Lead From Here

If you are new to this channel, we focus heavily on building healthy teams that have strong processes, strong relationships and a strong leadership cores that focus on finding the balance between delivery and mental health and contentment.

Which makes this the topic of this episode may feel a bit counterintuitive. Sometimes you just need to pull out all the stops, process and balance to create massive impact. Whether that is saving a customer, pivoting on a project or avoiding a failure to launch, there are rare times when you just simply have to find a way. Notice I said "create massive impact", this isn't something you do often or for no good reason.

If there is a good reason and it is truly impactful, sometimes you have to ask people to work late or over a weekend or at a capacity that isn't sustainable for a short period of time. Initially, there will be pushback, there may be frustration and sometimes even anger. This is all very normal, especially if you are putting in the work to build healthy, balanced and effective teams...they are going to let you know that you are doing the exact opposite.

The two major keys for these moments, make sure you tell a story and layout the WHY behind it and lastly, sit in the mud with them. The worst kind of leader makes their team work late or come in on the weekend and they are home doing their own thing while their people are stuck at work. You may not be able to do the tactical work with them, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be there. Order dinner, help them unblock things and most importantly be there in solidarity and support. Knowing that is enough to keep them in a good headspace.

If you are doing these things and making sure this doesn't become a regular thing for random not massively impactful things...you may actually see a boost in mood and energy in your team after completing the push. People like creating positive impact and superhuman efforts feel good sometimes, just don't make it a habit.

I hope you found this helpful, I appreciate you being here, hit me up with questions!

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First off, 50 episodes! Wow! Wild isn't it. That happened fast! Looking forward to the next 50 and beyond. I sincerely appreciate you being here.

Storytelling is something that isn't used enough in leadership. If you ask most leaders if their people know what they are doing and why they are doing it...they would say yes...but if you ask them how do they know? Most will say that we have goals and milestones they are driving towards so they know what they are driving towards.

They aren't technically wrong...if you have solid goals and milestones, you have done the first (very important) step of creating clarity in the target. You haven't however addressed the "Why" of the situation. Too often people lean on goals/milestones to set the path, which they do to a certain extent, but they are disconnected with the most impactful part of a human...their emotions.

Storytelling allows you to connect your goals and milestones to a why. This creates a crystal clear path of how AND why, while connecting their emotions to that path and the why behind the path. Emotions help people stay focused on where they are going and makes them way more engaged in not just the outcome, but the process to get there. They will call out issues, find innovative ways around problems and pivot quickly because they are not only connected to the milestone, they are connected to the why.

Storytelling also gives your people a story to share, allowing them to invoke emotions in their teams, peers and customers! That increases effectiveness of the team AND helps close deals!

I hope this was helpful, there are tons of tutorials about storytelling on youtube, check them out.

Thanks for being here! Reach out for questions or talking through your specific situation.

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When people think about top talent, there is usually reverence for how good they are for the company. Which is usually true...

Top talent is always sought out, every hire, you hope becomes a top producer. When you hire or develop a top talent, it feels like you have hit the jackpot, whatever they touch turns to gold. If you give them something, you know it's going to get done and it's going to be high quality.

The question in your head right now is probably...when could they ever be bad for a company? If they are, shocker, it's probably your fault as their leader.

As a leader, you need to make sure that your top talent is unlocking the rest of your team as much as they are knocking out high impact/profile work. What does that look like? If you are giving all your most complex or interesting work to your top talent, then the rest of your team is languishing and lagging behind. It may seem counterintuitive to not give your most complex work to your top talent, but overtime, if they are the only resource doing it...at some point, whether they leave the company, move to another project or get promoted out the teams...you will end up with a MASSIVE hole in your teams that will take multiple months or more to fill.

Rather than giving everything to your top talent, spread the love. Get others involved and have the top talent support/mentor them through the complicated, high impact work. This will build up your entire team over time, it won't be as fast out of the gate, but it will eventually start becoming second nature to the entire team instead of just small percentage of the team. If you invest evenly in the growth of your team and company, you will see MAJOR gains in throughput and technical strength.

There are things that can impact that team growth negatively when trying to share the love...maybe your top talent isn't a good mentor or isn't a good culture fit. Those are coachable things in some instances and in other instances, it's simply best to find/develop another top talent and let them carry that torch.

It's important to develop your team from top to bottom...and it's significantly faster to use your best talent to knock it out.

Thanks for being here, let me know if you have questions or disagree!

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EQ is the single most important skill a leader must have. This doesn't mean you are everyones friend, that you wear your emotions on your sleeve all the time or even that you are "in touch with your softer side"...all those things are fine and good, but that isn't what EQ is. EQ is your ability to understand your emotions, using your empathy to pick up emotional cues from those around. This allows you to understand (to an extent) how your actions, emotions and words are impacting the room.

Whether it's a large meeting, a one on one or anywhere in between. If you aren't able to read the room, it's very difficult to lead effectively.

People will say, you don't have to have EQ to lead...and most likely those are the same people that are more "command and control", "iron fist", "do as I say, your opinions don't matter." The reality is, if you can't read a room, you will never know how effectively your conversations, strategic vision or difficult topics are going over. You are blind to how people are understanding what you trying to explain.

Understanding your emotions is the first step to becoming a leader, mix that understanding with empathy and you become a powerful force. Emotional awareness gives you strength, it doesn't create weakness.

I hope this is helpful, thanks for being here! Reach out for questions or comments!

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Leaving it all out on the field is a phrase that has been used forever on sports teams, companies and schools. It's a bit cliche for the most part, but at the core of it, the message is on point and the best way to be on a day to day basis. This place of giving it your all, is where happiness and contentment are found.

