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Arrows-Out Leadership with Catharina Walker Eure
December 19, 2025 Creative Leadership Design Management Emotional Intelligence Empathy in Business Team Culture
Featuring
Catharina Walker Eure, Director of Innovation Strategy, Nike

Catharina Walker Eure is director of innovation strategy at Nike, where she shapes the future of performance and design through emotionally intelligent leadership. A former academic dean and cross-industry creative, she’s known for her “Arrows-Out” philosophy — a framework that puts empathy before ego and empowers teams to thrive.

Arrows-Out Leadership with Catharina Walker Eure

Great leaders don’t chase the spotlight — they lead others into it. Catharina Walker Eure, Nike’s director of innovation strategy, shares her framework for Arrows-Out Leadership: a selfless, emotionally intelligent approach that puts the team first. She and Adam Morgan dig into managing across all levels with empathy, building trust from all directions, and creating space for both people and ideas to thrive.

Takeaways:

  • What Arrows-Out Leadership actually means — and how to practice it
  • Why emotional intelligence is your most valuable leadership skill
  • How to manage up, down, and sideways without losing yourself
  • The secret to building teams that feel safe enough to deliver bold work
  • Why checking your motivation changes everything
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mentioned in this show:
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Adam Morgan
Creative Leader and RCL Host
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The Stoke Group
Digital Marketing and Full-Service Content Agency

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REAL CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

Season: 6

Episode: 5

Episode Title: Arrows-Out Leadership

Guest Title:
With Catharina Walker Eure, Director of Innovation, Nike

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Adam Morgan: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Real Creative Leadership. Today’s guest is Catarina Walker Eure, director of Innovation Strategy at Nike. I. Her career has spanned product innovation, design, leadership, teaching, and driving the future of athletic performance.

Adam Morgan: But at the heart of her work is a philosophy she calls arrows Out Leadership. It’s a mindset of selfless collaborative leadership that helps teams succeed while staying true to their creative values. In this episode, we’ll explore what arrows out leadership looks like and why it matters in creative work.

Adam Morgan: How emotional intelligence, better shapes leaders and practical ways that lead up, down, and across for healthier teams and better results. Welcome, Katarina. Great to have you

Catharina Eure: Thank you. I’m super excited and I’m happy to be back.

Adam Morgan: Excellent. Yeah, we had a good chat earlier. We’re gonna bring up a few of those topics, but I’m just gonna. Get us going in this, in this topic of arrows out. But first, you’ve led creative and innovative work across industries, from medical devices to electronic vehicles to [00:01:00] Nike. So what part of that journey best shaped you the most as far as your leadership

Catharina Eure: It is a little bit like varnishing a door, each layer. Even the ones when, I was younger and I thought, okay, this is not a resume. Building job. I learned how to work with clients, from a manager that I thought didn’t respect design, but was too client focused. So I would say the most impactful would’ve been probably maturity in doing the wrong things and making the mistakes. I think I told you the first time when I was in New York, I had the opportunity to hire a big team. And all I could think about was hiring all the best portfolios. And then I had a group of prima donnas and no one wanted to do the real work, and it was emotionally taxing.

Catharina Eure: It was a terrible environment to work in that I created. And so all of those have been impactful. Probably the most negative things. Impactful. And as far as, I’m [00:02:00] not gonna do that again. You hire maybe someone that’s 80 or 90% incredible. But they’re 110 for the job and they work for personal best. So I would say being able to understand how to build a team that everybody’s going to enjoy working with and enjoy their job and come into work. I also think another interesting thing is, it’s different when you become a leader versus just a creative staff. I think as a leader you have to totally have a switch in mindset. Your, my job even in academia as a dean is to put a bubble around my team to let them do the best job. Everybody says, oh, raises is gonna motivate people, or, it’s actually good people want to do the best job. Get outta their way. Give them the tools and let them do the best job, manage emotional drama and put that bubble from up top. don’t put them in a situation that they’re uncomfortable. Put them in a situation where they’re gonna [00:03:00] thrive. Everybody says that very hard to do, and I don’t wanna use buzz words, but that’s your job.

Catharina Eure: You are not one of the creatives. You are now managing up, spending time with the who’s ever on the outside the bubble. At a meeting, who’s gonna make those decisions? You know about the creative work or your team? Do you have a relationship with that person? you have to be very intentional, and I think that’s a difference.

Catharina Eure: You’re not just coming into work to do design and be creative, which is our heart, but you’re coming in to really see the big picture and make your team successful. But now your job is to really reach out and make that environment above you so that you have cohesive currency. That you can talk to people and have them understand.

