Sara Menke, founder of Premier Talent Partners and Ajna, recently appeared on an episode of the Speak In Flow podcast. In the episode, she speaks with podcast host Melinda Lee about a variety of topics. They discuss leadership, how to deal with struggles in business and the lessons learned over Sara’s years as a founder and leader of two companies.

Staying Calm And Focused In Turbulent Times

A key topic of the podcast was the struggles Sara and her businesses faced during the pandemic. Like most others, Sara’s work struggled while everyone was quarantined, and the fluctuations in performance were a symptom of that root cause. Sara speaks on those difficulties, showing her strength of character in the face of hard times. She says “I don't have a problem making difficult decisions, even when it may impact people. I will make it with integrity 100% of the time.”

What Twenty-Six Years Taught

As the podcast went on, they discussed Sara’s lessons that she’s learned in her many years of leadership. Her first and biggest lesson was multitasking; she quotes Confucius when he said “The man who chases two chickens catches none.” This lesson really hit home when Sara founded Ajna. She was struck by the realization that she couldn’t be in two places at once, and any attention devoted to one business was missed in the other business. She talked about distancing herself in her role at Premier to focus on Ajna, and how Premier struggled with an inattentive captain at the help. Simply put, Sara says, “The biggest mistake I've made in my career was chasing these 2 chickens.”

The Importance Of Vulnerability And Integrity In Leadership

Sara’s decades of experience and struggles with juggling Ajna and Premier have given her a unique perspective on leadership. She recognizes that it isn’t a leader's role to micromanage every little thing. Instead, a leader should work to build a company and a culture of people willing and able to excel. Leaders should trust in those people and in the system they built. Sara says that she accomplishes a lot of this through vulnerability. When asked about how her team performed during hard times, Sara champions their resilience: “Most teams would break. Our teams haven't, and the reason why they haven't is because we're vulnerable with one another.” She cites this vulnerability as the key motivator for her team's success, and for good reason. This vulnerability is the driving force that creates the culture of integrity that Sara values so highly. It’s also this vulnerability that opens channels of communication within the team, allowing everyone to be seen and heard because of the trust they share.

Integrity

Integrity is a core part of Sara’s life and work. It’s her “number one value,” the quality she strives to conduct herself with. That value has been reflected in her business, growing a culture of honesty and accountability that served her well in the harder times. Sara was able to use her integrity as a springboard to bounce back from the struggles faced by Premier and Ajna, and she uses integrity on a daily basis to ensure that she is doing her job to the best of her ability.

Leading By Example

Fostering this incredibly rich culture of integrity and vulnerability is no mean feat. Sara has worked for many years to get to this point, both to understand her values and to foster them in her businesses. As she puts it, her teams “went through the phases of growth that I went through.” This shared growth needs to be recognized for the accomplishment that it is. Sara has learned so much throughout her tenure at the helm of Premier and Ajna, but to pass on those lessons to her team shows exceptional leadership. 

Sara speaks more about the culture that they’ve developed on the podcast: “You know, all these tiny little things, we give each other grace. We guide each other in a really respectful way. Like I said, everyone here runs the company in their role.” You can see in these words the trust and respect Sara holds for all of her team members. She trusts each and every person at her company to be exceptional in their position. That level of trust goes a long way to motivate her team, and the culture of vulnerability allows everyone to see how much Sara trusts in them. It takes a special person to create that kind of culture, but Sara has done it twice.

Empower Your Team

Sara goes beyond integrity and vulnerability with her team: she empowers them. Her trust in her team motivates them, true, but Sara has never been a passive actor. She works hard to give each and every person in the company the tools they need to succeed. She says it herself: “As a leader, our primary responsibility is to make sure that our people are successful.” Her team is able to reach their full potential because of the way she empowers them to do so. She recognizes that her job as a leader is to lead by example and to raise everyone up with her. As Sara puts it, “Let your people lead.” Let those around you be the ones to make a change. The best leader supports those people in the changes they seek to enact and guides them in the way they need to be to grow the company together. With this perspective, it’s easy to see how Sara empowers her team.

Sara’s belief in her team is something special to witness. She speaks to a time where she had a chance to sell Ajna and says that she just couldn’t. “I had the best people, the best leaders, everyone is a master in their role.” The trust that Sara shows in her team exemplifies that key tenant of her leadership style: empowerment. Sara believes in her team and trusts them to do their job to the best of their ability, giving her team the space they need to excel in their role. This type of leadership is what has made Sara’s success possible.

Learning to delegate featuring Sara Menke is worth every minute spent listening. The insights that Sara shares are plentiful, from the way to lead a business to numerous ways to communicate with the people around you. If you want to learn more about Sara’s work, check out Ajna and Premier.