Kay Miller 00:00:00
Welcome to Uncopyable Women in Business podcast. I'm your host, Kay Miller, also known as Muffler Mama. Stay tuned as I, along with my guests, give you marketing, sales, and personal branding strategies that will give you an advantage. I'm here with Kamaria Scott, who is on a mission to redefine what it means to be a great people leader.
As the Founder and CEO of Enetic, she helps organizations build leadership cultures where managers don’t just oversee work—they inspire, develop, and drive real impact. With over 20 years of experience in leadership development and organizational change, she’s worked with Fortune 500 companies like Accenture, FIS, and BNY Mellon to transform teams and elevate performance. Combining psychology, adult learning principles, and real-world leadership insights, Kamaria equips managers with the tools they need to lead with confidence, clarity, and purpose.
Kamaria, welcome to the podcast.
Kamaria Scott 00:01:09
Thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here.
Kay Miller 00:01:11
I almost got through your intro without stumbling. It's quite impressive, and I’m really excited to hear about what you’re going to share because it’s something different that I haven’t had on the podcast before.
You have an interesting background with some degrees I’ve never heard of, and you have your journey to entrepreneurship. So let’s start there, and then we can move into the helpful points about what leaders can do and what people who are being led can do to be more effective. Kamaria, take it away.
Kamaria Scott 00:01:49
So my degrees are in industrial-organizational psychology and adult education and human resource development. I always tell people: one of them tells me what to think, and the other tells me how to build it.
Industrial-organizational psychology is the study of people at work. I’ve always been fascinated with the work experience. Way back in the day, I used to work for AOL. Some of us who are a certain age will remember that. I worked for them during the summer when they went from the hourly plan to the unlimited plan. We were just inundated with growth, and at the time, I was a college student working in a call center, figuring out what I wanted to do.
As it happened, I was experiencing this rapid growth while failing macroeconomics. That’s when I realized I wasn’t going to be a math-business girlie. One of my professors gave me a VHS tape—so I’m dating myself—that had a video about psychology, and it was fascinating. It helped me understand the psychological principles behind how we interact with each other at work.
Later, I got a degree in adult education and human resource development, which helps me take theories of motivation and turn them into tangible strategies that people can actually apply in the workplace. These two degrees have truly been the foundation of my career—understanding the psychology of work and using that knowledge to create impactful learning and change initiatives.
Kay Miller 00:03:51
It’s interesting that you bring up AOL and VHS tapes. Like you said, you are of a certain age, but your “certain age” is probably 20 years younger than my “certain age.” I remember MySpace, but yeah, AOL was the first email platform—You’ve Got Mail! I love that movie.
Anyway, that’s a fun piece of trivia.
You have this passion for helping people work together—leaders and employees—and doing it in a way that benefits both sides. When you work with a company, do you go in and develop a program specifically for them? How does that work?
Kamaria Scott 00:04:38
I wouldn’t say I build a “program” because when people think of programs, they often think of one-time events. Instead, I take a change-driven approach to developing people leaders.
My methodology is Perspective, Practice, and Community. First, Perspective—helping organizations define their current state and the future state they’re working toward. Second, Practice—identifying the key behaviors needed for leaders to navigate that change. This might involve training, performance support tools, or other resources. Finally, Community—creating opportunities for leaders to learn from and support one another so the change sticks.
So rather than a program, I see it as a targeted, purposeful intervention to move leaders from one point to another.
Kay Miller 00:06:00
I like your point about things you learn in a program—oops, maybe that wasn’t the right word! But yes, three days after you hear a speech or a podcast, you might not remember all the facts, but you will remember the stories.
Speaking of that, in your podcast Manager to Manager, you talked about allowing employees to be authentic, genuine, and diverse. You mentioned that leadership isn’t just about effectiveness and productivity—it’s also about ensuring employees feel comfortable being themselves.
One of your guests shared how she has piercings and tattoos, and how people often judge her based on her appearance. How do you encourage leaders to foster authenticity and inclusivity in the workplace?
Kamaria Scott 00:07:13
A lot of my work is rooted in employee engagement, which is about balancing what the organization needs and what employees need. One of the key things employees need is the ability to bring their authentic selves to work.
If they can’t, they engage in what we call masking—pretending to be someone they’re not just to fit in. This takes a huge amount of energy, effort, and mental gymnastics. Instead of focusing on their work, they’re spending energy trying to conform.
During my conversation with Dani Doolin on my podcast, we discussed how employee engagement is like energy. Employees only have so much of it—do you want them spending that energy trying to fit in, or do you want them using it to do great work for your company?
