Episode 12: The Art of Creative Leadership with Tomasha Suber

  Welcome to CreativeMind Smart Money, the podcast where creativity and business smarts collide. I’m your host, Samantha Eck, bookkeeper, business coach, and your go to guide for building the creative business of your dreams. Whether it’s mastering your money, streamlining your systems, or growing your business, I’m here to share insights that empower you to thrive.

Plus, I’ll be bringing in industry experts to dive into all aspects of entrepreneurship, so you can turn your passion into profit without losing your creative spark. Let’s get started.

  You’re listening to the creative mind smart money podcast. And today I’m so excited to have Tomasha Suber here with me from consulting. Tomasha as a business and leadership coach on a mission to help women entrepreneurs grow and scale without compromising their personal wellness relationships and priorities to offer.

It’s amazing to have you today. How are you?

I am doing excellent. It’s a good day.

Yes. It’s a Thursday. I love it. I love it that we’re almost there to the end of the week. So can you talk a little bit about how you became a business and leadership coach?

So it all started when I was working corporately. I just have always been fascinated by just The operations of business, just running a business to day to day that goes behind the scenes of just dealing with customers. But what does it take for this thing to function, right? That we’re calling like this business and between the money and the people and the systems and the technology that you use and. Being able to keep money and have customers coming back. It’s just all of it fascinated me. And so throughout my career, I’ve worked in different positions from finance to operations, to marketing, and I got a little peek into branding for a little bit and a lots of sales and, leadership. And I just really enjoy in small business, the idea that. We as entrepreneurs get to experience all of that. Like we’re responsible for all of it. And mostly in corporate, you only work in like a piece, a fraction of it. And so I really enjoy getting, to help entrepreneurs and small business owners to think holistically and not just one lane.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. As a leadership coach, what inspired you to focus on helping leaders balance their management responsibilities with fostering creativity in their teams,

I enjoy working with leaders because I think that for a long time leadership was just seen as management. It was just management of people, tell people what to do.

And it wasn’t about really building your own brand as a person that is influencing people and inspiring people to take daily action. And you’re really keeping people on track towards a common goal. And so I enjoy focusing on leadership because I get to show each business owner that you get to build your own leadership style and you get to be as happy or as, not so strict, but very firm and, very inspirational. And it doesn’t have to be this very. tight way, and I really love that because it allows them to show more of their personality to build more of a personal brand with their staff and I would even say with their customers. And that’s really a strong point in the new way that I would say of doing business now in modern time. It’s more about your personal ability to connect and influence. And it just is your ability to direct and manage.

Yes, I 100 percent agree. I think that people want to see You as the CEO as the leader of your business and they want to get to know you And it’s become more about you personally than just about The name behind the business or like the name of the business. They want to know the name behind the business So that’s such a great thing.

How do you define creative leadership and why is it crucial in today’s kind of business landscape?

Creative leadership to me is. Being able to not do things in a status quo, it’s really allowing yourself to not only be innovative, but be open to doing things that maybe you’ve never seen before, things that people probably disagree with.

Yes

And, and I would even say things that may scare you it’s finding new and alternative ways to go about some of the same things that people that have been doing business for years and hundreds of years before us, centuries, they may have done them that way, but maybe there’s a new way that’s more efficient. That is more inclusive. That is a little bit more, friendly to the person that’s working with you.

That has a family, building a business and running

it in a way that, may be a little bit more healthy holistically for you as the business owner. And so creativity for me, isn’t just like about arts and, , making things that look pretty and fun. Creativity says that I’m. literally getting rid of any box, any circle, anything that could be holding me in. And based on what I need within my company or for my staff or for the goal and the vision that we’re going towards, these steps may work, right? For me, it may be a zig and for another person, it may be a zag. And maybe we don’t have a ladder in our company, or maybe we don’t use, a bunch of like, written out things and we talk more or whatever that is, it’s about that person being very open to whatever it takes and not being limited by what other people say or what history has said.

