EP243 – From Manager to Leader - Time to Upgrade Your Thinking with Ali Stewart and Ian Luckett

IAN: In this episode of the IT Experts Podcast, we are going to help you work out the key shifts you need to make to move from manager to leader.

INTRO: Welcome to the IT Experts podcast, the only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1 million, and if already there, get to five and go faster at the end of the day. Isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

IAN: So good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts podcast. Today we've got a really special guest in the podcast lounge. We've got Ali Stewart from Ali Stewart and Co. And she is a, I'm going to say, I think she's a global leadership expert. We're going to get some really interesting aspects on leadership today. Welcome to the show, Ali.

ALI: Lovely to be here, Ian. Thank you so much.

IAN: No problem at all. Look, we know that leadership is a very big subject leadership with MSPs and IT businesses and techie business owners is, quite , an interesting subject as well. And today we've reached out, we've connected we've had a couple of conversations around how you can help our amazing audience. And today we're going to help understand the key shifts that you need to make between a manager and a leader. Some people talk about their senior management team, some people talk about their senior leadership teams. And today we're going to probably expel some myths and unpick this subject to find out. What is the difference between a manager and leader? Why does it matter? What does great leadership look like? And Ali has got some incredible accolades, so I'm going to let her share with you, Ali, for those who don't know who you are, shameless plug time. Who are you? What'd you do? Who'd you help? And why are we talking today?

ALI: We are talking today, Ian, because we both absolutely love leadership. We love helping people step up to being a leader. I started that journey 21 years ago. I set up my business. I've been writing and talking about leadership ever since and we have a wonderful way of describing the difference between leadership and management, which is managers lighter, fire beneath, leaders, lighter fire within. That's what we do.

IAN: I love it. I love it. Who are you working with right now? Just explain a little bit about the size of your business. because it's a pretty big empire that you've built. I don't think it's a community. It's an empire.

ALI: We have a lot of practitioners. I think that's what you're talking about there. Who loved our work so much, they said, can we be accredited to deliver it? So I have a lot of amazing accredited practitioners across the world, mostly in the UK.

IAN: Now you say a lot. I think you've been a little bit modest there because it's, is it over 400 different individuals who are helping? It's spread the word of your process. That's amazing, Ali that's amazing. And...

ALI: Thank you.

IAN: One thing we spoke about when we first came on to talk to today was about leadership actually being a process. Talk to me a little bit about the concept and what do you mean by leadership's a process.

ALI: Having identified over the last 20 years, what makes the highest performing leaders tick? It's a range of skills. We take them on a path from transactional to transformational leadership. There has to be a process, there has to be a particular mindset they're working within to make this work. We typically work with small and medium sized businesses because it becomes a way of life. You can't do this a little bit. You are either being a leader or you are not. And you have to have that commitment to consistently develop your people.

IAN: Absolutely. Can everybody become a leader, in your view?

ALI: Everybody can become a leader if they want to. They have to make that choice. And if you don't go and do your other stuff, your IT, your legal stuff, your whatever skill, that you want to do, but don't lead people, leave it to somebody else.

IAN: So everybody's got the capability, when we are born, we've all got the capability of being great managers and great leaders, but you need to believe that you can do it. You need to want that you can do it and you need to I'm guessing I know, accept the change in the personal development journey that you are going to go on to become that great leader. Do you agree with that?

ALI: I absolutely agree with that. And I would say try it first before you decide. because you might think you're not going to like it, but actually it is the most rewarding job in the whole wide world.

IAN: Yeah. Because what we find in the IT channel is that, we have the business owner and the business is growing and nine times out of 10 they're technical and then they have some great people with them. And the great people turn up and some of them stay longer and are good and then they become senior people. And then the owner then suddenly realizes that in actual fact, I need to step out of doing the day-to-day and lead this business and inspire this business and work on what we call thousand pound tasks and strategic options. And then he looks down below him, metaphorically speaking, and he a range of people and he's going which one of you guys or girls are going to help lift me up? It might be some of them, it might be none of them, which might be a little bit of a shock to the MSP sometimes. What's always interesting is when we start looking at some of the people below, and I think what you've just said there is, giving someone the opportunity to become, senior manager or moving out, moving up into senior leadership if they want to, and you want to try it out and things like that. You talked about your process Ali, now without sharing the crown jewels, what's the couple of minutes overview of the concepts of your thinking with around leadership.

ALI: What we discovered is that all leaders, the highest performing leaders follow a four step process. Now many management gurus over time have documented a four step process, which we all know about. All of them are fine. They work as long as leaders work the process. But what most leaders do, what most of us do according to our personality type, is get stuck in a particular stage of the process. And we don't do the whole thing from start to finish.