Kay Miller 00:09:27
That makes so much sense for leadership. It’s about productivity, teamwork, and engagement. And we’ve all heard that money isn’t always the biggest motivator—it’s about feeling valued and successful. Changing the mindset of leaders to embrace this sounds like a big win.
Kamaria Scott 00:10:00
Absolutely. Some industries are naturally more relaxed than others, but my work is about helping leaders understand that authenticity starts with knowing your people. Leaders need to be curious, ask questions, and celebrate differences.
I love leading diverse teams. I’ve worked with global teams and designed learning programs for various regions. I remember once using the phrase brick-and-mortar buildings in training materials, and someone from my team in India pointed out that the term didn’t translate well there. Had I approached leadership from an American-centric lens, I would have missed that.
It’s these differences that make teams stronger, and embracing them is key to effective leadership.
Kamaria Scott 00:11:52
They can give me different examples and ways to make sure that what we're doing matches our full audience.
Kay Miller 00:11:58
Interesting that you bring that up, because I had a podcast guest a couple times, actually 2 or 3 times. I think her name is Jasmine Borkowski, and she lives in Berlin. And so we've done some peer coaching. I think you mentioned that about coaching and mentoring. I was talking to her about how you can go into LinkedIn and find someone's education a lot of times, and that can be something that you can bring up and talk about. And I said to find out someone's alma mater is pretty powerful. And she said, we don't use that term alma mater. It's funny that you bring that up because, right, if you want to have a global audience or if your company has connections globally, it's very important to tune in and talk to them in their language. So that's an excellent point. Something else I wanted to ask you. And there's no such thing, I've heard, as a dumb question.
Kay Miller 00:12:57
Is "people leader" your term, or is that just a term? I haven't heard because I love it. It's not just leadership. It's leading people.
Kamaria Scott 00:13:07
Yes. You know what? There is no such thing as a dumb question. And I am delighted you asked me about it. As you can see, I lit up about that because it's very important to me. So I use the term "people leader" for a couple of reasons. One, I can't pretend like I made it up, and I probably—I’ll say I didn’t make it up, but I made it popular. I was sitting at lunch one day talking to someone, and as my podcast is called "Manager" and my brand is "Manager." I focus on managers. But in this space that I work in, the words "leader" and "manager" sometimes are used interchangeably, and I specifically focus on people who lead teams, meaning your job, your box is above somebody else’s box. Within the space of leadership, you’ll hear "everybody’s a leader."
Kamaria Scott 00:13:54
Everybody and their mother is a leader, right? The up-and-coming new startup is a leader. The person in the corner office is the leader. Just by being you, you can be a leader. And that’s wonderful from a leadership perspective. So when we talk about leadership in general, it’s very broad and vague who we’re talking to. I am specifically talking about people who have a personal mandate and have been given the duty of care over a team of people. Now, the word "manager" sometimes makes people feel itchy. And so I even did a podcast where I said it gives a certain feeling. I was having lunch with somebody, and I said "manager." And she said, "I don’t like that word. I don’t like the word 'manager.'" And it does sometimes have a negative connotation for people. So I always say, I first say "manager" and then I say "people leader" for those of you that have an aversion to the word. But I want to be super clear. I think in your language you say "finding your moose."
Kamaria Scott 00:14:46
I do it for clarity purposes so that people know that I am not talking about generic leadership and anybody and their mom who might be a leader. I am talking about a specific person in an organization.
Kay Miller 00:14:58
I want to take a quick break to ask you a question. Does your personal brand set you apart and make you unforgettable? If you’re not 100% sure, you need my free email series, Five Steps to a Profitable Personal Brand. Sign up and get a daily email for five days, plus a bonus—a list of personal branding shortcuts that will give you an advantage. Go to...
The number one term that comes to mind when you say "manager" is "micromanager." None of us want to be micromanaged, and I think, since you bring that up, would I rather be led or managed? And one thing I hear about leaders all the time is that leaders create leaders. Like you said, in a workplace environment, you don’t want your people asking every little question and not making decisions on their own.
Kay Miller 00:16:00
Because I think I talked about sales, and no one likes to be sold. And I have a story about my niece when she was just three years old. My mom was taking care of her and said, "Shauna, we need to go to the store. Please pick up your toys." And Shauna said, "I don’t like to be told." And so in her three-year-old vocabulary, she really made a very wise statement. So I think that your philosophy of leadership, authenticity, and helping your employees feel empowered to make their own decisions and reason, of course, creates much better relationships with employees. So those are all really good.
Kamaria Scott 00:16:44
I think that people leaders... So there’s a couple of things there, right? One of them is I always say that people leaders have to balance relationships and results needed to get work done. So it’s not just about the task but what needs to happen. So it’s a balance between the relationships and the results that need to happen in order to get work done.
