Communicate to Lead

Do you need help with having difficult conversations in the workplace? Are you tired of avoiding conflicts and seeing them escalate into more significant issues? If so, you're not alone! 

As a business leader, it's crucial to have practical communication skills, especially when navigating tricky conversations. Join me on Communicate to Lead as I guide you through the challenges of difficult conversations and arm you with the tools you need to succeed. From body language to follow-up techniques, we've got you covered. Are you ready to take your leadership to the next level? Tune in and find out how to communicate with confidence, resolve conflicts, and create a positive work environment.

Here’s what you can expect from the episode:

• What are difficult conversations, and why do leaders sometimes feel the need to avoid them? 
• The different types of difficult conversations like giving feedback and addressing conflict. 
• Laying out the four steps for preparing for difficult conversations. 
• We discuss the do's and don'ts of difficult conversations. 
• Understanding how to be intentional with your body language during a difficult conversation.  
• How to follow up after having a difficult conversation.

If you enjoyed the episode, please share it with others and encourage them to follow Communicate to Lead.

If you are an entrepreneur looking to reach the next level of success, visit www.thetailoredapproach.com to find a bespoke coaching program to support you with effective communication, strategic listening, and authentic leadership.

Connect with your host, Kele Belton:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetailoredapproach/
Website: https://thetailoredapproach.com/

Tune in in two weeks for another exciting topic on Communicate to Lead.

Resumes are crucial to our careers and businesses, yet many of us are not good at creating a resume.

In this week’s episode, my guest, Lissa Appiah, breaks down the importance of creating a resume that tells your positive story and how to maximize your LinkedIn profile for increased professional visibility.

Lissa is a Certified Career & Resume Strategist and the Founder of WeApply Canada. With 10+ years of experience in career coaching and leadership, she now helps organizations with their career and leadership development programming to boost talent retention.

She specializes in helping introverts and new leaders increase their visibility and leadership presence to excel at work - while staying true to themselves. She does this through her coaching programs and corporate workshop facilitation.

Lissa has helped hundreds of people land interviews and secure employment with multiple Fortune 500 companies and various levels of government.

Tune in to today’s episode to hear more about:

• The importance of building your personal brand.
• How to create a complete LinkedIn profile.
• How to maximize your profile to showcase what you’ve done.
• Why you don’t need to sign up for the premium version of LinkedIn to make the most of the professional platform.
• One of Lissa’s favorite books and podcasts, especially the book by Vanessa Van Edwards that discusses how to connect and get people’s attention.

Connect with Lissa Appiah:

[email protected] 

www.weapply.ca 

Follow Lissa on social media:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lissaappiah/  

https://www.instagram.com/weapply.careerservices/ 

https://www.facebook.com/weapply.careerservices 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWPv38kvekTm_H6bMad8sEA/videos 

Connect with your host, Kele Belton:

[email protected] 

https://thetailoredapproach.com 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetailoredapproach/  

Have you ever asked your team to trust you without actually putting in the work? 

If your team doesn’t know you or know what to expect from you, they will not trust you. You can kiss collaboration, communication, and innovation goodbye.

Teams cannot function effectively or succeed without trust. And as much as we think it’s everyone’s responsibility to build trust, it must start with you as the leader. You need to show your team why they can and should trust you.

In today’s episode, I touch on six strategies to help you immediately build trust with your team. Some are easier than others, but all of them will help you cultivate an environment of trust and connection. 

Get ready to take a deeper dive into:

• The different ways you can authentically connect with your team by applying some easy ideas and tips.
• Understanding why honesty and transparency are vital to forging trust with your team.
• Showing your team you are equipped to lead them and sharing your expertise and skills.
• How you can build trust by asking your team for feedback and acting on it whenever possible. 
• Why being consistent in your words and actions can increase your team’s level of confidence in you.
• The importance of appreciating your team beyond their paycheck and the pay-off for you and your company or business.

If you’re interested in checking out the resources I quoted in the book, click on the following links:

• Thanks for the Feedback. The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback well. - Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen
• Change The Culture, Change The Game - Roger Connors and Tom Smith

Connect with your host, Kele Belton:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetailoredapproach/

Website: https://thetailoredapproach.com/ctl-podcast/ 

Taking ownership of your career is possible when you work with a career strategy coach who makes it seem effortless. 

On today's podcast, my guest, Tiffany Uman, takes us through her journey as a leader at a Fortune 500 company, why she started her business and the strategies you can apply immediately to set yourself up for career success. 

