Humans in the workplace engage in millions of daily interactions. Some are effective, and some, well, aren’t. Your emotional intelligence (EQ) determines your ability to interact effectively with other humans. It’s your delivery system through which you share your knowledge, experience, and skills with others. If your delivery system is broken or inefficient, your influence won’t translate or make the right impact.

This means that to achieve high performance, you don’t just need great technical skills (IQ), you need a great delivery system (EQ). Some organizations promote leaders and managers based on their technical skills alone. These leaders lack the interpersonal skills (EQ) they need to contribute effectively while contributing indirectly.

In this episode, hosts Tim and Junior discuss why leaders and managers are obligated to improve their interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence, and how to get started. If you're a manager and you're moving from direct to indirect contribution, if your primary job, purpose, and stewardship is to contribute indirectly through other people, then you have to improve your delivery system. There’s no other option.

For the full learning experience, watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/l77Og1MR_v8
Or download the episode resources: https://www.leaderfactor.com/resources/eq-your-delivery-system

Are you paying attention to the rate at which your skills as a leader are being commoditized?

In this episode of The Leader Factor, hosts Tim and Junior put a new spin on Joseph Pine's 1998 article, The Experience Economy. They draw parallels between an economy's differentiation and commoditization cycle and how a leader's skills can become commoditized over time.

As commoditization eats away at old forms of differentiation, organizations are being forced to find new ways to provide differentiated value in the marketplace. This shift has reshaped consumer expectations and holds profound implications for leadership in today's experience-driven world.

The problem? Many 21st-century leaders still use agrarian, industrial, and service leadership methods in this experience economy. As a result, organizations are bleeding talent, stifling innovation, and galloping toward commoditization and extinction.

For the full learning experience, watch the episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe9YbYl3C-4

Or download the episode resources: https://www.leaderfactor.com/resources/the-experience-leader

Can you be candid about change at work? Challenger safety satisfies the basic human need to make things better. It allows us to feel safe to challenge the status quo without retaliation or the risk of damaging our personal standing or reputation. As the highest level of psychological safety, it matches the increased vulnerability and personal risk associated with challenging the status quo. 

Listen in as hosts Tim and Junior discuss how to build Stage 4: Challenger Safety individually, within a team, and throughout an organization.

For the full learning experience, watch the episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WIx3wcvG-s

Download the episode resources: https://www.leaderfactor.com/resources/how-to-build-the-4-stages-of-psychological-safety

Can you create value for your team? Contributor safety satisfies the basic human need to make a difference and offer meaningful contributions. When we create contributor safety for others, we empower them with autonomy, guidance, and encouragement in exchange for effort and results. 

Listen in as hosts Tim and Junior discuss how to build Stage 3: Contributor Safety individually, within a team, and throughout an organization.

For the full learning experience, watch the episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCijFFN7t5w

Download the episode resources: https://www.leaderfactor.com/resources/how-to-build-the-4-stages-of-psychological-safety

We can either cultivate or crush, nurture or neglect, stimulate or stifle learner safety, the second stage of The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety. When we have learner safety we feel safe as we ask questions, give and receive feedback, experiment, and admit when we don’t know.

As the highest form of enterprise risk management, learner safety opens the door to innovation. Leaders committed to safeguarding learner safety know that learning is the source of competitive advantage.

An emotionally bruised learner is a cognitively impaired learner. An emotionally empowered learner is a cognitively enabled learner. The choice is yours: What kind of risk will you entertain in your culture? The risk of learning, or the risk of not learning? 

Listen in as hosts Tim and Junior discuss how to build Stage 2: Learner Safety individually, on a team, and in an organization.