Kamaria Scott 00:17:07
So you’re always balancing relationships, and no one wants to be sold or told what to do. And so the thing about the role of the people leader, I always say, is that you have to be an artist, a scientist, and a coach.
Kay Miller 00:17:19
Okay, that was quick. So when you say those three things...
Kamaria Scott 00:17:22
Again, being an effective people leader means you want to be an artist, a scientist, and a coach. An artist, meaning that going back to that theme of authenticity, the artist in you is having a firm understanding of who you are, what your strengths are, and how that contributes to how you lead. So continuing to go back to our conversation of authenticity. I am a very "hugs, crying with you, hair-braiding" kind of people leader. Somebody else may not be that kind of leader, and that’s okay for them. So continuing to know that you’re an artist and you tap into yourself, but also knowing that people leadership is a skill.
Kamaria Scott 00:18:01
It’s just like being a musician. You start off terrible. You practice, practice. So you have to practice to get better at that. The scientist part is you have to be willing to think about how we test things that work with your team. So if I tell you one way to do something and you don’t like it, if it doesn’t work, that’s okay. That’s information for me to figure out how to approach a situation differently in a way that’s effective. So that part and then the coach part is how do you really work side by side with people on your team to help them be successful? So I love the word coach in this context, because it indicates that we're not necessarily talking about a hierarchical relationship. I don't encourage any people to think about it with hierarchy, But a coach is somebody who wants you to be successful. It's going to be on the sidelines cheering you on and giving you feedback to help you do that. So I think being able to embrace those three rules is how you get to being a people leader and redefining what people think of what they think of managers, so that when word manager pops up, they don't automatically think like our leaders are.
Kay Miller 00:19:04
When I think of coaching, there is a lot of cheerleading involved and not telling them what to do, but getting them just like in sales, getting them to make the decision that you want them to make, but they need to feel like it's their decision. So there's some finesse there. So I like your point of artistry, which you don't normally think of to explain this and then testing of course, just like marketing, you test and if it works, great, if it doesn't work, you know that you need to change something. And again, coaching is really feeling like you have someone on your team versus someone telling you what to do? So the coaching part just can really revolutionize who someone is and what they contribute.
Kamaria Scott 00:19:50
Absolutely. I'm a huge fan of coaching, and it's one of the things that I think the people leaders can do that makes all the difference, because even the approach of when you are giving feedback from a coaching perspective, you might say, okay, let's look at the data.
Kamaria Scott 00:20:06
What do you think of how you just performed? Where do you think there could have been opportunities? What do you think we should celebrate? And all of that is drawing out what's inside of someone and encouraging them to be self-reflective. It's also helping them to think about how they move forward successfully in their futures. Given what we just talked about, what may be another step you could take? What's one thing? And so if we can help managers and people, leaders use that approach, it does shift the dynamic and it shifts the perspective of how people think of them and their role in helping them settle.
Kay Miller 00:20:43
And still be their genuine selves. So I think it's great that you are leading companies through that process of doing that, because they are going to come out so much better for that experience, and I'm sure measurably better not just, oh, everyone's happier, but they're accomplishing more.
Kamaria Scott 00:21:02
You know, what happens I love about even when you think about coaching and my philosophy and why, you know, we talk through my motto, being engaged, healthy and active, forming teams because we do want people to be engaged.
Kamaria Scott 00:21:14
We want them to do the work that needs to be done. And there used to be a small engagement by a company called Blessing Light, and they have some more engagement, and they would talk about how true engagement is. Basically, when you're creating that win situation, when the employee is getting what they need to be successful, they are happy to engage and do their best work, and the company is getting what they need from the employee. We in either one. It's broken the other out. And so they have this quadrant where they're like, yeah, people can be happy, but that doesn't make them productive. They could be productive, but they may not be happy. And we're trying to create the balance of both of those things. And that's where you get the engagement suite.
Kay Miller 00:21:57
I wrote the book on Copyable Sales secrets, co-wrote the book, and Copyable you, which is branding. But so much of what you're saying also applies to sales that you want them to win. You don't just want people to be happy, you want them to be buying from you.
Kay Miller 00:22:14
And so it's not just a woo, oh, this is nice to have. There are definitely goals and benchmarks that you provide for companies I'm sure.
Kamaria Scott 00:22:24
Oh, absolutely. You do want people. I mean, you do want there to be measurable goals and success. And I think especially if someone that provides more soft skill solutions, you still want to be able to quantify what does that look like successfully in an organization so they know you made a difference. It's a lot of times when you're creating solutions. I'm also creating. What does success look like? If we get this right, it might be an increase in conversations which lead to a decrease in regrettable attrition. It might look like something being increased. It may look like consistency in your business operations. So there's always a measurable milestone and a tangible thing that you want to get out of the relationship. It's not just we want to have fun and then we want to show up and have a great training session. It's we want to do this in the name of an outcome that we're trying to achieve together.