IAN: Right.

ALI: So our process is called visioning. You have to start with a vision. If I'm working with middle leaders, they say I'm waiting for it. Okay. How long are you going to wait? But you must have a vision for your own team, what are we here to do? What are we here to achieve? How are we going to achieve it? What level of courtesy do we demand? And staff, you set the ground rules with your team. So setting that vision, why we're here and why it's important where we're going you have to have a really consistent style because if you don't have consistency of style, people aren't going to trust in you and believe you.

IAN: Yeah.

ALI: They have to know who you are. They have to understand why this vision is so important to you. And then once you've set your vision you've analyzed the current situation. You start mobilizing your troops, as it were. This is where we're going. This is how we're going to get there. This is what I need you to do. These are the objectives. Are you clear about that? So you need to be very explicit at that point you have to diagnose performance issues really quickly. Sort them out. And then once the internal motivation of your people kicks in, you have to switch your style to what we call developing. And now it's much more tapping into their motivation to do the thing. You are keeping them going, you are keeping them inspired. You have to be situationally consistent as we call it. And then finally you've got to let them go. And so many leaders, it's a little bit like parenting. We never want our children to go

IAN: Don't know about that.

ALI: But leaders need the generosity to let their people go. Because there might not now be room for them in their organization or they might, there's other possibilities for them.

IAN: Yeah. So when you're saying let them go, you're kind of like, let them either flow in the organization and, cut the vine so that they can then develop and grow within the business or, we talk about this with Julie the head of leadership here at the Growth Hub. And it's, if you don't develop your A players they will, they're just going to leave. Don't as you say, you're talking about vision consulting there. We talk about the vision again, shadow of the leader, which is how you show up, which is what, the rhythm of review, that consistency and building all of that in place. Yeah. And developing them is absolutely love that. Nice and simple. What is the difference between managing and leading?

ALI: So for us, managing is really, you are managing the status quo. You are very much involved in the task and making sure other people do the task as well, but you are very hands-on, more or less. And then when you become a leader. It is not about the task anymore. Your role is to develop the best in your people. And it's a very different mindset. So now you are looking wider, you're looking much more strategically. You've got to take people on this beautiful journey with you.

IAN: And if you were let's break this into two now. If you were a manager in an MSP in an IT company and you wanted to become a leader. What's some of the things that you'd need to consider around, so you've made the decision that you want to sit at the top table and you like the look of that and you like the look of, other inspiring leaders around the world, and you think, oh, that would be a really cool thing to do. But they might not be confident to do it, or they might not know how to do it. So a lot of the things that we hear all the time, every day in actual fact is, I want to grow my business. I want to scale my MSP, I want to exit my MSP, but I don't have a plan. And I don't have a plan and I don't know where to start. So how would we answer this question if we've got an up and coming, senior technician or somebody there who's got a little bit, he's got that little bit of a fire in his belly and they're thinking, oh, hang on a minute, I want to do something. What would your advice be to them if you were talking to them today?

ALI: The really important thing to grow is to develop the people because they are your key to success. It's the only competitive business advantage you've got impact. Other people make your product or offer your service. So the only difference you've got is the people you've got. So you have to develop the people in order for you to be able to do the strategic stuff and plan your next stages of development.

IAN: So if you were one of those senior, or if you were talking to one of those senior leaders and they sort said, Ali, how do I get myself into that position with my boss? What do I need to do? I know, obviously there's going to be training and things like that, but how do I need to change and adjust my kind of like behavior or my thinking to get into that position? What would that look like?

ALI: So I think Gandhi once said, be the change you want to see.

IAN: Okay. Yeah.

ALI: So to be a leader, start acting like a leader. What is it? In those people you admire, what are they doing saying Model great leadership.

IAN: Yeah.

ALI: Because people then notice and want you as part of their senior leadership team, you have to play the part, not just saying, I want to be, you have to do the work. What do I actually need to developing me to be a leader of people? Because when I become a leader of people, it's not about me anymore.

IAN: Right?

ALI: It's about them. And leaders have to stop meddling with the task.

IAN: Oh, you telling them off already? We're only 14 minutes in and you're telling them off. I love that. I love that. What would you say is one of the biggest challenges for people as they're moving from management into leadership?

ALI: They don't know how to stop doing the task.

IAN: Oh, bottleneck then. Is that what you're talking about? They're becoming the bottleneck

ALI: Absolutely.

IAN: Because they're not letting go.