Yeah, and I believe that so much. You can bring in that creativity into the way that you run your business and how it’s run. Obviously, there are certain ways that things like are governed to be done, but there’s still ways that you can, creatively implement things. For me personally, when I had my contractor and she had a child, I was like, if you ever need to leave to, go take care of your child, you don’t have to be afraid to tell me.

Just say, I need to go. I completely understand. And I feel like that’s so important because in the past it’s been a lot of, hey, I have a family, I need to go. And it’s like you have a job to do.

Yeah, for sure.

But work is waiting. Work is going to be waiting for you when you come back. Your family might not be.

So family is definitely more important. And I think bringing that creativity into how you handle employees, how you handle business is just so important.

Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s something too, that I think that we have to start, Thinking about, you , it for a long time, that scenario would cause people to. It was more about questioning their loyalty to the company than, their loyalty to themselves and their ability to take care of whether it was a family matter or some type of emergency there was a lack of trust. And there is this over necessary. I think like it’s over drilling need to have this loyalty. No matter what’s happening in my life, I’m just going to be here. And that showed you that that was a good employee. And I think we’re getting to see that whether it’s an employee or a leader, that that might not necessarily be true.

And it could actually be more detrimental and harmful now than before.

Yes. I completely agree. What are some common challenges leaders face when trying to encourage creativity while also maintaining operational efficiency?

I think the biggest thing with creativity. You see how my face was like, Oh, Because I face it, too. It’s I’m actually a very creative person, and it really is just comes down to like, how much time do I really have to be creative, though? And it’s like one of the hard topics to talk about because creativity is necessary, right?

Like being innovative and constantly driving and having your mind available because you need to be creative to solve problems. You need to be creative to come up with new ideas. You’d be creative, to work day to day with people that, you interact with or that are on your team or outside, external customers, right? And so when I think about figuring out, when I think about out on a regular basis that are challenging in regards to creativity, time is the number one thing that comes up because I could spend hours, strategizing or working through a problem. And sometimes I really just only may have 30 minutes to not only solve the problem, but come up with, make the decision of what we’re going to do with the solve. And so I think that’s probably the number one thing that I see is, it’s not just, it’s not just having the creativity to solve the problems. It is having the time to be creative to solve them and holding back, like setting boundaries on that. Like every week I have, a limited number of time that I give myself to free play with something like something that’s not super pressing.

If I get to it, like it could be a challenge. It could be an idea or next step of a plan and I give myself like an hour or two to like free play. Normally it’s one of my sprints. I do about 90 minutes rents and I’ll just free play with that thing. And I have to give myself a time boundary. Because Tomasha will look up and it’ll be like four hours later, four hours later. I got like half of a big sticky notepad. I love those. I’ve been writing on like multiple pages and it was creative time, but I also wasted a lot of time. I should have been faster. I should have been more thoughtful.

So time management and intentionality with creativity, I think is a challenge for all of us.

yes, absolutely. Can you share an example of a leader you’ve coached who successfully transformed their approach to balancing that management and creativity?

So I had a client that I was working with and it’s really fun because. She’s an accountant and I love working with like financial people. They’re like my favorite people, in terms of like leadership because there’s just differences. I haven’t met one business that’s the same. And one of the things that we were working on when it comes down to Like her being able to be creative and then also needing to really be in a leadership role because it was more of an agency model was really defining in what way she was going to be involved in the creativity. And I think oftentimes we find ourselves as leaders wanting to be involved in all of the creative. And if you really think about it, creativity has so many, it has phases and it has levels to it. And some of us have no business being in some parts,

Because like it overwhelms us or it causes us to maybe like stall and it takes us too long. And then some of us, we avoid the areas where we really should be because we’re better there.

We’re more effective and more efficient. We’re faster. We’re less attached emotionally, things like that. And so we were able to define for her what are the areas of creativity that we find that she can be most useful for? Not just, fast and efficient, but also Her time there is in a lot of ways, it’s profitable, it’s productive, and it really connects to the overall Archer mission of the business.