Catharina Eure: ’cause I don’t think designers and design is understood. That’s never happened to me anywhere I’ve gone. I’ve had great bosses where it’s design, led down, but a lot of people just don’t understand it’s color. It’s a logo and we all [00:04:00] know it’s way more than that. But it’s up to you to not educate them, but to become people don’t care about what you know until you care about them.

Catharina Eure: So you have to build that.

Adam Morgan: I wanna back up a little bit. When you talked about. When you hired that team of all the primadonnas, I’ve heard a lot lately, especially with, a lot of the change in AI and everything coming of okay, how do you get a complete team of A players?

Adam Morgan: And something that made me think about was, radical candor from Kim Scott, her book

Adam Morgan: where she delineated between rock stars and superstars. And I think that’s an interesting thing, that it’s not always just about having. All the superstars on the team where they’re just like the go-getters, the whatever it may be.

Adam Morgan: Having some people who maybe aren’t necessarily the ones clamoring for the next promotion, but they’re still hardworking, awesome, and they’re rock stars. I think a balance of both of those are really, really important. So when you create a new team now, it’s not all the, just the, the superstars. What do you look for now?

Adam Morgan: as far as the right

Catharina Eure: I have a saying like, box outside your league. you want people to be challenged, [00:05:00] but it’s your understanding to really know what that, what’s needed in that role. And I can say that there’s different personalities for different portions of a role. Like I’ve worked with a lot of engineers, love working with engineers, a lot of like high-end creative. I would not put the engineer in the position of being the creative lead. even if they think they’re creative. Engineers, which they can be, or designing engineers, but really understand each person’s role so that you have Legos, Tonka toys, puzzle pieces. if you’re just

Catharina Eure: hiring blindly, if you haven’t done your homework to know what’s required of your department, yes, we all know design and, content creation, but where are your really holes that you find that that person needs to do that job and hire specifically for that job? I know people need to be generalists these days and I really believe in that. And even, at, college, the program at ELCA is very, you have to, designer’s gonna work across all fields, [00:06:00] and you have to understand, sorry, I’ve had to code all those fields, but you really, that person is going to do one thing if they’re gonna code. they don’t need to be personality wise. You don’t have to have the most incredible outgoing. everybody’s a superstar. You just have to have people that really understand their role and then again, carve that way to do that role. So, I dunno if that answers that. I mean, I did, as I said, hire at that time, hire every top portfolio, and that was the reason.

Catharina Eure: Oh, I’m gonna, I’m going to have a great department. I’m going to create all these things that, gonna be, and all the, Winning portfolio magazines, and it’ll come back to my department. And again, those, those are arrows in I’m just, I’m hiring so that, this is my time to make this incredible dent in the world with design.

Catharina Eure: Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong. And more wrong. No, So now I have all this prima donnas. Nobody wants to do their real work. Some of them aren’t [00:07:00] even qualified to, and again, like if I really sat down and said, okay, what, you know what goes on a car? I need wheels. I need an engine, I need a driver.

Catharina Eure: You can’t have all drivers sitting in a car with no wheels. So.

Adam Morgan: Yeah, well we’re gonna get a little bit more into the arrows out and arrows in, and especially this empathetic leadership because I think it is important. It’s not, there, there was an era I remember I. Eighties, early nineties in advertising agency world where it was, it just all the rock stars were the best, and that’s all that mattered.

Adam Morgan: But yeah, the level of pride and

Catharina Eure: Mm-hmm.

Adam Morgan: and. Primadonnas that was so outta control that you had to be careful. And then I think we swung the other direction where it’s let’s only hire people who are really, really nice people. And it’s that’s absolutely important too. So it’s, I think what I’m hearing is this balance, right?

Adam Morgan: You gotta look for all the right skill sets, complimentary attitudes, people who are striving, people who are also just hardworking. So making sure that your team is made up of all the right elements as you balance it

Catharina Eure: Skillset.

Adam Morgan: and

Catharina Eure: Yeah. Yeah.

Catharina Eure: because it’s [00:08:00] really hard sometimes with just resumes to figure out skill sets. So I have some interviewing things that I do just to try and figure out what that looks like for each person.

Adam Morgan: And probably soft and hard skills. Right. So it’s not just,

Catharina Eure: Yeah.

Adam Morgan: yeah.

Catharina Eure: I mean, we all know the people that are great, but I wouldn’t put them in a client meeting. that’s a whole skill itself completely. Which you don’t think about, like who, when you’re not there, is going to help you represent the work.