For the full learning experience, watch the episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bND6XuFrEVQ

Download the episode resources: https://www.leaderfactor.com/resources/how-to-build-the-4-stages-of-psychological-safety

This episode is the first in a four-part series on How to Build The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety. Listen in as hosts Junior and Timothy R. Clark, author of The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety book, share in-depth insights into the thinking behind the 4 Stages framework. The episode covers the history behind psychological safety as a concept, what psychological safety is not, where vulnerability fits into the equation, and how to activate the power of diversity through inclusion. As always, they also share 3 practical ways to create inclusion safety on your teams.

To see the slides and host annotations for the episode, watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zDDBkfA0BFk

Or download the resources from the episode here: https://www.leaderfactor.com/resources/how-to-build-the-4-stages-of-psychological-safety

In this final episode of the Micro-coaching and Accountability series, Tim and Junior take the previous two frameworks, The Coaching Continuum and The Three Levels of Accountability, and put them together into the ultimate diagnostic tool for leaders. Think of this matrix as a model to operationalize coaching on a dynamic team.

Your objective? To move the individuals you work with up and to the right. To transfer critical thinking and ownership and increase their capacity through coaching. Leaders who coach their people all the way to box nine end up with a team of full thinking partners who are highly skilled, think critically, and take ownership of their roles. They’re encouraging outcome-oriented, future-focused employees who thrive in autonomy and accountability.

For the full learning experience, watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Uwf4uMvsavs

Download the resources from the episode: www.leaderfactor.com/resources/micro-coaching-and-accountability

Accountability means being answerable for performance. The scope and levels to which we are held accountable vary based on role, willingness, skill, and need. But we can all agree that organizations function based on shared accountability. This means that as teams increase their capacity for accountability, organizational function will also increase.

So how do we become accountable to the unenforceable, ourselves? Here’s another diagnostic tool that you can use to determine where your people work currently, and where they want to be. The 3 Levels of Accountability illustrate the relationship between autonomy and accountability and help us set our sights on the ultimate goal: Outcome-level accountability.

For the full learning experience, watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jMBu1jgo8vE

Download the resources from the episode: https://www.leaderfactor.com/resources/micro-coaching-and-accountability

In this first episode of a 3-part series on Micro-coaching and Accountability, Tim and Junior introduce us to The Coaching Continuum, a framework that can be used to identify coaching patterns in leaders. It runs from “Tell” on one side to “Ask” on the other. 

A leader has one primary objective: To expand the capabilities of the people they lead by increasing their ownership and critical thinking skills. There are two levers that a leader can pull to do this. They can model, or they can coach. Those who rely on directive, one-sided interactions to manage their people will breed dependency and learned helplessness. Those who use inquiry-based conversation in their management will create facilitated self-discovery. Effective leaders use both ends of the spectrum. Where on the continuum do you fall?

For the full learning experience, watch the episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4jOPXTMT8M

Download the resources from the episode: www.leaderfactor.com/resources/micro-coaching-and-accountability

This week, we're talking about intelligence. Most people have a view of intelligence that's not just wrong, but damaging. Our conception of intelligence affects our goal choice and the intensity of our efforts. It affects how we perceive ourselves and our potential. In the episode, Tim and Junior discuss how intelligence is more like athleticism. They emphasize the importance of adopting a growth mindset and choose Carol Dweck's definition of intelligence, the intersection of motivation, ability, and effort, as the most helpful definition a leader can adopt on their leadership journey.

Takeaways

• Intelligence is not fixed and can be improved through effort and learning.
• Our conception of intelligence affects our goal choice and the intensity of our efforts.
• Adopting a growth mindset and seeing intelligence as malleable can lead to greater achievement.
• Rejecting limiting beliefs and embracing a more expansive view of intelligence is crucial for personal and professional growth.
• Intelligence is the intersection of motivation, ability, and effort.

Chapters

(00:00) Introduction and Objectives

(03:01) Redefining Intelligence

(14:47) Intelligence as a Multi-Dimensional Concept

(36:14) Increasing Intelligence Through Effort

(46:55) Rejecting Limiting Beliefs and Embracing a Useful Definition of Intelligence

(49:28) Conclusion and Call to Action