And then what areas of creativity was she holding on to more out of control just because she knows how to do those things. She feels very confident there and comfortable. But she’s actually causing a ruckus a little bit and slowing things down and wanting to look over things multiple times and micromanaging them. And so for her being able to identify those together, like two key areas where it was a little bit more micromanaging than productivity going on. It’s like, do you really need to be over there? We got this one really big area that’s suffering where we really could use your brain, where we really could utilize more of your time and your oversight and your team could use more of you in this process and on these projects so that they could be moving faster so that we’re not wasting time extending project deadlines with external people that are working for us or delaying potential new rollouts for clientele that are currently with us that we’re wanting to deliver new offers and new processes and opportunities to. And so With her, it really gave us an opportunity to look at creativity wise. Sometimes we’re in an area so much because we like Noah and we’re super comfortable there. And I think that there’s there is benefit to that when necessary.

But gotta like switch over to the area where you may not enjoy It might not be exactly where you want to be all the time, but in this season, right in this moment, on this project, during this quarter, you would be more effective there to support the team members who really need to get your answers, who really need to hear your brain and the customers who are waiting on it.

Yes, yes. And I think that’s so important because even as small business owners, we wear so many different hats and have so many different things that we try to take on. And a team is more than just someone like your direct employees. It’s also your independent contractors that you hire. So if you’re hiring someone, say like an email marketer or a social media manager, You’re letting that creativity pass off to them.

Yes, you should still have a certain degree of control and understanding of what’s happening there, but you’re passing off that creativity to someone else because you trusted that person enough to hire them to bring that creativity to the table.

Mm-hmm.

you’re freeing your mind up to be more creative in other places in your business.

And I think a lot of times we forget that because we’re thinking of only I’m hiring this person outside of my business, but I still need to have, that micromanagement. I need to make sure that they’re doing things the exact way I want them to. I need to make sure that this is done and things like that.

But if you’re hiring someone to do that for you, you need to let them take control of that so that you can bring that creativity and that leadership to other areas of your business.

100%. 100 and it, honestly, it takes off a lot of stress and it allows you to see. What your people are truly capable of.

Yes.

That’s the biggest piece is as a leader. Creativity is important for you to have, but it’s also important for you to build.

It’s important for you to, breathe into the other people around you.

And so oftentimes, you’ll find me telling. And I love, I have a small but mighty team. I really like to pour into them that , I believe in what you have going on. I want to hear your thoughts. I know you’re the bomb. You’re smarter than me in that area. When I say that out loud often, this is your zone.

It’s really not my zone. I have thoughts, but this is your expertise. Let me know what it is that’s on your mind first. And I’ll work within that, or I’ll give my feedback. And with creativity, the more that you can build it and breed it through other people that are in your and working with you and supporting your goals, the better it’s going to be.

Yes, absolutely. How can leaders create an environment that nurtures that creativity for their team without compromising their productivity?

I would say like making creativity a part of just like your process and what you do. I am constantly in creativity. Doesn’t have to look like you all let’s have a creative hour. In terms of , let’s get together and just talk and toss ideas. But, I do believe that Not every waking moment. So one thing you can do is throughout your weeks, normally you see people have these scheduled times for meetings, like team meetings. For me, I don’t like to have a lot of team meetings and I don’t like having team meetings that are longer than 30 minutes. Because I feel like sometimes outside of that, you need to know how to communicate either in a written form or we need to get straight to the point.

We need to be focused on making decisions, but I prefer for them to use their time outside of that 30 minutes. That we might have a meeting the rest of their time. I want them to think through like, I want you to be spending time on creative stuff. I specifically only have 30 minute meetings because I want you to have time after this meeting, so it might be an hour block, but I only want to see you face to face for 30 minutes so that you can sit and think so that you can, dissect what we’ve talked about in the meeting. I want you to spend more time being able to work through the things that we’re trying to do versus trying to talk to me and hear all the things that I have going on. And so it’s really. Thinking about the different ways that people need in order to create the different ways that they need to have time in order to create one of my team members.