Adam Morgan: Well, another one I wanted to bring up just as we’re getting started here, you shared earlier that your mom told you a story of you can account on one hand the great jobs and friends that you’ll ever have. So talk to us about how that’s informed your

Catharina Eure: Yes. and I was so snotty. My mom’s passed, sorry, mom, she said, you’re gonna count on one hand the great jobs you worked for and the great bosses you’ve worked for, and that was really impactful because when you’re younger, again, you don’t really take each job understanding how valuable where you are in that time. Is important to you. [00:09:00] Again, you’re thinking, oh, I want this title, I wanna work for that place. But each singular job is one of those possibilities on your hand. And there’s kind of two things for that. Again, every place that I’ve ever worked at, someone that I worked with before tapped their boss or their company and said, you should get this person. And all of them were not the leaders that I tried to do a great job and get a promotion from. All of them were my coworkers. and so that’s super important because your life is short, your hand is little, and if you look at each person that I’m doing the journey with this person, and I’m with them for a specific period of time, when I leave, how do I leave with them?

Catharina Eure: What do they think of me and what do I think of them? That doesn’t mean you have to like everybody. Or that you’re not gonna have, emotional discord when you’re working. But if you understand that you are in a place in which it’s not [00:10:00] about your creative work, you’re hired because you’re really doing a great job, but there’s more required of you personally, lifelong and working with people than just showing up and trying to duke it out for a design or. Get a, gold star. And I think that’s really important just to understand that your career is layers of different people and what layer are you making? And will you be on anybody’s hand when you know it comes that time you have your five fingers? But it’s a attitude shift as opposed to working just for me.

Catharina Eure: And it’s hard because, and a lot of people don’t understand this, and I found that even in, in preaching and leading faculty even, is that. Creative individuals are very different. Create creative leadership, and individuals are really different people by nature in the world. And I’m, and I, I know an accountant, she says, don’t tell that story.

Catharina Eure: But I always say if you’re an accountant, you say, I don’t like your numbers, Adam, yourself, I don’t care [00:11:00] if you’re drawing something or creating something or moving or animation, whatever you’re doing. And somebody says, I don’t like it. It’s personal. So we are what we do. Accountants are not, their numbers are not who they are.

Catharina Eure: We are what we do. So that’s very hard. That creates a situation where it’s really, competitive. It’s delicate and you’re, we are critiquing every day what people are doing and the, and who they are through their work. And that’s really interesting because if you have that conversation with staff, okay, and say, this is. I’m hired. You’re hired because you’re passionate, but you have to understand it’s not your total identity, like who you work with, how you work with, how you work with a team, and what you’re leaving behind is part of that identity, which is very hard because if you said, I hate your work, I would be, crushed.

Catharina Eure: And so that aspect of designers are different. And, you have to realize that as a [00:12:00] designer and as a leader, design leader,

Adam Morgan: Oh, absolutely. Managing creative people is a completely different animal than other disciplines, so I totally get that. Although you’ve, there’s something about, we want to care and we want to dig deep, but we also have to create thick skin because our work is so judged and destroyed in front of us so often that it’s a balancing act for sure.

Catharina Eure: you, and I think you have to have real reasons why you do things. like why did you pick that color? Because you like that color because. it’s trending. if someone tells you our company is conservative, in old world, you’re going to work in that psychological color palette of maroons, dark blues, navy, green, greens or nas. And so as a designer, if you’re putting something trendy, you’re missing the point. you are, someone asks you what’s the difference between a fine artist and a designer? A fine artist. If it’s two circles, a fine artist is at that circle and the outer circle, they get to decide the medium, the color, the subject and the look [00:13:00] and feel.

Catharina Eure: Why? Because they want to, we can’t do that. We’re the glue in the middle. There’s the goal and what we’re trying to do. There’s the outside audience, and if the outside audience for, fine artists, they don’t like it. They don’t say, who cares? For a designer that outside audience is like, everything is driven because you’re the glue in the mill. So you can’t just make decisions for your, creative decision for yourself, like you are creative, but you’re in a field in which that creative creativity has to be harnessed to be goal oriented. And that was really hard for me to learn as well.

Adam Morgan: Well, let’s dig into this because we’ve already alluded to going up or going sideways or all these things. let’s start. With a description of what is this concept of arrows in and arrows out leadership. If you wanna just walk us through what do each of the

Catharina Eure: Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it is pretty simple once you understand it. And I, I think I told you on our first name, came from my daughter and she said our two neighbors, one of them was, I don’t like him when he came in the door, his arrows are in. And I’m like, oh, should I take her for an eval? I don’t see arrows.[00:14:00]

Catharina Eure: And she said, no. The other neighbors, her arrows are out. And I really sought them. That one neighbor is all about what can you do for me? We moved in, the

Catharina Eure: other neighbor was I’ll show you where Costco is. Do you need anything? And that’s really important. So in those situations, and again design wise, it’s very easy to be arrows in.

