Building leadership muscles and practicing leadership is not always pretty. It’s got to get messy if you want to master it. Nothing brought this home to me more than a recent CrossFit workout where I really started to understand the power of muscle memory and why constant skills development is required to keep yourself sharp.
Leadership is like this – we are never done learning, never done changing, and that means we cannot quit as we authentically embrace new models of leadership, work with those in our communities, and aren’t afraid to look messy.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- Leadership doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs to be authentic.
- Find your community – find those who will be honest with you, hold you accountable, help you sharpen your skills, and help you hone your human-centered leadership skills.
- Embracing new models might feel uncomfortable and take time to embrace while getting the results you want, but that doesn’t mean you stop. Just keep going.
“It’s the people that keep learning, growing, striving, and sharpening that edge that are the ones that become the legacy leaders.” — Maria Ross
Episode References:
- I have a FREE upcoming 2-day virtual leadership event with me! Let’s have a chat first to see if this aligns with your goals and where you are right now. Visit www.TheEmpathyEdge.com/event to sign up for a time.
- Maria’s Latest Forbes Article: Gen Z and the Empathy Expectation https://www.forbes.com/sites/mariaross/2025/04/30/gen-z-and-the-empathy-expectation-what-workplace-leaders-need-to-know/
- Coach Scott of Stoneway Fitness: https://www.instagram.com/scottmrodriguez/
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to another hot take episode of the empathy edge podcast. I’m your host, Maria Ross, and I’m going to share some insights with you today and a lovely little event that I’d like to tell you about to see if you’re interested in attending virtually with me. But first, I want to talk to you about building leadership muscle and the fact that leadership is not always pretty. It’s got to get messy if you want to master it. And nothing brought this home more to me than a recent CrossFit workout where I really started to understand the power of muscle memory and why constant skills development is required to keep yourself sharp. So I have a virtual coach, Scott Rodriguez. You can look him up online, stoneway Fitness. He’s amazing. He was my coach in Seattle when he was like a block from my house, and now I coach with him and his team virtually, and the team gives us some pretty tough workouts. So when it pops up on my app, or they start describing it, if I’m online with them live, I always think to myself, Oh, hell no, and the negotiations start early. I’ll just do three rounds instead of five, maybe scale down to six reps instead of 10. For that part, my leg kind of hurts today. No, not really. You’ve got to be freaking kidding me. Is another common thought, and then the curse words start flying. But I do the first round, and it’s usually pretty ugly. My muscles are tight. The movements feel awkward. I flop around like a dying fish, definitely not movie montage worthy. And then I complete one round and start into the next. And my coach and comrades are all there, virtually or live. We’re all cheering each other on. Yes, even when I am watching the virtual recording, I can feel their hands on my back, and I start to think, Huh, what is this? It’s a little teeny bit easier. My body knows what to expect, what to do next. It’s a little prettier than before, a little stronger, but still tough. My muscle memory starts kicking in, okay? Maybe this might work. But seriously, I’m only going to do one more round of reps. Third round, I find the groove. I feel more coordinated, more agile. Is that even a spring in my step? Are those the endorphins kicking in. I feel like I might sort of be an athlete, and before I know it, I’ve done the six or the eight or the 12 rounds that I said I could not would not do. Y’all, leadership is like this, and we’re never done learning, not with the workplace changing so fast, not with AI or hybrid workforces, both geographically and between humans and robots, and not with the unique tapestry of each and every team we lead. It’s always changing and adapting. Feels uncomfortable embracing new models, such as partnering with your team rather than powering over them, might take a bit more time to master and get the results you want. You might flop around like a dying fish for a while too, but that doesn’t mean you stop. It means you keep going, rep by rep, motion by motion, conversation by conversation. Yes, you won’t always look pretty, but you have to be honest. Gen Z doesn’t want perfection. They want authenticity, according to the recent Forbes article I just wrote, I’ll link to that in the show notes. And this also means you find your community, your support, your people, the people you can rely on, the peers who will be honest with you hold you accountable and help you sharpen your skills. Those who can help you hone your human, centered leadership edge and still demand high performance and hold your boundaries both and leadership. You’ve heard me say it before, so get sweaty. Don’t be afraid to look messy and uncoordinated and work through it all with people you trust, those who will elevate you and help you become a better version of yourself, to become the Legacy Leader you want to be and that you know you can be. So with all that said, I’d like to invite you to a community that I’m coaching, a community I’m building of high performing leaders. Do you want to join us on the journey? I’m starting an amazing mastermind to help you become a healthy, human, centered leader who gets results and leaves a legacy. Now what I’m doing is I’m launching a two day. A free virtual leadership event so you can have a taste. It’s just a few hours on two consecutive days. It’s free, but not everyone gets in, so we need to have a chat first and see if this aligns with your goals and where you are right now. This is going to be a fabulous community, a fabulous place to learn, to grow, to build that muscle memory, a wonderful support group to come back to and say, Hey, I’m having this particular challenge, or this is where I struggle, or this is where I can improve. And we all know that ego kills empathy. So if you think you’ve mastered leadership, you think you’ve got this, I’m gonna guess that you probably don’t. It’s the people that keep learning and keep growing and keep striving and keep sharpening that edge that are the ones that become the legacy leaders. And the beautiful part is that you can become a Legacy Leader in such a way that you are shored up, that you are healthy, that your boundaries are kept intact, that you’re leading with more ease and flow, and you’re not gripping so tight. Does that even sound good to get to a place where you are crushing your goals, crushing your KPIs, and you’re feeling good about it, your team is feeling good about it. People leave replenished. They leave fulfilled. They leave at the end of the day knowing that they made a difference and that they had an impact. I know that if you’re listening to this show, that’s the kind of leader you want to be, it’s likely the kind of leader you are. But again, we all need support. We all need that person that gives us tough love, the person that we turn to in the Hey, can I run something by you? The person that offers us a new article or resource or tool or strategy or approach that shifts our thinking and transforms our outcomes? That’s the community I’m building, and it’s starting with a free two day event, a training event where you can invest in you and your leadership and your potential and your mental health. So just go to the empathy edge.com/event and sign up for a time to talk with me, and we’ll make sure that your investment of time is worth it and is going to take you where you want to go. This event is free, and you’re going to get a taste of the mastermind in it, and you’re also going to leave with some valuable strategies and tools to put everything we talk about on this show into action to make your life and your leadership Thrive. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate and review or share it with a friend or colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. You.
