Thinking about your next big career leap?
Recently, two important people in my network faced a similar question about their career paths. Both have unexpectedly left their previous roles and organizations, now standing at a crucial crossroads, contemplating their next steps.
These individuals are exceptional performers, showcasing high levels of self-awareness and confidence in various aspects of their lives. They possess the ability to enhance any team they join, and due to their sharp skills, they have already received attractive job offers.
Yet, despite the array of offers, they face the dilemma of choosing the best option. Selecting the right path can be challenging, even with multiple good opportunities on the table.
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Setting Expectations: Wait, people can't read my mind?
Recently, I led a Leadership Retreat for 2 ½ days with over 70 participants. Supported by an exceptional leadership team, we successfully managed the event. As the retreat concluded, a team member was tasked with outlining the next steps for the participants after an intense exploration of leadership and self-awareness. After an exhaustive and profound experience, everyone was understandably fatigued as we closed the event.
Before I proceed, I want to make it clear that the person I selected to present the "next steps" to the audience is an exceptional leader.
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Be Gentle and Smile
I wake up each morning filled with excitement and ready to seize the day, whether it's a weekday or the weekend.
And for clarity, I am not a rainbow-puking unicorn. A former colleague, Clay Scroggins, coined this phrase in his book, "How To Lead When You Are Not In Charge." In the book, Clay discusses how there are people who are overly positive, too cheery, and not grounded in reality. They are, simply said, rainbow-puking unicorns.
That's not me. I'm not beaming with a huge smile, saying everything is awesome. Yet, I truly believe the best is yet to come—and I am purposed and geared up to attack life with full fervor. In short, I want to make the best of it—whatever "it" is.
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The Two Most Magical Questions to Ask a Direct Report
The data shows, and my experience affirms, that most leaders aren't doing regular OOO (one-on-one) meetings with their direct reports.
I've discussed in previous articles that it's critical for leaders to meet with each of their direct reports. I believe these meetings should occur at least every couple of weeks, but I actually think the best practice is to do them once a week. Often, I receive pushback from leaders who argue that weekly meetings are too frequent, with comments like, "That's too many meetings. We need to focus on work. Meeting that often is excessive."
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You Are More Telepathic Than You Think
Quite possibly, the best gift you can give to your team, your people, and your clients is being present. I know there can be an argument made for other things that would be at the top of the list… Integrity, predictability, empathy, a feeling that you're easy to do business with, congeniality – the list goes on. These are all super important. And I'm not arguing to exclude any of them; I'm just arguing for "presence" topping the list. It's astonishing to see that even in the post-Covid world, where digital platforms like Zoom play a significant role in conducting business, people attend meetings without being fully engaged or present. They are multitasking and easily distracted. And it's telepathic. It's quite evident when someone is not fully present.
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What is Your Working Genius?
Over the past three decades since completing college and entering the workforce full-time, I have mainly occupied leadership positions, with a short period as an "individual contributor" in an organization. Looking back on my leadership path, I have faced more challenges than accomplishments. Reflecting on my leadership journey, I've encountered more mistakes than I have hit home runs.
One significant error was my belief that I had to constantly exude enthusiasm and be hands-on in supporting my team members in their roles.
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Start on time, end on time – always
OK, maybe not an absolute always. But pretty close. This will feel like one of those, no duh, leadership principles. But how often do you actually do it? How often do you actually pull it through? How often do you say in a meeting that is running over, "Oh, it's OK, I can go another couple of minutes; I'll just text my team that I'm going to be five minutes late." Or, maybe in your organization and your team, it's become so loose that everybody just shows up five or ten minutes late. And then you actually don't start the hour-long meeting until thirteen minutes after the official "start time."
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Plan For The Unplanned
Wait, what? Plan for the unplanned? That doesn’t make sense. How do you plan for the stuff that’s not planned?
In short, you go deep and wide in what you want the plan and outcome to be, and you take one big step further in every other direction as you go through the planning process. You, as a leader, do this; because when it doesn’t go according to how you think it will go (or how you want it to), you’ve got some preparedness around it.
Great leaders do this. Great business leaders do this. Great ministry leaders do this.
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Never let your preference be mistaken as the truth.
We hold hard to our opinions, but the team with the most ideas is usually the team with the best ideas. The best teams are continually looking for diversity and to respect different opinions. Perspective and preferences are not hard-core truths.
There could be truth interspersed through our preferences. But when we get so enamored in our preferences and take them as gospel truth, we are missing an opportunity to bring different voices and opinions – and perspectives – into a conversation that could be a buoy that raises the tide.