Catharina Eure: So arrows out is what can I do for the people in the organization that I’m working for? Arrows in are, how does this affect me? What am I going to do? What is going to do for my portfolio? What is this going to do in my salary? What is this going to do in my career? Or even, and I’m, dealing just specifically in design, but it’s everything, a philosophy is.

Catharina Eure: So arrows out is an attitude of you’re really there to serve others and you’re there to actually know others. I know that’s so almost pedantically repeated all the time, but you can see in everything what is arrows out. [00:15:00] If you have an opportunity in a meeting to say oh yeah, I did this and I decided that, and things like that. Arrows out is to really mention the people. I really wanted to start at this, conversation thanking like five people who helped my career because they deserve it. So I won’t do it because this is not the format, but you know, that is an as aspect of Arrows Out is in every situation. How do you work for personal best? Then also how do you work for the people and the corporation around you for their best? And then you gain trust and people will go to bat for you. And the designers will have a comfort level to one, have discussions to keep the emotion and drama out of the work situation, but also have discussions about, what could I have done better with my work? because they know you’re going to do the best thing for them as opposed to. It’s their idea. I’m gonna make it my idea. or, and

Catharina Eure: it’s really hard. You’re in that leadership position because you have those skills to actually portray, what you’re doing in a way [00:16:00] that is valuable to people. But it has to be what’s valuable to people and bring other people along. it seems like such a simple question to ask, is that for people around me, the project around me, or is that for me?

Catharina Eure: What I found is in the classroom, there are faculty that walk in and then say, call me professor. And it’s all about them and I’m the teacher and I have the power of being a teacher and I’m a professor. And arrows out. Is the arrows out? Is they. Their job and their identity is so much that they cannot have the relationships and they cannot see how to make each individual person that when they leave that college, be successful and have a career and know enough about them. Arrows in is, all the students call you your name. They don’t call you professor so-and-so, or Dean so-and-so, they know your name and you actually individually invest with each student. I know it sounds really cliche. I hope it rings true to some people, but it’s really different. You’re not there to [00:17:00] be admired or be cool.

Catharina Eure: It’s like when you take a picture, everybody just looks at themselves, so kind of get over it, no one looks at you and you get the picture. So that was the difference. Like actually moving staff that were, totally the arrows in, I’m the university college professor to the ones that were, I’m here because I have an incredible skill that I can teach

Catharina Eure: others. When they do this, they’ll actually be able to get out and get a job and be successful.

Adam Morgan: So it seems like you could adopt that philosophy personally and be like, I’m a leader who’s gonna care about those around me and not be focused on myself. But here’s an interesting rub about this. So I was just recently reading a book.

Adam Morgan: Called Let Them Theory with Mel Robbins. And she mentioned that people on their own don’t want to change. Like they’re only gonna change when they want. You can’t force change. So here’s a question for you. How do you, what’s the right word, influence or help other leaders on your team [00:18:00] learn how to be more arrows out?

Adam Morgan: How, how do you help them gain that

Adam Morgan: kind of leadership philosophy rather than just you doing it yourself?

Catharina Eure: it’s the third object. so what I say with staff or faculty is. And I’m very high touch, I like to know what’s going on. And they’re like, you like to control everything? No, I just wanna know everything because there’s so many moving parts that I can intercept and actually, make sure we’re going in the right direction. And I also am the ownership of the vision. So that’s up to me. But I say, I want you to tell me. Anything and definitely conflict. tell me the conflict and conflict is really not ha, I think not handled well sometimes, which then does not make good leadership. So the conflict is a third thing. So if you come to me and you know we have a problem, I. If it’s between you and I emotionally, that’s not gonna be positive. If you can put the problem over here, and there’s you and me, and here’s the problem, again, we’re creative. It’s very [00:19:00] difficult, but three things can happen. One, and this is what I tell ’em, you need to tell me one. There may be a backstory that you don’t know. So one, you gimme the opportunity to backstory and together you can decide, okay, I understand, or I don’t understand. That’s 1, 2, 2. I probably, maybe, I probably kind of absolutely one of those did it. And I don’t wanna be a jerk, so why would I not want the input to be better in that situation?

Catharina Eure: So what you’re saying is true. I screwed up. Own it. And we’re gonna go on, life’s gonna go on, or three is we will never come to concurrence on this. So we’re gonna disagree, but that doesn’t mean personally I’m disagreeing with your thoughts or your beliefs. I’m disagreeing about this one situation. So minimizing that conflict and having an open situation where everybody is not stuffing things down, coming into work and No, no, no, no.

Catharina Eure: everything is pretty straightforward. you have carte blanche to communicate and tell me. Because, and out conflict, if you resolve [00:20:00] conflict correctly, you have the strongest bonds. Doesn’t matter if it’s

Catharina Eure: coworkers, peers, leadership, parents, students for sure. faculty. If you actually invest in the conflict and rearrange the mindset of the conflict, like next time some people are like, oh, I have a beef with you, and they’re like, oh, oh, avoid that person.