I know for a fact she does very good on her own. Once she has gotten your general ideas. If she can give you general ideas or what your mission and focus is, she’s really good if she can go off on her own and have time to dissect that and work through it. She can work live with me in a room.

I love to get on a whiteboard. Everyone knows that about me. She can do that with me, but she is not at her best. In that situation. She’s good, but she’s not at her best. And so when I’m looking for something from her, I’m going to give it to her a little bit more advanced than I would give to the other people

because my other two people, they love being right in the moment with me.

Let’s talk through this. They love it. I don’t know if it’s adrenaline or what, but I know that I can best harness their efforts when I’m ready to sit down. I’m ready to talk with them and they can hear me talk. They can ask me questions and we can be in the moment together. I know that they love that. And then I have another person that I work with every now and again. She’s more of a written person, so she likes to be able to read through things, think about it. We can be going back and forth right there, but she likes having things written, like a little plan or an overview that she can look at, right? And so being able to harness their creativity comes from me understanding the best scenarios in which they can create.

Yes. I completely agree. I think that’s so important too because everybody processes and understands information in a different way. And someone might be more visual, someone might be more, communicative, someone might be more, they need to read it and write it down in order to process it better.

And I love that that’s something that you cultivate within your own business, but also that’s encouraged in other people’s businesses as well.

Yes, absolutely. It’s, it took me a minute to get there. Cause it’s not always easy, but a part of a leader’s job is to understand, like, how do I harness the best of my people? I think

too many business owners, they get frustrated because of how Team members may present in their jobs or their day to day, especially if you’re a person who contracts out to other businesses to provide services to you. But the reality is that a part of your job is to get to know how do you best harness that person’s effort, right? I don’t want to fight against the work that you’re doing. I want to work with the work that you’re doing. And if I can do that on my end, I can better control me. I cannot better control the staff member. And so that’s my approach to it.

I love that. What strategies do you recommend for leaders? And I know you talked about this a little bit, but to schedule and protect time for innovation and creative thinking.

So for myself, I would say we’re talking about for the leader themselves. I do a really good job. I was just talking to a client about this the other day. I do a really good job of when it comes down to separating like strategic work that involves others like my clients or potentially someone I want to work with.

Like it’s about outside work, not necessarily the internal for my business. I separate that. And then I look at, is it planning? Is it strategy? Is it planning? And is it creative? I separate those three things that I need to, but I respect the time and the effort and energy that it takes to do those three different things. So for example, this week I’m really only doing strategy and more creative things. This to me is considerably creative, right? So I’ve done some strategy front work with clients and then I typically have time in between the work that I would be doing for them and you. So let’s just say for example, I have a day of calls and I take, I don’t know, two to four calls on a day.

That next day I’m not having any calls with anybody.

Right.

Anyone internal, external. I don’t want to see a call. I just want to be able to either focus on something that’s a little bit light, lighter hearted, which is going to be more creative, or I may do some light completion right from the day before from the strategy that I was working with clients. And I found that. Giving boundaries to the sides of my brain has been more effective than just saying, Oh, I’m always going to take, I used to do the whole thing. It was like, I would take a certain week off at the end of the month. And

while that was helpful, it wasn’t, it didn’t breed the most results for me. It was really becoming more aware of the fact that work with other people and strategizing or either traveling for a day and speaking, having that side of my brain on all day. That’s really tiresome. Respect the process after a recovery.

Right.

Right? So, and I think that that’s different for every single leader.

So that’s just one example for you all to use is really look at based on yourself and how you know you work. What is more tiresome? I love to plan. I could plan for eight plus hours a day and not be tired. Show up the next day and I’m ready to go. But if I have to sit down and have to really dig into multiple, several clients, right?

and I’m doing that in one day or across a couple of days, baby, I need 24, 48 hours. Don’t talk to me.