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The Power of Telling Your Own Story
I am months into a Leadership Cohort with nine other guys. We meet every few weeks for a few hours. There’s a lot of work. There’s a lot of inertia and output from each individual, not just with homework but emotionally, mentally, and relationally. It’s pretty intense.
The first few months were getting some basic blocking and tackling under our belts. Then we jumped into our current phase, where each person tells their individual “Personal Story.”
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There's Beauty In The Ashes
I've written several articles about the extreme need and value in apologizing to people; so, I don't want to rehash that altogether. But I want to use a recent experience with an "apology" at the center of the event since there is something within it that I want to draw out.
Let me tell you about a recent event (meaning, this happened minutes ago) and the back story (over the past several years):
I just hung up on a phone call with a friend from the past. We hadn't really been friends for years. We had a "falling out" a while ago. Since the falling out, and gradually, as the years rolled on, I realized a lot of the hard feelings were mainly due to my strong personality.
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Your Employees Want a Lot More from You.
A lot is expected from you as a leader. Your leadership can break or make your team. This is not an exaggeration; according to a recent Gallup study, the manager determines 70% of the variance in team engagement.
Gone are the days when leaders could manage their people just by telling them what to do. Nowadays, every manager must be intentional and authentic when speaking with their employees.
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Authentic Leadership is Not for the Weak
Authentic leadership is the new ‘buzz’ word in the business world. Many leaders proclaim themselves as true authentic leaders, but their behavior doesn’t match that description. While the theory of authentic leadership appeals to me, it’s the practice of leading with authenticity that gets to the core of what I believe to be what makes a leader worth following.
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It's IMPOSSIBLE To Fire Someone at the Perfect Time
When to let somebody from your team go is always going to be a key issue for any leader. It's always going to be a sensitive issue for any manager. There will always be the two questions that every boss has regarding this dicey issue: "Do I give them some more rope and latitude to see if they can improve? Or am I at the point where I realize that their performance is not going to be able to get up to an acceptable measure, and I need to let them go?"
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All I Have Is My Reputation (not really)
I was working in a senior leadership position at a thriving business. We were doing well. We were exceeding sales. Because of this, there is probably a bit more latitude for innovation and creativity than there normally would be – where top and second-level leaders, and even the next level below, were given more liberating space to run free and try new things.
As this was going on, I had planned a meeting with a few high-level strategic partners. This was me running out front with some innovative ideas and trying to close some really big business.
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My Legacy Is Not MY Legacy
I thought I was just a really top-level leader for years. It’s because I was a high performer, by most “career” or “industry” or “business” standards. I was given goals and objectives (and oftentimes, I even helped create those goals and objectives), and I pulled them through to completion. I was successful in accomplishing whatever those high aspirations, or those high goals, were. I was a high performer.
But ultimately, when I would achieve those goals, it was mostly about me. I pushed, controlled, intimidated, influenced – sometimes inspired – to get to “goal completion.” Once in a while, I would lightly cross into the realm of what it looked like to be a “servant leader,” but for the most part, it was mostly about me.
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Do You Know Your Personal Brand?
I remember the first time I did a 360° Leadership review years ago. I had heard a lot of information about the process – that I would be evaluated by my boss, peers, and direct reports on five areas: Results, Relationships, Emotional Intelligence, Trust, and Developing Others.
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Don’t Fly Solo, Learn as a Team
Whenever I went into some professional development, advanced degree, or leadership conference, I came back feeling inspired and eager to implement what we've learned to transform my team.
But if I'm being honest, when I tried to convey these valuable strategic insights to others, I often encountered a lack of interest. The truth is, this builds resentment instead of understanding.
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Stay in Your Lane
I was asked to do a really big presentation to hundreds of people; the topic was right in my wheelhouse. Sometimes we will get asked to speak on something that we haven't done a bunch of keynote talks on, and it would take several planning meetings. But this one was right down my lane. I was excited to give it and knew it would be easy to prepare for it.
I already knew where the talk would go, so I thought I'd help out my go-to person on the marketing side of the team. Instead of giving her an outline, I started putting together a PowerPoint just to save her time. In my mind, I was being thoughtful; I would avoid an extra meeting for us both.
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Is leadership coaching right for me?
What would you think if your boss recommended that you start a leadership coaching program? Do you feel concerned that you might be having performance issues? Do you immediately worry that your job might be in danger? Do you feel skeptical? If you think anything other than "yes, this is great news," you are not alone.
Most people think about leadership coaching as something reserved for "leaders in trouble," those employees who are seriously underperforming.
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