Catharina Eure: They’re like, oh, great. Okay. let’s figure it out,

Catharina Eure: Easier said than done, but incredibly valuable. three things can happen from this, so why wouldn’t you tell me? And none of them are gonna reflect poorly on you, I promise you that.

Adam Morgan: And what we’re going into now is a little more of like emotional intelligence in leadership. So you’ve been talking about communication and emotional intelligence. So talk to me more about, how does our language change how you talked earlier about happy and sad in hiring conversations. Maybe give us more about how communication.

Adam Morgan: It changes when it’s governed by emotional intelligence when we’re

Catharina Eure: Mm-hmm. you always have a goal, I [00:21:00] think.

Catharina Eure: when you have, you always have a goal, and I think the conference you’re referencing is, I get a lot of, former, friends, employee, students saying, I really want to have this job. They’re not offering me you enough money. And so I’m gonna go in there and say, you get the money, or You’re quit, or whatever.

Catharina Eure: I say, well, you’re, not having the opportunity for them to learn more about you and you to learn more about them. And that was the happy set. Happy is, you need to say what’s positive about the situation. I love this job. I love this opportunity. I’m so happy you found me to do it. Happy, sad, I’ve, whatever your sad is, I’ve run the numbers, I have my loans, whatever’s going on in life and, I’m really, I’m sad because what you’re offering me in salary or position. Is not going to do that. So happy, sad, happy, but I so wanna work for you. I’m wondering if you could go back by chance, take another look at the numbers and see if there’s any way we can go with that. So two things. If you don’t get that [00:22:00] job, you still have negotiated where they’re gonna be happy to hear you again. Or if you don’t get that raise at work, you’re still going to, have done it in a way in which is emotionally, mature, that they’re like, okay, this is a person that can be in leadership. So it’s the happy said. And then the other one is by chance,

Catharina Eure: this is.

Adam Morgan: Yeah, by chance you mentioned that one. Let’s hear

Catharina Eure: Yeah, by chance.

Catharina Eure: this aspect of when you’re like, ah, and they’re not changing your mind, you’re gonna come at them with a problem and you’re gonna put it out there and you’re gonna. I’ll show them go hard in the paint. That’s not gonna work. What’s going to work is if you say you’re having this conversation and they’re not aligned, and just say, okay, well let’s pause and then just say by chance, if what I’m saying has value, how does that change your opinion? Or by chance, could we revisit this or, by chance if you thought differently about it or by chance if I did this, or by chance if I could grow the department. what would that look like to you? Because I see what it looks like. What, what would it look like to you? [00:23:00] There’s something about by chance, is a wonderful way to deal with conflict or even anything in which you need to persuade someone because it’s not I want you to think this way. You’re not, you’re not dialed in, right? It’s just you’re asking them. And there’s some, it’s, I don’t even, it’s not mine, so I stole it from some, podcast. But it is a literally psychological aspect that changes instantly in the person’s mind. You’re giving them the time to contemplate it differently.

Catharina Eure: That has nothing to do with you, them, or the problem at hand. Just by chance it doesn’t matter. And that attitude brings the, the heat down. And that has worked for me many, many times. So,

Adam Morgan: Yeah, because it takes the onus off of them or you, it’s now, like you said earlier, it’s that that separate entity, right? If by chance this happened, voila. Right.

Catharina Eure: And their attitude changes. Stalwart nah. I’m like, by chance they’re like, well, like mentally it just totally changes. So like I said, I didn’t [00:24:00] make it up. I learned it somewhere, and it works 99% of the time at a time.

Adam Morgan: Well, in speaking more about emotional intelligence, you also talked earlier about emotional stress and how it’s exhausting. So tell me, how’s that different than physical stress? Is it worse, better?

Catharina Eure: I’d rather run a marathon than have emotional stress at work. Well, I shouldn’t say

Catharina Eure: that. I only run if someone’s chasing me. I hate running. But like the idea of, I’d rather do something incredibly physical and we all know I used to have a job that was so, I really disliked it. I mean, I disliked it because there’s a whole ton of reasons why I disliked it. But, I found myself on Sunday night staying up as late as I could. and I used to live in Miami Beach or go shrimp fishing, which has to be like really late at night, on the bridge or anything to keep me up late. ’cause I didn’t wanna go to work on Monday morning. I didn’t know that. it was just so emotionally taxing that it started to affect me. And so what I find again is that [00:25:00] emotional stress interferes so much in doing great work. Again, we are so dialed in as creative individuals to what we do and how it makes us feel about our personal best is that you’re never going to have a great department or great work if you don’t manage that emotional stress. It’s exhausting. People don’t want to come into work and you have to do it. How many leaders understand you have to do it, but if you’re not in a place where you’re healthy enough to have. And I’m only there because I’ve made so many mistakes and I’m still not there. But to understand that, that’s part of your job, and the things that you can ask about conflict, and, people don’t want to see that because they think this is the job. But there’s a couple things to deflate emotional stress. One, make sure everybody knows what they need to do to get a good review, or to earn a bonus or what their job is. I really dislike at the end of the year where [00:26:00] those performance reports and you have these things and oh, I didn’t know that.