Yeah,

That might not be every person.

yes, yes, so I think you have to take what we said about building it for you as a person and what works best for you as a person because I think each strategy is going to vary based on how you absorb and process information and how your brain works.

yes. And being selfish, right? When you think about how do you monitor and protect that creativity and your time or just even, your visionary brain as a leader, it all comes down to being honest about who you are, how you work. It’s not about a framework that someone gave you, that’s just absolutely going to work for you or what’s always been done in the history of leadership or entrepreneurship. It’s being honest with yourself. I got some clients who couldn’t dare. I was telling a friend this morning. I was like, I have clients who couldn’t dare do like a VIP day. Right. When you think about creating services, and this is how we have to think about leadership on our day to day is, there’s some stuff you just couldn’t do.

it just is not your vibe. You don’t have that kind of, that energy. You could be a little bit more introverted or whatever that is. You wouldn’t dare create that. So when you think about leading your company and having time for your creativity or whatever it is that you’re doing with your team members, think the same way. What’s realistic for you to do on a regular basis?

Yes. So how can they effectively measure the impact of that increased creativity on their team’s performance and the overall business success?

I would say if you have KPIs in place, that Is helpful because there’s always some already some form of measurement there that seem like you’re already looking at performance. And from there, I don’t want to just I don’t want it to just be on the KP eyes, even though that is important. You could see how much faster they’re maybe getting it done because they’re probably already doing well.

And I tell people that to, let’s actually start talking about teams from the place of the majority of teams are performing. Well, let’s just start there. Right?

Maybe we want them to perform faster. Maybe we want them to be more independent, ask less questions, right? But let’s start getting specific about what exactly is it that you’re looking to gain from this. I think that’s really the challenge here is it may not be that the team needs to be more productive all the time. Maybe specifically you want them to be faster. Maybe you want them to ask you 10 questions instead of 100 to get this done. Maybe you want them to call you once instead of four times over the weekend or when you’re like on vacation is supposed to be off, right?

start really thinking about what’s the outcome that you want. And then explaining that to them, right? When I started telling my team members, I would really love to log into ClickUp and I don’t want to see a lot of tags. I don’t like that That’s that is my one of my metrics of knowing how effectively you all can work together. I don’t want to be tagged in anything minuscule that really has nothing to do with Tomasha. You all should be able to communicate, right? So it’s, I think it’s really getting to, yes, we have the KPIs, but just going a little bit deeper and really pointing out some of the things that like, We normally ignore it because it’s not what the average person would tell you to focus on.

Well are they getting the task done? Yeah. Well, that’s great. No. But like they asked me to get it done. That’s really what frustrated me, you know, because then your team’s confused. They’re getting the work done. You’re frustrated. They’re like, wait, I got the work done. I was on time. You said you love to work, but now you’re so frustrated with my work. Get specific. No, I’m frustrated that you asked me a hundred questions along the way.

I love that. And I think that’s so important is because if you have such a broad thing like a KPI, you can see people be hitting those KPIs, but if you’re not focusing on the deeper issues, you’re not going to be able to have that overall improvement in not only performance, but the success of your business.

Mm hmm. Absolutely. and the performance indicators, like key performance indicators are important, but I do this thing where I call responsibility indicators. I like to know that people can be independently responsible, right? And independently responsible means like, are you, and it’s really more on the resourceful side, but responsibility goes into it as well because I want you to feel responsible for you finding the answer,

Yes.

Absolutely.

until you’ve determined that you are unable to find it, right? You can’t, you’re not, like you don’t know, you haven’t been responsible enough to find it, and that’s not a bad thing. Maybe you’re not resourceful enough or there are no resources. I want you to exhaust all of that. Do I know where this is? Can I find this? Can I go dig and get this? Have we used this before? Use your resources now. Let me go look and see if it’s an email or if it’s in the Dropbox or wherever it’s going to be. If it’s a ClickUp, whatever. If it’s SOPs. Let me go look. Then, come to me. And I judge my team off of that. Was I the first person you came to? You should be running to yourself first. And so , it’s small things like that, that I think are super helpful.

Yes. In your experience, how does a leader’s ability to take creative breaks affect their decision making and problem solving skills?

Creative breaks are so important. I take them all the time to be honest with you. I think that it makes me a very Good decision maker.

