to create a safe space where they can be honest with you.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And honestly, it shouldn't just be a few people, it should be the entire organization.

Like if you say you have an open door policy.

Okay, let me go back.

If you are a leader who says they're going to do something and you do the opposite, you're not going to be trusted.

No one's going to trust you because you probably do that with your husband or your wife at home.

You say you're going to do something, you don't do it.

And so then you're what, you're not reliable?

It's the same in the workplace.

It's no, it's no different.

And so, yeah, you have to, like I said, if you're going to have an open door policy.

Have a true open door policy.

Don't shut it for people you don't want to talk to.

What fun is that?

I don't want everybody in the door.

Okay?

Exactly.

Exactly.

So be clear.

Right?

Be clear.

Then maybe it's your, maybe it's your second in command.

Maybe it's your COO or your deputy executive director.

Or maybe you should hire a real HR person that can handle, that's equipped and trained to handle these, these kinds of things.

Maybe, maybe an open door policy is just an open pulse survey where people just constantly give you feedback on a.

Suggestion box nobody ever reads.

Sure.

Suggestion box.

With an auto.

With an auto response.

Your message has been received.

That's right.

And ignored.

And ignored.

We all love results.

We always like to change things around immediately.

What is.

Without giving away your book and the secrets of your book, what is one exercise of reflection from your journal that you believe could immediately change how a leader shows up in the workplace?

Yeah, I would have to say that it's just that gut check that, that emotional regulation, like figuring out where your feelings are coming from.

I think that's, that's really important for some people.

It can be painful to, to accept and admit that sometimes your anger is, is not anger.

Sometimes it's envy, sometimes it's confusion.

Sometimes, you know, you're just not clear.

And that's why it's important to, you know, figure out what your feelings are, where they're coming from, name those feelings and talk it through with someone.

You know, whether it's, whether it's therapy or getting a coach or going to your supervisor or HR for that support to talk things through.

So you've written this book.

What's next for you?

What's your next project?

Well, I have a group coaching program that just launched.

It's called Pivot to Power.

It's for, I'd say it's for senior leaders and for, I would say, the younger generation on the mentorship side.

And we do a lot of emotional intelligence work, a lot of transactional analysis.

I developed what I would call an influence system that I think works across the board for any person in any industry that helps you throughout your career.

Right.

It includes awareness.

Right.

That's self awareness.

There's authority, there's action, and there's alignment.

I think the alignment piece is really important for people now because people just hate their jobs.

Think about this.

When you hate your job, you're not in alignment.

You're not doing any of the things that you love to do.

When you're doing things you don't want to do.

The cognitive load is so heavy.

That's where burnout comes from.

It's not because of the volume of work, because if you're leading a team, you can delegate that work.

But if you're doing things that you don't want to do, imagine the energy it's taking from you to get that work done because you don't want to do it, your mind and body is resisting that work.

So if that energy is being pulled from you before, while you're thinking about it, knowing that you want to, that you don't want to do it, you don't think it's effective, you don't agree with it, there's no value add for you.

That's what's burning people out.

It's not volume.

I think the other part of that, I think the other part too is the people, the delegate or the person that is delegating the work that people don't want to do, they don't unders.

They don't know what it takes to get the work done.

They just know it's a lot and they just know that they don't want to do it because they have a team they can delegate.

Right?

Yeah.

That's why I hired you.

Right.

So you could do this work that I want to do.

Right, right.

And then we're going to evaluate you on it.

Yeah, I see how well you did something I didn't want to do.

Right, exactly, exactly.

Yeah.

But that look, that burnout, that's a, that's a very, very real thing.

And so that's why that I think that alignment piece is so important in that influence system.

As someone who spent so much time in dc, if you're talking to someone who's like, I really, really want to get into politics because it's something I'm really passionate about.

What, what dues would you have for them and what don'ts do you have for them?

Well, the first thing though, before any of that, I would be like, why?

Why?

Just why?

Like I, I want to know why?

Because a lot of people, members of Congress too, you know, they come here bright eyed and bushy tail, they want to change the world and then they realize, oh, it takes time to change the world.

Hold on, let me see how I can, how I can navigate this.

So I would, the first thing is I would ask why.

And usually there's a lot of passion.

There are particular issues that they want to work on and public policy is the way to change lives.