Catharina Eure: Or you have to write up things. I think that’s incredibly archaic. I really enjoy startup culture because you’re all one hand, one eye, one mind focused on what the goal is and everybody there. And then you get some bigger organizations and people don’t know why they’re there. So the important thing about that is you sit down at the beginning of the year and say, I’m gonna make it really simple. This is what’s required of you. This is, hard skills. This is the soft skills. I’m not talking about a job description. Like you need to invest in those around you. you need to really think about when you come into work, the, not only the product you’re putting out, but you know, what are you contributing to overall.

Catharina Eure: These are cliche things, so I know they sound really, overused. But if you do this, this, and this. At the end of the year, you have no problem in understanding where you stand. You have no problem in understanding what type of performance review you’re gonna have. Ah, people, the best thing you know, I was trying to tell this, [00:27:00] I remember four years ago, the best thing you can do for a person. Let them know really what they’re supposed to do, and then. I wanna say get outta the way, but your vision and direction near the bumper on a bowling lane. But let them know what they’re gonna need to do and then clear the way for them to do it. course correct if it’s not happening, but since you already talked about it, hey, remember we said these four things, man, you’re killing it here and here.

Catharina Eure: I mean, has anybody ever done that with you? When you first walk and say, okay, here’s your job, then they just start giving you work and you’re doing work and I think I’m doing a great job, but how do you know? So

Catharina Eure: be very, very clear and through that, be very clear what’s required. And then speak to that. And again, it’s not personal. You’re hired to do these things,

Adam Morgan: I like this idea of Be very clear on what it takes to succeed, what you can do, and then have check-ins regularly

Adam Morgan: letting ’em know, are you making it or are you not making it? Like, how are you doing?

Adam Morgan: Because the unknown is always worse. am I sucking right

Catharina Eure: yeah, exactly. Yeah. And also I am for you. [00:28:00] So anything I’m telling you

Catharina Eure: is I am for you. I am for you to do well. I am for you that I can give you a great recommendation after this. that’s a little different. Also, it gives you opportunity to like, pull somebody aside or, again, and say what’s up? Like

Catharina Eure: something’s, what’s up? And they’ll tell you, it might be personal, it might be family. And that’s how you gain that. and, and I mean, you really wanna know. It’s not just okay, check I’m being, nice to people, or I want to pretend I want, I mean, again, those are those arrows or they’re your fingers at the end, How much did you know about someone’s else situation?

Adam Morgan: Yeah.

Catharina Eure: and you can’t fix everything, but at

Catharina Eure: least they feel heard and at least coming

Catharina Eure: to work is not another, life is tough. it’s not getting easier. And the last thing you want to is a terrible work situation that starts, they say if you are literally stressed, it affects your whole physical health for over a long time.

Catharina Eure: So.

Adam Morgan: A hundred

Catharina Eure: How sad if you’re the [00:29:00] leader that created that and how sad if you’re

Catharina Eure: the leader that didn’t fix it, you can’t fix it, but you can at least, come from a good point.

Adam Morgan: Ouch. That’s a, that’s a big question. How sad if you’re the ones that’s

Catharina Eure: I know.

Adam Morgan: I don’t want to cause that.

Catharina Eure: Yeah.

Adam Morgan: So going back to something else you’d said earlier of okay, you. People that you know before are the ones helping you get jobs. And it’s always like the coworkers, the sideways. So I wanna talk a little bit more about, ’cause this balance between managing up and managing sideways.

Adam Morgan: ’cause managing up, a lot of times some people may say, oh, you’re just kissing up and you’re just, taking all the credit and you’re doing all the things at the top. So talk to me about how you. Make sure your team feels like you’re being a fair person at managing up, but also the sideways ones that’s in my career.

Adam Morgan: They’re the ones that make the difference on whether you get a promotion or the next job or all these other things. And so it’s not necessarily just coming down from the top. So talk to us about how do you successfully manage sideways as well.

Catharina Eure: I [00:30:00] personally, it is a, I’m gonna answer your question, but pause just to tell you that it is something politics and managing up that I actually thought didn’t have any value. That when I first got out, I actually thought, oh, it’s just about your design work. you’re a great designer.