ALI: And they can't believe the people they're working with are capable of doing that, their task if they're not doing it. So they have to start being willing to share their knowledge and train their people, first of all. And the role of every manager and leader is to make themselves redundant.

IAN: Yes. Yes, but that right now you've got, you've touched on a really good point there, because when I was, I think I must have been in my early thirties, I was very fortunate that when I started in my business experience, I started off working for an architect and then I ended up working for what is now Virgin Media. So we were involved in the cable boom in the UK when we were digging up everybody's streets, annoying everybody. Yes, I was responsible for that in the east of England. Thank you very much. Et cetera, et cetera. But at the age of 26, 27, I was in a leadership, I was probably in a management position in moving into a leadership position. We are absolutely they were amazing. It was a company called NCL at the time. They were amazing at people development. And they got a whole load of us and they put us through these programs and at that time, I think I was managing about 50 or 60 people. It was unbelievable. And one boss who came in, because what happened at those stages, you had the Americans that come over and there'd be the big visionaries and the big motivators and all of this. Oh wow, this is great. And all this kind of, and then they'd go, then they'd fly back and it'd get a bit flat for a bit and then they'd come back the next month. So your manager lost. Your manager changed quite frequently because if they didn't fit or they didn't match and it was all about the cultures and the values actually, which was really interesting because that's always stuck with me ever since then. And this one manager came in and I remember him, he'll never listen to this. His name was Trevor Jen, lovely guy. And if he is listening to me, reach out Trevor. And he said to me I want you to do my job. I want you to make me redundant. And I looked at him and I thought, yeah, but then you wouldn't have a job and this would be really weird. And I don't know if I could do your job. He goes, you can't today. He says, but I can't go and do my next job unless I've got someone to fill my shoes and that, and those shoes will need filling by somebody else. And at that point I went, oh my word. I've never looked at it like that. And that's, yeah. I think that's the moment when that leadership coin drops, doesn't it? And you go, so it's good to be vulnerable. It's good to be uncomfortable. Yes. It's good to be outside. Your comfort zone, and I think this, you just mentioned a couple of minutes ago, the team around you are going to be the thing that's going to help you be successful, exactly. They're all good. Does that resonate in everything?

ALI: Absolutely. That resonates. Yes. And what an amazing leader you have there.

IAN: Yes. He was lovely, and it was amazing because I worked there for eight years and we just propelled every year they had a redundancy, they had a restructure. Because they were basically a design business and a construction business and a cabling business. Then it turned into a customer service business. So the business was changed and I thrived, absolutely thrived in that environment of change. It didn't bother me at all. Every, I think I had eight jobs in eight years. It was incredible. And it, but the problem was, the thing that was very difficult was that all this, all the organizational change happened at Christmas. And I remember sitting there and Christmas Eve one day in the morning and I'd had this interview and I said to them, I am not going home for Christmas until you tell me if I've got this job or not. And they literally, I did get the job, which was amazing. And we were, we managed another, a large apartment. Everything was good because the business was growing and we were growing with it. But one of my bosses another guy, Tony he says, oh, it's great here, isn't it? He says, every year you spend all year building this amazing Lego house and at the end of December comes and you've got this most incredible structure. And then someone comes along, they kick it down. They nick off the pieces and they say, go put that back together. And it's absolutely what happened. And again, that was a really funny little self digressing a bit, but there's some quite funny, interesting stories about, I guess adapting change as well, which is something that people struggle with, isn't it?

ALI: Absolutely. I love that story. And you have to quite often, in our leadership book that we captured, the whole process in the final chapter is leading change and transition. So often we start with that chapter at the beginning of the training because leaders have to know where they are in the whole process of change before they can start developing others. Because you can't develop others if you're not in good space yourself.

IAN: No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. So let's turn the mirror around the other way. We are now moving from the manager who wants to be the leader. And we are now in the shoes of the business owner who knows what they need to do, but they are the bottleneck and they're getting caught up and they're looking down on this guy or this girl, and they're saying, yes, I want you to become, something special to help me lift my time up, what are, again, what are some of the challenges that the owner will have in assessing whether this is the right person or their ability or, really because they're playing a little game of roulette here, aren't they? They don't know whether the chips are going to turn out red, black, or whether it's going to go green or whatever. What's some of the things that the owners need to be considering when picking and selecting their senior people?

ALI: They have to have a vision. They have to have values they're working towards and they have to have time to commit to these individuals they're trying to bring on. So often they don't have time or they think they don't have time and they don't give enough direction to the people. They expect everybody to be as motivated as they are. Yeah. And that rarely is the case. They all have their own individual motivations, so they have to give the whole process time. It will not happen overnight, and it won't happen without work on their part.