It's also very individualized and depending on who you are talking to, may conjure different responses both positive and negative. It's up to you as a leader to know who to push and how when it comes to this concept. It's also on you to lead by example and do the same, if you aren't all in, people will be hesitant or resistant to do the same. As it was said by Julius in Remember the Titans, "Attitude reflect's leadership, captain."

Your effort and engagement sets the bar for what the team will shoot for, if you set the bar low, they will aim low. It's on you to leave it all out there every day and every project. Work hard. Play hard. Everyday. I hope this is helpful, thanks for being here! Reach out for questions or comments!

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Trust is the foundation that a healthy and productive team culture is built upon.

Fear comes with the absence of trust. If everyone is fearful, they will, as Simon Sinek points out, "Lie, hide and fake." They will be in self preservation mode, meaning that they aren't doing what is best for the company, they are doing what is best for themselves or their team. Fear will tear teams and cultures apart over time.

Trust allows teams to be open, honest and have REAL conversations about what is working and what isn't. With that information they are continuously improving, utilizing things like candor and trust to push their own boundaries which inevitably will push the boundaries of the team/company opening up new opportunities.

It's not easy, but building trusting teams is the single most important thing a company must do to find long term sustainable success.

I hope this is helpful, thanks for being here! Reach out for questions or comments!

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As a leader you have a lot of context into the business. With that comes the reality of you get to see and feel a lot of frustrations, annoyances and general nonsense. It's important to know that MOST of that is out of your control.

As a leader, your people will feel their own levels of frustration and annoyances...and they will want you to get involved. With all these things swirling, it can feel like you need to engage. I am not discouraging from engaging in areas you can actually control, but if it's out of your control, it's better to coach them through their feelings and help them process/deal with it as opposed to fighting a battle you can't win or impact.

That doesn't mean don't try to solve pain, it means build relationships across and throw ideas/plans out to help. The point is not to burn energy on things that you can't control and certainly don't make promises to your people you can't keep. Be honest, tell them you will try and then put out feelers. If it doesn't pan out, move on and help them work through their emotions instead of hoping for change in a specific area.

I hope this is helpful, thanks for being here! Reach out for questions or comments!

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Understanding distractions and where they are coming from is a very important part of leadership. The reality is that your best people get exposure to multiple parts of the company and once peopel realize how helpful they are, they just start going directly to them. It's important to know how to block your team from those distractions.

The funny part of this thought experiment...sometimes you are the biggest distraction your best people have. Whether it's a slack message, email, got a minute meeting or an unneccesary meeting...you are distracting them. It doesn't matter how small, those small distractions add up over time and depending on how deep the work they are doing is...can derail for 30-45 mins before they are able to get back into flow.

It's important to let them know that they can create chunks of unreachable time and you have to lean into them on that...because that isn't in a high ownership person's comfort zone. Make sure they know that they can redirect all requests to you when they are online AND if they need deep work chunk time to put everything on silent and get into the flow of the deep work.

If you can eliminate distractions and coach your best people to do work in deep chunks, the more work your team will complete and the more quality you will see across the board.

I hope this is helpful, thanks for being here! Reach out for questions or comments!

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When you are evaluating talent, it's important to remember that track records matter. If someone is generally a top talent, they don't just fall off without a very clear reason. What is that reason? That is up to you to understand.

Too often people make a new assumption about someone based on a single situation or action. If you are pushing your teams to deliver at a high level, you are going to push them too far and into failure from time to time...if you let those failures taint the trust in your top prospects, you are missing the point of leadership.

It's important to know who your best people are and let them fail...and fail often. That sounds counter intuitive, but the best people are going to give you the best shot at finding new levels of success. The only way to do that is put yourself at risk of failure. So if someone is a rockstar and they fail, they are still a rockstar, you are just letting them push their boundaries and consequently your companies boundaries.

The reverse side of that coin, if someone fails consistently, you have to own up to the fact the proper coaching needs to happen. You can't ignore it, you can't avoid it...you have to deal with it. If after coaching, you can't pivot them to finding success more often than not...then maybe it's time for them to move on. It sounds harsh, but you impact your rockstars negatively, when you allow sub par employees to linger and bring down the overall team. Give them a fair shake and coach them, but set clear, achievable goals, if they miss, then it's time to pull in HR.

I hope this is helpful, thanks for being here! Reach out for questions or comments!

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There will come a time when your teams are struggling, they can't find stability, they are spiraling and can't pull themselves out. What do you do?

The first thing you might think to try is mixing things up. Try some new things, make some changes to process or team composition or meeting cadence...I caution you not to do that. The first thing you should do is deep dive into the data. Look at team channels, tickets, emails, one on one chats you are a part of, one on one notes, basically anything that you can get your hands on data wise, look at it. Use all that data to try and understand what is happening within the teams. Is it a lack of trust? Lack of clarity on the delivery? Lack of cohesiveness in the plan?

Once you have a clear picture on why the team is hurting, you take the biggest hurt and fix it. Then you start working your way down the list, solving as much pain as possible. Some may make zero impact, that's ok, keep going. The more pain you solve without haven't to lean on your people, the faster they will snap out of the spiral. It's easy when you are in the spiral to think there is no choice, but there definitely is and you taking action will make your teams organically look at themselves to see if they are part of the problem or the solution.

Don't jump into problem solving, take a step back and build as much context as possible. Then take focused action and keep moving.

I hope this is helpful, thanks for being here! Reach out for questions or comments!

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