Kay Miller 00:23:29
Then I'm sure that speaks very loudly to management, to people leaders, because to have something tangible that they're working toward is going to be more meaningful. So we don't have a whole lot of time left. But you started this company in Epic and that you're an entrepreneur. And so many people say, I wish I could have my own business. You can take.
Kamaria Scott 00:23:53
Them.
Kay Miller 00:23:53
On whenever you want. And we used to have a joke in our business. We've been entrepreneurs for 30 years plus. And I used to say, yeah, if you call and you want sales, press one. If you want marketing, press one. If you want tutorial press one, press one.
Kamaria Scott 00:24:08
You hear all that up. You do all that you do.
Kay Miller 00:24:11
So I want you just to address quickly how did you start your business? What were the challenges? How did you overcome those and become successful so that our listeners can have that?
Kamaria Scott 00:24:22
Honestly, I started my business. So in one paper, my business probably 30, 15 years ago.
Kamaria Scott 00:24:29
And here's how it started. I used to work for an urgent care startup, and my role there was to read engagement and redevelopment for all of our centers. And so when we opened a new center and customer service training, I did all our service standards, all of them. And so one day someone from a non-profit community health center came into one of our clinics and was so impressed by our level of service that she called our office and said, did this. And my manager, head of HR and was like, hey, she'd like to talk to you. She wants to know who could help her. And I said, sure, but I just don't work here.
Kay Miller 00:25:07
Listen to this. Not free. Don't give things away.
Kamaria Scott 00:25:10
Yeah, not for free. Like, I'm totally happy to lend their expertise to improving the service in their clinics, but not for free. And she gave me her blessing to work with this other organization. And that was really the start of my consulting business. And so I did that for many years alongside my full-time job.
Kamaria Scott 00:25:30
And many of your listeners may understand this transition. And then I'd been laid off three different times. I was telling people two more I should get a fruit basket, but every time we have to get laid off, I'd be like, this is the time I'm gonna restart my business. And the first two, I think I call them like All-Stars because what you really learn is that you, you have an expertise and you know how to do your expertise, that you may not know the business around your expertise. And so I think after the second round, I just started getting a better understanding of not what I do because I can do what I do in my sleep. Most of us who have been in corporate America for 30 years, if that's the truth. But what you can't, what you may not know is what is your sales cycle, because that's where so many of us end up going back to work because we don't understand, like your sales cycle may actually be 3 or 6 months.
Kamaria Scott 00:26:23
And so I started really learning more of the marketing, the branding, the what is it, what is the customer journey, those types of things so that not so much I know No. I focused on my craft, but the business of my craft. And so that has been what has helped me become successful is learning how to market, how to talk through what the pain points are, how to use a customer empathy map to build my branding, and what I would say to most people that are starting in their solopreneur journeys is that while you may feel like you're at a disadvantage, you are at an advantage because you are both products. You're all of me, and so you intimately know the product. You don't have to go. Everyone's probably coming from you. You do know the pain points because you probably experience them, which is why you built the thing. Just learn how to articulate it a little bit better so you can do the things. And so what I would say is figure out the business of your business, not just the craft of your business.
Kay Miller 00:27:30
Great advice because I know, especially women, we were talking about how many women are starting businesses and they might be a side gig. And like you said, it's scary. So they might be transitioning and they might have the passion of candle making or whatever, but there's a lot more to it. So those are great points. Kamaria, I want to let listeners know where to find you. I assume LinkedIn and where else. What would you like to supply listeners with to find you and engage with you?
Kamaria Scott 00:28:04
These are my favorite places. So yeah. First is LinkedIn. I absolutely love when people say hello to me, so feel free to connect and say hello. The second is in the crew room so you can send me an email. You can go to the website. Then third, feel free to if you are a PayPal leader. Thank you for the management of your podcast. It is where we do talk to others who are or have been real people that are sharing their experiences and what it's like to be a people leader.
Kamaria Scott 00:28:32
So those are the three ways that you can engage with me, and I look forward to hearing from people.
Kay Miller 00:28:37
I found this conversation fascinating, and as I said, it's different than other conversations I've had. So I think the listeners will be very interested. And Kamaria, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Kamaria Scott 00:28:50
Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
Kay Miller 00:28:53
Thanks for listening to this episode of Uncopyable Women in Business. See you next time. And always remember to be uncopyable.
