What does it look like to lead your team through external forces and distractions in a powerful way?
This is another one of those universal things that everyone is feeling right now. In this episode, co-hosts Richard Lindner and Jeff Mask share some personal examples from their own lives and work.
Richard just got back from one of his first business trips in a long time. He gathered with 150 leaders/founders/executives for the War Room Mastermind, and all of them are feeling the strain of external forces wreaking havoc in their own lives and their employees’. Jeff says it’s a recurring theme with his coaching clients as well. Just as quickly as leaders feel like they’ve gotten a handle on it, a new distraction rears its head.
Listen in as they offer some grounding practices and habits that will enable you to be the leader of your life and the owner of your circumstances.
How Can You Lead Well In Spite of What’s Going On?
There are a billion external forces, scenarios, you could be dealing with at any given time. Then each person who reports to you could be dealing with one of a billion of their own.
In the past 10 days, Richard had every refrigerator in his home go out, multiple A/C units broke, his back fence fell down, one of his kids had multiple Covid tests, his car broke down, his wife’s car broke down, and he had to cancel a trip. And that was just at home. He still had to show up at work every day, lead at work, lead at home, and lead and serve at War Room.
How does he show up and maintain his energy with all these external forces at play? He has to be very careful not to bring his money problems from home to work and inappropriately generate revenue for himself as quickly as humanly possible in ways that might not be in line with the company. Or push his people because he’s worried about money going out the door. Or complain about money going out the door to people who make less of it than he does.
So, what’s Richard’s solution? A change in mindset. Instead of “here’s what’s happening to me,” he challenges himself to flip those things into opportunities to succeed. “One of the ways I am my best self,” he says, “is when I’m up against a worthy adversary, a worthy competitor. So I have to be challenged.”
He acknowledges that he needs to be careful not to compete with anyone who works for him though, anyone he’s charged with growing or leading. He’s failed there in the past, and it was costly.
For him, he looks at external forces and challenges as his competition. He can use hard stuff to help him get to his optimal performance level by leveraging what he knows about himself and competition.
Know Yourself Inside and Out
You have to know yourself really well. You have to know what it takes to be your best self and how you show up as your worst self (and what triggers it).
What do you need personally and professionally to be able to show up as your best self? And when that starts to go away, what happens? The more self-aware we can be, the better we can lead. The first thing you have to control is you, because you’ll never be able to control the external forces.
Recognize where you’re off, replace those thoughts, recite the words out loud. Own your own emotion, your thinking, your process. Remember, as Jack Sparrow says so eloquently, “The problem isn’t the problem. It’s our mindset around the problem.” The one problem that’s unsolvable is the unnamed problem. Once we name it, we can solve it.
Heart-Led Leadership Is More Critical Than Ever
If everyone on our team has a life, and life shows up in all these different ways, how do we get everyone aligned? You have to have trust, a cadence of communication. As a leader, you really have to know what’s going on with everyone, but then that means you’re carrying a lot.
Let’s say you’re in charge of a team of five people. One is building a house; one is having a kid; one is getting divorced; you’re going through something yourself. That’s a lot. And honestly? Each person probably has more than one external force happening at one time. How do we show up in the midst of that and align ourselves as a team?
This is where Jeff geeks out and backs up a century to the Industrial Revolution, when workers were just cogs in a wheel. Their emotional well-being was irrelevant. Now we have knowledge and emotional workers. What’s going on in our minds and hearts is what generates billion dollar ideas and moves the economy forward. So leadership has got to evolve to lead through that.
Have you ever wished your employees could keep their personal lives to themselves and not bring them to work? This isn’t 1932. As the workforce evolves, work evolves, and humans evolve, human-centric and heart-led leadership is more critical than ever.
We’re leading hearts and minds in a way today that’s never been done in history. It’s why Richard and Jeff are passionate about this podcast. They see a need to help leaders lead with heart and mind and know when it’s heart and when it’s mind.
3 Steps to Leading Through External Forces
Step #1: put on your own oxygen mask.
How do we lead through this? We have to get our own mindset right first. We mistakenly think that, if we’re in charge, we have to be okay. We have to have this superhuman ability to lead through any obstacle in our lives, personally or professionally.
No, we don’t. Model vulnerability for your team. Always look for opportunities to model the behavior you want from your team, especially when it’s counterintuitive. That’s what adversity gives you—the opportunity to model courage, humility, vulnerability. Talk to an external person for help. Don’t deny it; don’t avoid it; don’t put up walls.
Step #2: give oxygen to others.
Create an environment of safety, where people can be vulnerable. Dig in and be connected with your people. This is where powerful world-class one-on-ones are hugely important. Jeff’s recommendation is at least 30 minutes a week. Do it powerfully where it’s about them, not you, not just to check a box. Prioritize them as sacred time. Don’t reschedule it.
Empower your team to have trust and confidence in each other, so you’re not the only one they come to when they need something. You won’t be able to connect powerfully with every single person on your team, but someone can.
Step #3: make a list of your stressors.
Get them out of your head and on paper. Put an E or an I next to each one. Is this an external stressor or an internal stressor? It’s just painting a picture. How will you choose to respond? It’s a choice. You can prioritize based on what’s really keeping you up at night the most. Take control of your emotions and actions.
Do an inventory of your life and ask yourself what’s the greatest external force you have given too much power to? How can you reframe that? What can you do to change that? How can you take over ownership of your emotions and words and thoughts and actions? You’ll feel more empowered and prepared to lead.
What Is Working for You Right Now
This episode naturally evolved from external forces to how do we lead people? Welcome to leadership. This is the evolution. Hopefully you feel validated that you’re not alone and empowered to be better at managing external forces and leading powerfully, and hopefully you feel supported with tools you can use.
Richard and Jeff want to hear from YOU. What has worked for you as you’ve navigated through external forces? What wasn’t clear that they could clarify for you? What are you going to lead in spite of today? Email them here with your thoughts/questions: feedback@readytolead.com
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