It’s actually, no one’s ever asked me really about decision making, which is fun because I think that it’s an, it’s a very undervalued skill.

And, I believe that my creative breaks allow me to not only make decisions better, but faster.

One thing that I’m always complimented on by my, one of my team members and specifically, she’s always like, we will be making some of the hardest decisions. We will be in the midst of something. And it’s just like, I’m expecting you to. To potentially like just be upset or like have some type of emotion or outburst and you will just Calmly walk through your process that you have make a decision and you will move on now granted behind the scenes She doesn’t get to see me do what I probably do sometimes obviously But I feel confident Right.

And I feel assured that I am making the right decision merely because when I take breaks, it gives me time to just really look at the mistakes that I’ve made, how I got to those mistakes. Sometimes we’re being so creative that we’re like jacking something up, right? Like we’re just thinking too much.

You ever had that? Where you just like too creative in the season of business,

Yes. Yes.

you’re too creative. And so having those creative breaks where my brain, I call it, like I just flatline my brain and. I allow it to just be. I’m not intentionally trying to create, I’m just masking and the power that is my brain and ability to visualize something new. I think it allows us to just rest in and have that organic creativity. So much creativity that we have is forced. It’s like we’re wired. You know what I mean? And it’s tiresome. We’re required to know how to create solutions, how to create like new offers, how to create answers and new answers that the person that you gave the answer to before doesn’t understand this week.

You just talked them to it last week and they don’t understand that anymore. And now it’s something new.

Yes. I love that. I love that. Because I think that, taking a break and just recuperating is so important so that you can come back and be like, This is what I did. I love that you said you reflect on that, because I think reflection is so important. And speaking of reflection, like what role does that emotional intelligence play in a leader’s capacity to balance management duties with fostering that creativity?

Emotional intelligence. I think it’s key. So one thing I think is emotional. I would say emotional regulation is key. So yes. I think that’s a part of intelligence, but I want to focus on the regulation part because there’s going to be times as a leader creatively or if you’re managing people or projects, two different things, but you know what I’m saying? You will find yourself where your emotions will present. I’ve had situations where I’ve been furious. I am angry. I’m frustrated. I feel like something someone really got something wrong. They left something behind, especially if it’s front facing for a client or even for myself. And you have to regulate. I got to take those emotions. Hold them. I’m not trying to get rid of them. I’m not trying to throw them away. I just got to hold them for a second. Take them, put them in a plant, right? Put them in a little plant pot, hold that, deal with what I need to deal with, and then eventually I have to come back and I have to process that. And I think the thing that’s really helpful about processing, when you brought that up about me reflecting on it, is that when I, if I allow myself to process those emotions, I’m not ignoring the fact that they exist. I’m not essentially like bottling something up and hiding it away. I’m being honest that , no, this really pissed me off. This really, this made me cry. I was so emotional X, Y, and Z. And it’s about knowing how to regulate them and not just cover them up or erase them. And I think especially as women, sometimes those of you that are women that are listening, it can be really challenging because, people tell you not to be, emotional or that if you are emotional, that’s a problem. And I have my own thoughts around that, but for me, it’s I’m very emotional. I’m very attached to what I do. I feel like my business is my baby , in my brain and my personal as a, it’s a professional. I would never say that, but as a person, yes, I feel that in my emotions and so I need time to process them. And so being able to regulate your emotions, I think honestly is the most important part. Grab them, hold them. Put them in a little pot and come back later and process them that way. They’re not in control of you and you’re in control of them. And when I’m able to process my emotions versus just be in my emotions, it’s a lot more effective and helpful for me.

Yes, because I love that you’re talking about how you just calmly work through a decision. And I’m sure that inside you have so many different emotions you’re thinking about as you’re working through the process of this decision, but you’re controlling those emotions to a point where you’re going to reflect on them later and really make sure that they’re in a place where you want them to be instead of letting them run you right in that moment.