Catharina Eure: That’s all you need to be and all you need to do. And I would say see people managing up that you said kissing up, and

Catharina Eure: selling out. And that’s what, how I termed managing up. But I realized that that’s not it. Again, your bosses and your sideways bosses, they all have their roles and their role is not to find out about your department. So you need to, I just was speaking about this, like I went to this thing in Austrian and, and there was all these young people there. I said, okay, so when you finish something, do you report it out? And they’re like, oh, that’s so, bs, blow my own. I’m like, no, no, no. It’s your opportunity to say for real, Hey, this was really difficult and we got it done and this is [00:31:00] how we got it done.

Catharina Eure: This is. and the team really we’re celebrating afterwards, like anything and those things feel so un uncool or. I don’t know. See, I’ve been there. It just sounds like something I don’t want to do that, because they’re gonna read that and go oh, it’s a kiss up. It’s not. You need to be sharing.

Catharina Eure: You need to, put out something that does that. You need to, I know one person that does a newsletter, and they don’t call a newsletter. They’re just like, Hey, cool stuff going on. And then they send it to everybody. That was the only thing that made me feel better is they’re like, well, why don’t you just make a huge list of people and then you do it and you just send to everybody?

Catharina Eure: ’cause then it doesn’t look like you’re just sending it to this one person. So there’s a lot of way to do it. Or you can attend those things and say, Hey, before we leave, I just wanna share something really cool. we didn’t think we could do this, or or as you asked for this and we did that, but you know, the staff did this or something.

Catharina Eure: if you are, you just have to write about it, talk about it. But then it’s those conversations [00:32:00] outside of meetings and outside the hall and be there and make those happen. I know it sounds there’s no magic sauce besides you putting yourself in those positions. Again, to have conversations that are just not once a year or that are coming.

Catharina Eure: Do you ever do anything with the people sideways or above you that is nothing about, I need this, gimme more money, or we didn’t hit this deadline. can you have conversations that are not focused on I need something or we’re having trouble, or, I mean those very direct about, oh, this is what’s going on in my world and this is how you help me. Again, arrows in, are you having conversations that are arrows out? I have asked my bosses like, what is success? And, I have a, a brand, design company and I would always have the client. Okay, so if you hire us and it’s a year, what does the year, what does it look like at the end of the [00:33:00] year for you and your company after you spend all this money? And they’ll tell you something really wrong. okay, well talk net. What are three things that have to happen? But if they also say, oh, gonna go grow sales 30%, and say, well, okay, we need that conversation because it’s not realistic. So, going into it that you know where the client is. It’s, again, it’s that same thing.

Catharina Eure: What are the things that you need to know and like with the employee, what are those three or four things that you need to do if you haven’t asked the client, what is, what does success look like? And when we do that for you. You are not dialed in on the right place. Like how do you know you’re gonna have those weird, situations? So same things with bosses. what do you need us to do for you to be successful?

Adam Morgan: Sounds like it’s just really a lot of having empathy and caring and transparency and not just, yeah, not just managing up for the handouts, but managing up to also share the success and give credit

Catharina Eure: Have you ever asked, Adam, have you ever asked anybody that you’re working for? okay, [00:34:00] we can do a lot of things. So if you know the team under you can do something that is so valuable to you, what is valuable to you? Because I have been working on things that I think are great and my boss thought, they’re like, yeah, it’s cool. I’m like, are you kidding? We just stood on our

Catharina Eure: head and everybody worked late and it was this whole thing and it’s just cool. No, it was. Amazing. but he wasn’t in that space as opposed, but I didn’t do the two things he really wanted, which were so simple. we did the job, but I give my boss something that he can send forward. So he’s my, I make him my internal champion. He doesn’t have to think about it.

Catharina Eure: He doesn’t write it up, he doesn’t have to talk about it. He doesn’t have to get, gather visuals. It’s a plug and play. give your internal, create internal champions by giving them the opportunity to save something good. From a group that’s under them that they can give sideways and upwards. That’s really important. Same thing if you’re just a small agency with clients. Do you have an internal champion within the company? You’re [00:35:00] that, that you’re doing work for? That’s super important. You know someone that you know at the meeting you, you have a relationship with, they’ve seen the work and at the meeting they’re gonna say, yeah, I vote on that side to go with that. Or I need this. I don’t have access to the CEO. This person has access to the CCEO and I’m making them armed and dangerous. I don’t really mean violently. Just mentally prepared, visually prepared that I’ve given them stuff that they can Then I. Before it comes down to a decision on anything or, I mean these are really broad.

