What are the HR best practices when it comes to toxic leadership? Should you coach the leaders? Or should you fire them? When it comes to toxicity, organizations often wait too long to get involved. Learn how to identify the symptoms of poor leadership and intervention strategies to preserve and protect your teams' cultural health.

Episode Chapters:
00:00 - Start
00:40 - How common is toxicity in the workplace?
04:07 - Toxicity is a spectrum of influence.
11:48 - The definition of a toxic leader.
13:55 - Identifying two types of toxic leaders.
17:57 - Two organizational failure patterns.
23:26 - Intervention strategies for both types of toxic leaders.

✅ Download the resources/slides from the episode: 
https://www.leaderfactor.com/resources/what-to-do-with-a-toxic-leader

Or watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/18zfabFNKBo

Psychological safety is a cultural initiative that was made to be measured. It’s the best indicator of cultural health in your organization. Let’s talk about how to measure it effectively. 

Every effective psychological safety assessment has these 5 things:

(1) A valid, quantitative instrument.
(2) Space for qualitative feedback.
(3) Org-wide reports, team-level data.
(4) Demographic data capability.
(5) Built-in forward momentum. 

Learn more about PSindex™: https://www.leaderfactor.com/psychological-safety-survey
Watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1ZM5ymESJ9g
Or download the episode resources: https://www.leaderfactor.com/resources/measuring-ps-what-most-l-d-leaders-dont-realize

Your career, business, and closest relationships are only as good as your emotional intelligence. And your ability to improve your EQ is only as good as your ability to measure it.

Every effective EQ assessment has 5 things: (1) a valid, qualitative instrument, (2) multi-rater feedback, (3) real accountability mechanisms, (4) consideration of internal/external motivation, and (5) built-in forward momentum.

In this episode of The Leader Factor, hosts Tim and Junior dive into an EQindex™ self-assessment sample report to discuss what to look for when evaluating emotional intelligence instruments and how to use an EQ assessment in a coaching scenario. 

Watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ns1l3aQ37FI
Learn more about EQindex™: https://www.leaderfactor.com/eqindex
Download the episode resources: https://www.leaderfactor.com/resources/measuring-eq-what-most-l-d-leaders-dont-realize 

Psychological safety is the collective emotional intelligence of a team. This relationship between emotional intelligence and psychological safety is the anatomy of culture in an organization, and both should be at the foundation of all development efforts.

 In this episode, hosts Tim and Junior share what they’ve learned after years of programming and sequencing both psychological safety and emotional intelligence training in major organizations worldwide, and how you can improve both at the individual, manager, and organization levels.

For the full learning experience, watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pS-G4iF4BGE

Or download the episode resources: https://www.leaderfactor.com/resources/psychological-safety-the-collective-eq-of-a-team

As leaders, we need to develop the type of intent necessary to have healthy influence. We need to ask ourselves the question: Do I actually care about my team? And if so, is that evident in my behavior, values, and interactions? 

If we don't account for the fundamental beliefs a person has about themselves and others, we can easily promote, support, and encourage leaders with manipulative tendencies. Emotional intelligence frameworks that can’t account for the motivation and intent side of influence are broken from the get-go.

In this episode of The Leader Factor, Tim and Junior share The Spectrum of Influence framework, discuss influence's two failure patterns, and share 5 tactical behaviors to improve your social regard as a leader.

For the full learning experience, watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/uu6FLZtc4gE
Or download the episode resources: https://www.leaderfactor.com/resources/do-you-actually-care-about-your-team

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