IAN: And then that's like following the process through and making sure that you are cascading down, you know what your vision. The processes and having that time. And I think I've spoken previously on podcast about thinking time and what I used to think it was a completely, not a waste of time, but it's actually probably one of the most critical parts of any business growth, having that time to stick strategically. So not only have you got to get more time as a leader to think strategically, but you need to get more time to then spend with your senior people. We had a lovely story yesterday from one of our clients who's literally been with us for three years and oh my God, I can't believe what he's done now. He's moved his business from about 650 K. And he told me yesterday, he just closed his accounts out at 1.8 million which is brilliant. Unbelievable. There's various things in there for around his marketing in the niche, which are incredible. However, the thing that he said to me that really was wonderful yesterday was or we know what's what he's done. And what he's done is he's got out of the weeds very quickly. He's hired some incredible A players who have taken on his the day-to-day, the client liaison, he said he'd just come back from holiday and he'd got two or three emails or queries. He had to, I said, that's a massive, I said, that's a massive accolade, for the way that you've set up. And then he handed out, they were handing out yearend bonuses, and his senior guy turned out to him and said, I wasn't expecting this. And I just said, isn't that an amazing thing that this guy was just working so hard for you? And for the team and the business. And to deliver for himself. And then you know, you, that, that's when a bonus and that's when recognition really is a thing. Just talking about recognition, let's just spin off for a minute. Back in the day. Yeah, give someone a pay rise lasts three months, doesn't it? Because their rest of their world revolves around it. For me, my wife would just spend money, which she probably wouldn't. I'd just buy more cars or whatever it might be. And then after the fact, the pay rise in terms of motivator and kind of recognition, it was that. You had bonuses, there was a few schemes and things like that. What recognition in 2025 is the best thing to help motivate a team?

ALI: The leader has so much at their fingertips, and recognition is one of the primary motivators of everybody. We crave recognition. So for a leader, actually, to recognize somebody like giving the bonus in that story you just shared is crucially important. And the fact it's, it has some meaning. People can't thrive without it, and people will go to any lengths to get it. This is why children misbehave to get attention to get recognition. This is why staff members misbehave to get attention. So using recognition as a powerful leadership tool is incredible because you also have the ability to withdraw it if somebody isn't up to the mark. And that is almost, as strong as the recognition itself, or it is as strong as the recognition itself. It is super important, and in fact we use a story of Nelson Mandela, who at his lowest ebb on Robin Island could have given up and it just took a change of guard one day and the guard opened the hatch. And said, I see you Nelson Mandela. So somebody had, and that means I respect you. So he had the will to carry on then all is not lost. This is okay and it just needs to be a little and often is what we say. Not big dollops. Every once in a while. Yeah. This is a little often thing. So if you are trying to bring on somebody's performance, you must recognize it. You mustn't just think I pay them to do that anyway. Why should I say thank you?

IAN: Yeah.

ALI: It's really important leader to team member in that space.

IAN: And again the glue that holds that together is just, the C- word isn't, it's consistency because so many times you offer out, regular pay rise do people know how they can contribute to the company's success and win themselves? Yeah. We did that a couple of years ago. No, you've got to be doing it. The rhythm of review, the one-to-ones, the target setting, all of these kind of like foundations so important, aren't they?

ALI: Yeah. I was talking to a law firm and they said, can you do some appraisal training with us? And my opening gambit was, why do you want to do appraisals? If your heart is not in this, if you are treating it as a paper exercise, it's never going to work.

IAN: Yeah.

ALI: Yeah. So you might as well forget it.

IAN: Yeah, I love the ones where they say, yeah, we've got someone in to do HR. We've got someone to come and do the one-to-ones and the appraisals. Why is that? Because they're better at it than us.

ALI: No, they're not.

IAN: They'll never get anybody in to do, you know that is the massive loss of connection, isn't it? You might as well just go and look.

ALI: Absolutely massive loss of connection.

IAN: And it might be a bit of controversial subject it, so it's our beliefs. If you don't like it, then yeah, our belief as well, you can't outsource this stuff, can you?

ALI: No. And if everybody did what we did we wouldn't need employment lawyers anymore. We wouldn't need tribunals, absolutely. Before leaders were just behaving properly.

IAN: No, that's right. Crikey. This, it's like kids, I always say, God, if I'd had a dog, if I had kids, it'd be a different world. Because the training my dog's gone through is unbelievable compared with anything else. Just before we wrap up..