Right.

You get into it, you know, you work on Capitol Hill and you learn how bills become laws and, you know, you become a part of that process.

I would say for the do's, if this is something that you truly want to do, be open to what it's going to take to get into those positions, to make that impact.

And do be patient because it's not going to happen overnight.

However, if you are present and around, some people make snap decisions.

They decide to leave organizations, they decide to leave jobs.

And if you are next in line, you better be ready.

The other part of that in general is just being ready, always being prepared.

You know, there are always opportunities, especially when it, when it's late at night, when you're, when, you know, when the office is open really late, there's a lot going on.

Some people want their lives, they want to go home.

Right.

The ones that choose not to go home, there's an opportunity in that because that means, oh, you're here late, hey, would you do this?

Before you know it, you've taken on a project and you did, probably did it so well because no one else wanted to.

You did it so well that, hey, you end up getting favored for other things.

You get called upon for other things and sometimes that's where promotions come in.

That's very helpful.

Yeah, I look and look in terms of the don'ts.

Don't have an attitude.

It's not going to work.

You will immediately eliminate yourself.

You will become Persona non grata.

So don't have an attitude.

I would also say don't gossip about your colleagues.

Okay.

Tell you why you don't know who knows who and who used to work with who and who works out who, who, who goes and gets coffee.

You don't, you don't know who's close with the congressional member because their parent was a donor and they're at dinner every weekend at the country club.

You don't know the other don't, other than, you know, don't gossip about your colleagues is, you know, don't resist the extra work.

In politics, there's so much work and so many projects that come down at the very last minute.

As uncomfortable as it is, that's where the opportunities lie.

Because you can be depended on in times when others have not been dependable.

And those are fast tracks to promotion.

So close your computer, 4 o' clock may not be the way to succeed.

Yeah, yeah, bro.

You're just gonna be doing the same job every day, closing that laptop at 4 o'.

Clock.

You're Going to be answering the phones and reading constituent mail for five years if you do that.

So I'm gonna ask you my other favorite question.

What legacy do you want to leave behind?

Oh, that's a good one.

That's a good one.

You know, I'd have to say it is mainly impact.

You know, I.

Of course, everybody wants to make money.

Right.

But I think it's more important for me to leave a legacy of impact that, you know, I took a lot of the voids in my career and in my life and turn them into great resources for other people to excel and be well in leadership.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

So we also have a surprise question.

Pick a number between one and eight for your surprise question.

A number between one and eight?

Yep.

That's probably going to be eight.

All right, what's number.

What's number eight?

What is your most unusual talent?

Unusual?

I wouldn't call this unusual, but I went to cosmetology school a long time ago.

Interesting.

And so I actually, I can style hair.

I can do makeup.

It's just kind of my thing.

And you know what's interesting about this unusual talent?

At times, I.

It's.

It's been helpful for me as I help women with executive presence.

Yeah.

So that's been helpful to have that kind of eye for, For.

For.

For beauty and for.

And for presence.

Yeah.

I had a guest on my podcast who does headshots for a living, and he's like, you know, what most executives don't know is the power of a good headshot or a high quality headshot, because people will sometimes judge you by your headshot before they ever call you for a job.

So his thing is make sure you get a professionally done headshot.

Yeah.

The book that we.

The COVID We judge of that book.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

The one we're not supposed to judge by its cover.

Right.

Exactly.

Exactly.

It's all a lie.

It is all a lie.

It is all a lie.

So where can people connect with you?

Learn more about your consulting firm, find your books.

Yes, absolutely.

So the book is on Amazon.

I am Tina Jackson.

Everywhere.

Tina with two N's.

Jackson.com is the website and on Instagram at.

I am Tina Jackson.

Well, Tina, thank you so much for sharing your insights, your wisdom, your incredible leadership journey with us today.

Your work is transforming how leaders think, act, and navigate power.

And your message is one that countless people need to hear for our listeners.

You want to make sure to get a copy of the Power Play journal, Battle tested strategies and reflections for Impactful leadership It's a powerful resource for anyone who wants to lead with intention, clarity, and confidence.

If today's conversation encouraged you, we inspired you, or challenged you, subscribe to the show, leave us a review, and share this episode with a leader in your life.

Tina, again, thanks so much for taking the time to bless us with your presence.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much.