Catharina Eure: If we had a project, I could say exactly the thing, but are you, have you given them updates? Not just updates, but have you given them something in which they can do? What you need to do for the CEO is to talk about the project, talk about your wins, talk about what’s coming up, aligning decision making before you get in the room.

Catharina Eure: Like you know that again, that’s that. working outward, upward, and sideways. So you always need, who’s your internal champion if you don’t have [00:36:00] one, you’re just, pulling a sled or pushing a rope, you need someone that’s going to be informed about what you’re doing, how you’re doing.

Catharina Eure: And again, those are not written in your job description, but they’re probably your number one thing in the job description. And I, I don’t like doing it. Even at this stage, I don’t know. There’s something in me that I’d rather, design-wise, I want my little hole I can crawl into and design and design and design, talk to other designers, but that’s, you’re leaving, that you’re going into management, so that’s your choice.

Adam Morgan: Yep. Leaving the creative

Catharina Eure: Yep. Creative cave. I love my creative cave. Okay.

Adam Morgan: Well, we’re running near the end of time here, so I’d love to just give you a chance of just. For those who want to practice this arrows out approach of leadership, what are three, your top three tips, if we had to summarize it,

Catharina Eure: what’s difficult about me answering that is I’ve really never thought about it besides the conversations that we have. I mean, I think one is, check yourself, like what’s your motivation? I. And look for opportunities for arrows out,

Catharina Eure: I think [00:37:00] that’s also a different thing, like what are you doing?

Catharina Eure: And try it, not just work-wise, try it in other situations. But you know, again, it’s that it’s not trying to be your everybody’s buddy. It’s not trying to be like that fakey person. It’s actually just saying. How many things are you doing? Because it, it values you. are you gonna take credit for that or are you really going to be that person that’s magnanimous, and that it’s the team?

Catharina Eure: And does your team trust you? Does your team doesn’t have trust that you’re, they’re working for best, that you’re arrows in if you’re not putting a bubble around them so that they can do their best job. it’s just small things. So arrows out would be,Check your motivation on everything. Then that’s one. What’s your motivation? Two, have you reached out to every single person you’re working with? either above or below. And just say Hey, how is it going? What are we doing? And I know again, that’s repeated all the time, but just make those layers so that you can understand where [00:38:00] they are.

Catharina Eure: So again, you can see how your decisions affect them. So what’s my motivation? How does this decision affect everybody? Am I making that decision Because it affects me. Does affect everybody else. And then same thing, creating those situations for success. again, overall success.

Adam Morgan: So here’s some of the things that I’ve learned from this

Catharina Eure: yeah, that’d be great.

Adam Morgan: make sure if you have emotional intelligence, it’s all about. Knowing what, like putting the focus on the team, not just yourself.

Adam Morgan: Number one, caring about them individually and knowing them individually. Number two, great communication. There’s no substitute for good intentional communication. I love this. If by chance, notion, or hap happy, sad, happy, like whatever those things are, be intentional about your communication. And then finally.

Adam Morgan: Your job as a creative leader is to make it possible for your teams to do your best work, not necessarily you. So focus on how you’re building that environment and building that opportunity, whether it’s up, down, sideways, whatever. that’s what you’re doing is you’re creating that epicenter where great creative [00:39:00] work can happen.

Catharina Eure: and those caring about the others are small, unseen things. They’re not the showy, oh, I am doing this. And, it’s not that I have a guy, I’m gonna say his name, Manan, at Nike, and he ha he is so good at this. I mean, I wish I could just take a chip and load in my brain is he’ll say to people, Hey, let’s go for a walk. then he asks them when they’re walking around and, I need to do that. I think that’s somewhat hard for me. like I said, I’m,

Catharina Eure: I’m not that person innately.

Adam Morgan: more direct.

Catharina Eure: Yeah. But he’s so good at that. Hey, let’s go for a walk. And I would employ that. Hey, let’s go. And now everybody’s he can tell when people are, kind of chaffing at the bid or frustrated

Catharina Eure: and he’s not, he’s just, he’s one of these side people that just has that currency easy, easiest thing. Hey, let’s go for

Catharina Eure: a walk. What’s up?

Adam Morgan: Well, thank you Catherine, for joining us today.

Adam Morgan: hope you’ve listened [00:40:00] these great tips from. emotional intelligence,arrows out versus arrows in learning how to, support your team. But thank you for listening and be a part of this creative community. We’d love to have you here, and we’d love to have you help us grow.

Adam Morgan: So if you know someone who would enjoy this episode or this podcast, go ahead and share it with them. Let’s see if we can get more people to have arrows out approach to

Catharina Eure: Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Very, very kind of. You guys, a wonderful experience. Thank you so much.

Adam Morgan: Awesome. All right. Until next time. Thanks for listening.