ALI: Rip up the raw book. Yeah.

IAN: Yeah, that's right. One more golden nugget. I want to try and steal from you get from you high performing teams. We've got a team, they're doing what we want to be doing and everything's okay. You've got a part of your program and no part of your world is all around high performing teams. Now if a team's doing what it says on the team and the business is growing and organically, everything's going okay, and we're adding more people to the team, we're adding more clients to the business, is that not a high performing team? How do you define a high performing team?

ALI: It is not for me to define the high performing team. If you think your team is high performing and meeting the targets and on it that's what we need. But they're not going to stay high performing. Schools get outstanding. It's incredibly difficult to keep at that level without consistency and commitment and continually growing and learning. So it's an ongoing process. If you're a high performing team, get more training, keep growing and learning and going because you can't stand still.

IAN: That's right. And what would be some of the metrics, obviously you've got the KPIs in the business performance itself, but what would be some of the ways that you would measure. Because this is just about team growth now, isn't it? And it's about team innovation, team growth, team strength, team resilience, team efficiency and all of that kind of great stuff. But how would you measure that? What would if somebody wanted, if somebody's sitting here going, do you know what, it's been great that sitting here listening to the last 20-30 minutes on this, but my team's doing all right. How do we give them a bit of a check and balance right now in the last couple of minutes just to say yeah, but are you doing this and are you doing that and is this the way that you are doing? What are some of the key aspects to a high performing team?

ALI: You have your team all going in the same direction, they can all share your vision. The vision with this in their own words, they're highly motivated. They achieve outstanding performance consistently. They manage change, they take stuff in their stride and to do that, you as the leader have to be acting with a combination of high challenge and high support. You have to be kind to your people. It's about positive regard and genuineness. Be kind to yourself. It always starts with self. So you are taking time out, you're kind to yourself, you are planning and strategizing.

IAN: And that's really interesting because that was something that we were talking to Julie about the other day was around, don't expect an A player if you are a B player yourself. Don't expect develop an A player if you're a B player yourself. And what you just said there, which really resonated was if you are going to push the team and you are going to expect more from the team and get them to deliver more and achieve more, you need to rank up your time, your support.

ALI: Absolutely.

IAN: The thing that made me think that right now and help them to become supporters. I guess it's like you put it into any team scenario, don't you? Do you think that the Premiership and the World Cup, football team coaches do the same amount of work as the Sunday League. No, they don't. And there's a reason for that because they need more people in their team to help them and it's all it's all that great stuff, isn't it, that goes around there. Amazing.

ALI: Super.

IAN: Ali, it's been a incredible show today. I've really enjoyed it. We just said we could literally be doing this for hours, keeping talking. But the MSPs have got some work to do, right? So they need to crack on.

ALI: Indeed.

IAN: Again, thank you very much for your contribution, your help preparing for today's show and recording. What are some of the key summary points? What are some of the top tips for everyone to take away from today's show?

ALI: Indeed we could talk forever, Ian. It's been great talking to you. I think the three key things, be kind to yourself. People are so often beating themselves up. Stop it. Be kind to yourself. You are only human. Take time out to think we have our best thoughts when we are in the shower or taking the dog for a walk, don't we?

IAN: Yes. Yes.

ALI: So just give yourself that time out and treat everybody with respect.

IAN: Absolutely love it. Absolutely love it. Thank you very much, Ali. Now please tell us if people want to continue the conversation with you, they want to learn more about your process, they want to learn more about your system, all these amazing people that you've got helping and supporting your vision and your cause. How do they get in contact with you today?

ALI: There's tons of stuff on my website about the books and programs we run, so www stewart and co.com.

IAN: Lovely stuff. Go and check it out, wishing you all the success for the remainder of this year and in the future I'm sure we will definitely talk again. But thanks once again and look forward to catching up with you all soon. Cheers, Ali.

ALI: Amazing. Thank you.

IAN: No problem. Bye now.

ALI: Bye-bye.

OUTRO: Just before you go, and if you're curious about how this episode links with the ability to scale your MSP to a million or, or if you are already there, accelerate to five, then we want to invite you to come and take the MSP Mastery quiz, and in just three minutes, you're going to get a 360 degrees scan of your business where you can identify the one or two tactics that can help you find more time engage in, align your people and help generate more leads in your MSP, it's really simple. Just click on the link in the show notes and if you have enjoyed this episode, we'd love to get some feedback from you by means of a rating review on Spotify or iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice. We really appreciate every single one of them. Now, you can go and enjoy the rest of your day and we look forward to catching up and connecting with you soon. All the best.