Here's today's episode at a glance:

• Tiffany discusses the blind spots we all have that are potentially crippling our career growth.
• She delves into why employee retention is one of the most significant challenges leaders face today.
• The reason why quiet quitting has bubbled to the surface even though it's not a new phenomenon.
• She offers what managers can do instead of trying to whip their teams into shape.
• Speaking up and communicating with your boss is necessary to keep them informed of what you're up to at work. If you don't speak up, they won't know how best to support you.
• Tiffany shares the 3C's you can use to effectively prepare for your next job interview.
• You'll also learn some tried and tested strategies you can use to negotiate your next salary package or increase.

Grab Tiffany's free guide and watch the replay of her masterclass, as mentioned on the show. Click the links below to go to her free resources:

1. Free Guide "How To Nail Your Next Interview": https://tiffanyuman.lpages.co/how-to-nail-your-interview
2. Free Salary Negotiation 101 Workshop Replay: https://youtu.be/TaJ4MnBWzIk

About Tiffany Uman:

Tiffany Uman is a former Fortune 500 Senior Director with 13+ years of experience turned Career Strategy Coach empowering ambitious professionals to fast-track their career success and crush their goals in record time without compromising their well-being. 

She achieved 7 promotions in under 10 years, was Head of Marketing on multi-million dollar brands, was named an internal transformation change agent, and was named Top Coach 2021 by Coach Foundation. She graduated summa cum laude from McGill University and received an executive business certification from MIT.

Connect with Tiffany:

Website: https://www.tiffanyuman.com/

Follow Tiffany on social media:

• Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/tiffany.uman/?hl=en
• Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tiffany.uman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-uman-career-strategy-coach/ 

Connect with your host, Kele Belton:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetailoredapproach/ 
Website: https://thetailoredapproach.com 

“If you are not speaking up, you’re making a choice not to speak up.” - Karen Laos.

Communication plays an integral part in being successful in the workplace. When you can share your ideas or an opinion that might be different from that of the majority, you’re creating an environment where communication becomes the tool for building trust.

This week I’m having a conversation with Karen Laos about her leadership journey, her newly published book, and the importance of learning to trust your own voice.

Here’s what you can expect in the episode:

• Two exercises show how you can align your external confidence with your internal voice.
• How leaders can foster an environment of clear and direct communication.
• The most prominent challenge leaders face today is a lack of communication or miscommunication.
• The impact of living with the belief that others know better than you do.
• Karen discusses exercises you can use immediately to learn to trust your own voice.
• She offers tangible strategies to help you to stop rambling, when to speak up when you’re nervous, and how to share your opinion when it differs from those around you.
• You’ll learn an effective storytelling technique that will help you to hook your audience’s attention immediately.

About Karen Laos:

Karen is a former corporate leader turned professional speaker specializing in communication. She is fiercely committed to equipping women in business to speak with clarity and stand out with unshakable confidence.

Over her 20+ year career, she has gained rave reviews from NASA, Facebook, Google, Netflix, and United Healthcare.

Her mission is to eradicate self-doubt so women can stop holding back and start taking their seat at the table. She lives this out through her podcast: Ignite Your Confidence with Karen Laos.

Karen’s style is approachable and engaging. She connects quickly and leaves audiences feeling empowered with practical tools.

Connect with Karen Laos:

Website: www.karenlaos.com 

Buy her book Trust Your Own Voice: Growing Your Influence Through Confident Communication: https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Your-Own-Voice-Communication/dp/B0B353NSTM. 

Follow Karen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenlaosoffocial 

Connect with Kele Belton:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetailoredapproach 
Website: https://thetailoredapproach.com 

Do you find yourself over-apologizing when you don’t need to? At work or home, constantly saying sorry is a habit you must break.

In today’s episode, we talk about why some of us constantly apologize, how it impacts our credibility, and what we should do instead. Check out this Pantene commercial that beautifully illustrates this phenomenon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcGKxLJ4ZGI. 

I’m not saying that we should never apologize. There are certain instances when a genuine apology is the right thing to do, and it’s a powerful way to mend relationships. 

But there are genuine circumstances when you don’t need to or shouldn’t apologize. 

I used to be a serial over-apologizer. I would often apologize out of empathy for someone or when I felt bad about something. For example, if a friend’s car were wrecked by someone else, I’d say, “Gosh, I’m so sorry! That sucks.” 

Or I needed someone to do something work-related; I would say, “I’m sorry, I need you to complete this task so we can get it to the client by tomorrow.”

It wasn’t until a friend and colleague made me aware of what I was doing and how it hurt my credibility that I actively worked to stop this bad habit. I realized I could show empathy without apologizing. 