Oh yeah. Cause you know, you feel your body getting warm, your temperature starts to change. And all of a sudden like everything is you kind of can get snippy and you’re not being your best. And whether it’s me or a team member or a client or just some random person on the street, if they see me going through something that’s challenging, I want to make sure that they know that I can handle that, because the last thing as a leader that you want your team to think is when things start to crumble or go bad, or if they do something wrong, you’re going to break And you’re going to crack down on them or you’re going to try to break them down. That’s not necessary.

Yes. I agree. I agree. And I think that’s important too, because we can have external factors that are affecting our emotions that we can then deflect onto, our team or other people, but by regulating ourselves and regulating our emotions, we can keep that in check so that we’re not, pushing our emotions onto someone else that doesn’t necessarily deserve that emotion, especially in terms of like anger or sadness or some sort of negative emotion like that.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. So looking ahead, how do you see the nature of leadership evolving to meet the growing demand for creativity and innovation in business?

That’s a good one. I see leadership growing and especially in the virtual world. Because I focus a lot on people who are doing leadership virtually, because I think there is a significant difference between virtual leadership and in person. I’ve been both, and they’re very different. I see that more people are going to start to understand the need for them to have, I would say, a more nurturing approach. To leadership than before. I think leadership has always been about, it’s always been about results, right? And it will always be important to get the result. And, but there wasn’t so much care about people.

It was more about control. And so I feel like we’re going to shift. We’re going to start to see a huge shift go from not just controlling people and their productivity and their outcomes and efforts, but caring about people.

Yes.

and their efforts, caring about how well they do their job, because you understand that they should be doing well to continue elevating in their career, caring about people who are getting the work done. But hopefully you’re not getting the work done by being up all hours of the night, knowing that you have a child that you’re supposed to drive to school safely.

The next morning, we’re going to go from. Being so controlling about what time the work is done to being careful and caring and understand that as long as the work does get done, it doesn’t necessarily have to be from nine to 12 because I understand that maybe from nine to 12, you have a child that needs your attention or has special needs, or you yourself have special needs, health and wellness wise that need to be attended to. So I think that we’re going to see, and I really hope and pray that we see more of a transition from. In leadership, I’m focused on controlling the efforts and the productivity of my people. And I’m a leader who actually wants to care. I want to control and care, not just merely control.

Yes, yes, I love that you said that. And I really do appreciate that. One of the things, last things I always ask my guests on this podcast is what is one actionable step that my listeners can walk away with today that they need to do?

There’s so much focus about standing in who you are, like who you’re becoming and it’s , like who you’re becoming in the next one to two years. But I would say today, take a look at who you are right now, the reality of who you are, where you are, what you’ve accomplished, what you haven’t, what you want, and get really honest with what’s needed next, not what someone else told you. What do you know to be true?

exactly. That’s so valuable. So I want to say thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Tomasha. Where can my listeners find you?

My playground of choice is Instagram. So find me on Instagram at Tomasha Suber. You can also visit my website. you’ll be able to know exactly where I am from there as well. www. tomashasuber. com.

Awesome. Thank you again, Timosh. I really appreciate your time and your expertise, and I look forward to the listeners hearing our episode together.

Thank you for having me. 📍

And just like that, we’ve reached the end of another episode of Creative Minds Smart Money. I hope today’s deep dive into creative leadership left you feeling inspired and ready to lead with both heart and less hustle. Let’s quickly recap the gems we’ve got from our conversation with Tumasha Super.

Leadership isn’t just about managing people. It’s about inspiring and creating space for creativity to flow. Emotional intelligence and self awareness are essential in balancing the fine line between operational efficiency and nurturing creativity in your team. Give yourself and your team room to experiment, innovate, and yes, fail forward. Growth is in the journey, not just the destination. If you’re leading a team, building a business, or just trying to figure out how to balance creativity with structure, remember, you’ve got this. Take what you’ve learned today and run with it. Make bold moves, embrace the zigzags, and don’t be afraid to lead a little differently.

Until next time, be kind, be creative, and keep making magic happen. Farewell, fellow travelers.