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What happens when the qualities that helped you succeed begin getting in the way of the leader you need to become?
High performers are often rewarded for knowing the answer, moving quickly, and getting results. But as responsibility grows, leadership asks for something different. The work becomes less about proving what you can do and more about creating the conditions for other people to do their best work.
Amy and Phyllis Sarkaria explore this transition through Phyllis’s book, Harvest: A Leadership Story, a fable inspired by more than a decade of participating in the olive harvest in Tuscany. Its central character, Emily, discovers that relentless speed can cause her to miss what is happening around her, including the impact she is having on her team.
Their conversation explores the learner’s mindset, leadership self-awareness, rescuing versus developing others, receiving difficult feedback, and why slowing down does not necessarily mean accomplishing less.
Sometimes the pause is what allows us to see the tree differently, notice what we missed, and recognize where our own habits may be limiting the people around us.
Sustainable leadership is not about losing your drive. It is about becoming intentional enough to know when to use it.
Moments That Create Momentum:
- What Got You Here Can Get in the Way – Explore why the habits that earn a promotion may not be the same ones that help someone lead well.
- Slow Down to Go Faster – Discover how presence and intentionality can prevent speed from creating more work, mistakes, and disconnection.
- Stop Rescuing the Team – Understand how constantly stepping in can limit development and keep leaders working below the level they should be leading.
- Feedback Only Works If You Can Hear It – Learn why receiving someone’s perception without defending yourself is essential to creating greater trust and safety.
- The Pause Creates Possibility – See how stepping out of constant busyness can create space for perspective, creativity, and a more sustainable way of leading.
About the Guest:
Phyllis Sarkaria is a certified executive coach, facilitator, and trusted adviser who works with leaders on one of the most consequential — and least examined — gaps in leadership: the distance between how leaders see themselves and how they're actually experienced.
Founder of The Sarkaria Group, Phyllis brings more than 30 years of corporate leadership experience to her work, including executive roles in human resources and government affairs. She has led functions as diverse as strategic planning, merger integration, and team effectiveness. Before launching her practice, she served as head of HR and internal coach to C-suite executives at Quidel Corporation, a leading multinational medical diagnostics company. These experiences shaped her deep understanding of organizational dynamics from the inside.
She is the author of Courageous Clarity: Navigating the Way Forward on Your Leadership Journey and Harvest: A Leadership Story. Together, the two books explore what it takes for leaders to close the gap between intention and impact — Courageous Clarity as a practical guide, and Harvest as a story that shows, rather than tells, one leader's journey to greater self-awareness, stronger culture, and more sustainable results.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/phyllis-sarkaria/
Get Phyllis’ book, Harvest: A Leadership Story, here - https://a.co/d/0gFKi0D7
About Amy:
Amy Lynn Durham, known by her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of the Executive Coaching Firm, Create Magic At Work®, where they help leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work.
She’s a certified Executive Coach through UC Berkeley & the International Coaching Federation (ICF) In addition, Amy holds coaching certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and the Archetypes of Change . In addition to being the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, Amy is the author of Create Magic At Work®, Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal and the founder of Magic Thread Media™. Through her work, she inspires intentional leadership for thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.
Connect with Amy:
https://createmagicatwork.net/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-magic-at-work
https://www.facebook.com/112951637095427
https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEm4h3fUgaq8qgvZpz6dGg
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