If you constantly over-apologize, you are not alone. I was where you are, and I know of others who struggle with this habit. Today’s episode is all about giving you tips and strategies to empower you to break this habit because it is not serving you or your career. 

In this episode, we’ll get into:

• Identifying if you tend to over-apologize.
• Understanding why some struggle with this habit.
• Unpacking the impact of saying sorry has on you and your credibility.
• Nine strategies you can implement immediately instead of saying sorry

It’s time you take your power back and communicate directly and confidently at work. 

Grab pen and paper and jot down the 9 strategies you can apply immediately and notice the difference in your communication and how you come across to others.

Share this episode with other serial apologizers. And if you realize over-apologizing doesn’t apply to you, share it with someone who will benefit from the strategies. I bet you’ll find at least one person in your life who’ll appreciate you making them aware of their habit. 

Connect with Kele:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetailoredapproach/

Website: https://thetailoredapproach.com

Welcome to the August series! This month we’re focusing on improving your leadership communication.

For the last 3 months, I’ve had the pleasure of coaching some strong women on their communication and leadership skills. Some of these women are leaders managing teams of various sizes, and others have the goal of becoming leaders within the next 6-12 months.

We work on various skills regarding how they come across as leaders and how they communicate and lead their teams to grow and thrive in seemingly challenging situations.

Today we’re talking about a question one of my group coaching clients asked recently. Her question was:

• How can I ensure that I coach my new team instead of constantly solving their problems or always telling them what they need to do?

We had a rich group conversation on what coaching is and what it is NOT. Often people use coaching and mentoring interchangeably, but they are different. 

While mentorship describes a relationship in which a more knowledgeable or experienced person guides and cultivates the professional development or growth of another, coaching focuses on helping the coachee unlock their own potential. The coach doesn’t typically provide answers but coaxes and supports the coachee to solve their own problems.

Mentorship plays an essential role in the growth of team members, but it typically falls outside the purview of the manager/subordinate role. I believe informal coaching is the way to go if you manage a team and want to help them grow and thrive.

Sometimes, simply asking someone a few questions can help them get unstuck and find a solution to a particular problem or how to approach a seemingly daunting task or project. 

In this episode of the Communicate to Lead podcast, I’m offering you some dynamic coaching questions that you can use to help your team improve their performance, solve problems and make better decisions. You can also use these questions to help them learn a new skill or achieve their career goals.

Some things to keep in mind before we get into the coaching questions are:

• Coaching is not about telling your team what to do.
• Focus on solutions, not problems, when coaching one of your team members.
• Keep in mind that when coaching someone, it’s about them, not you. 
• Before the coaching conversation, ask yourself what you need to do to have a productive session.
• Don’t be afraid of silences.
• Don’t be afraid to encourage your coachee to delve deeper into their thoughts.
• Help them deepen their thinking with a few simple questions.

In the rest of the episode, we dive into 20 different coaching questions that you can use any time you want to help someone get unstuck or elevate their thinking. 

Grab pen and paper and prepare to jot down helpful questions you can implement immediately. I know because I’ve offered these same questions to my coaching clients, and I always get feedback that the questions worked!

If you found this episode helpful, email me at [email protected] and let me know what you found most beneficial or how your coaching conversations are going.

Connect with Kele:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetailoredapproach/ 

Website: https://thetailoredapproach.com 

Bob Jordan is co-founder and head of leadership at interim execs based in Chicago. They specialize in placing leaders in the right positions at the right time. Bob is also co-author of the book Right Leader, Right Time. 

In our conversation, Bob talks about the importance of having the right people in the right positions and his recently published book, Right Leader, Time which he co-authored with Olivia Wagner.

Here's a snapshot of our conversation:

• Bob discusses why the business world has become a lot more project-based and what that means for interim executives. 
• We can't simply practice being better leaders. Ultimately we have to implement the skills we've learned.  
• What very successful executives do, especially if there's a crisis:  the first thing the leader needs to do is listen, and not just listen to the people on the board, but get down on the shop floor, get down to the administrative assistants, and listen, because this collective intelligence at most organizations, it's already there. 
•  Bob breaks down the four styles of leaders, namely Fixer, Artist, Builder, and Strategist.
• The Fixer - this person is a leader who will keep returning to the burning building. The Fixer always needs a situation to fix or a problem to solve. If there is none? The Fixer will break something so that they have something to fix.  
• The Artist - this leader views their world like a canvas or a piece of clay to be molded. 
• The Builder - A builder has market domination on the brain and can grow and scale a small team to dominate the industry or develop a particular product until it's the most popular product. 
• The Strategist - The Strategist is a leader who can deal with complex and large organizations. 
• Bob also discusses the three pillars someone needs to excel in leadership: 1. Embrace your particular leadership style. 2. Collaborate consistently. 3. Solve problems. 

If you enjoyed this conversation with Bob Jordan, please share it with another leader or aspiring leader. Let's support each other in becoming the great leaders that we know we are capable of being. 

Connect with Kele:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetailoredapproach/ 

Website: https://thetailoredapproach.com 

In this week’s episode, Kele has an informative conversation with Naomi Tucker, founder of Planners on Purpose. The company provides event planners with productivity tools and strategies, empowering them to avoid burnout and lead a more balanced life.

Naomi Tucker, CMP, is a Customer Success Director at Meetings & Incentives Worldwide, Inc. and a Past President of MPI Wisconsin. She has more than twenty-five years of experience in managing meetings and events. Today, Naomi supports corporations with business strategies for their meetings management programs and empowers driven and ambitious event planners out of burnout and overwhelm and into being more confident, productive, and well-balanced planners. 

In the conversation, Naomi shares helpful habits and great resources to help you overcome burnout and have more productive days. She also discusses her leadership experience, how leaders must shape their vision to align with others, and how to accomplish that goal.

In this episode, you’ll hear more about:

• The importance of stepping away and preventing burnout and why it can be hard to do. 
• Small strategies you can use every day to prevent burnout.
• Reframing your vision, so it aligns with your team or your manager.
• Leading where you are and how to lead up with respect.
• Three effective ways to be more productive.
• Naomi offers three great book recommendations: Atomic Habits by James Clear, Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt.

If you enjoyed this conversation with Naomi Tucker, subscribe to Communicate to Lead for more candid discussions with great leaders.

You can also find the show notes at:

https://thetailoredapproach.com/ctl-podcast/ 

Connect with Kele:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetailoredapproach/ 

Website: https://thetailoredapproach.com 

Are you an aspiring leader? This episode is for you. This episode is also for you if you're an experienced leader with a team with lots of potential.

Today's episode focuses on those of you who want to move into a leadership position. Partly because I haven't touched on this topic yet, I recently received a question on this issue from one of my coaching clients. Her question was, "How can I show my leadership potential when I'm not in a leadership or managerial role, AND I don't seem to have the support of my immediate supervisor."

Some of you are natural leaders, while others must work on their skills because it isn't second nature.

Here's what you can expect from this conversation that deals with nine ways you can demonstrate and strengthen your leadership skills.

1. Offer your support - Look for what needs doing and do it. Don't wait for someone to tell you what to do. Lighten your leader's load, and help your teammates succeed. Try something simple like, "How can I support today?" 
2. Master your craft - become the go-to person in your expertise or field. Others will pay attention by consistently showing you're an expert in your area. They'll be asking for your opinion or wanting to work with you.
3. Be passionate about what you do - passion is contagious. We love being around people who are passionate about their craft and light up when they talk about what they do. When you're passionate about what you do, it'll be reflected in your attitude and how you show up. 
4. Listen to others - One of the few downsides of being passionate is that we often want to dive into the conversation first, but learning to listen to others is as vital as speaking first. We're true leaders when we invite others into the conversation and hold space for them. This lets us really get to know those around us and what makes them tick. 
5. Speak up and communicate clearly - It doesn't matter whether you share ideas, solutions, or your vision. Always be ready to communicate clearly and succinctly. 
6. Actively seek out leadership opportunities - Don't wait for others to ask if you can lead a project, run an event or put together a presentation. Demonstrate initiative, raise your hand voluntarily, and do your best work when you get the nod. By consistently raising your hand when new opportunities arise, you're demonstrating yourself as the go-to person when solutions are needed. 
7. Come to the table with solutions - Don't focus on problems. Offer solutions you've been thinking about or that you've been researching. When you're solution-focused instead of problem-driven, others in the room start noticing. 
8. Have a growth mindset - as you practice and flex your leadership muscles, you won't always get it right. You have to keep going and keep leading. Leadership is hard, but it's rewarding. Making mistakes as an aspiring leader doesn't mean you've failed. 
9. Get a mentor and mentor others - Invest in your growth and find the right person or persons to mentor you. Successful leaders know that they can't walk the journey alone. When you have the right person to answer your questions, offer advice and help you navigate your career, you gain confidence in yourself and what you have to offer. 

Are you ready to go out there and showcase your leadership skills? I hope so! Take one or two tips you heard today and start leading!

Found this episode helpful? Please share it with someone who's aspiring to be a leader.

Connect with Kele:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetailoredapproach/ 

Website: https://thetailoredapproach.com