Mastering Delegation and Conflict Resolution in Leadership

Ever wonder how to seamlessly transition from a technical role to a leadership position? This episode of Unpacked with Ron Harvey promises to unlock the secrets of making that shift successfully. Join us as we sit down with Jeremy Doran, a well-respected expert in leadership development with a fascinating blend of expertise in mechanical engineering and psychology. Jeremy shares his personal journey and professional insights on the mindset shift required for new managers, emphasizing the significance of valuing team success over individual accomplishments.

In this insightful conversation, we tackle the complexities that leaders face in delegation and conflict management. Jeremy and I discuss the importance of setting clear expectations and structured check-ins to foster trust and accountability without slipping into micromanagement. You'll learn practical strategies for effective delegation that not only develop your team members but also free you up to focus on high-impact tasks that drive your career forward. Discover Jeremy's scripted approach to handling conflicts and the critical role of regular feedback sessions in maintaining high performance and continuous improvement.

Finally, we spotlight the often-overlooked aspects of time management and self-care in leadership. Drawing parallels to the "oxygen mask" analogy, we highlight how essential it is for leaders to manage their time efficiently so they can better serve their teams. Learn practical tips on minimizing interruptions, delegating tasks effectively, and the vital role of self-care in sustaining productivity. Tune in to understand how ego impacts delegation, the importance of giving credit where it's due, and the value of respecting each team member's preferred communication style. Don't forget to join us every Monday for more enriching episodes packed with actionable insights to elevate your leadership game.

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Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization or entity. The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners should consult with their own professional advisors before implementing any suggestions or recommendations made in this podcast. The speakers and guests are not responsible for any actions taken by listeners based on the information presented in this podcast. The podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or services. The speakers and guests make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this ...

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Unpacked Podcast with your host leadership consultant, Ron Harvey of Global Core Strategies and Consulting. Ron's delighted to have you join us as he unpacks and shares his leadership experience, designed to help you in your leadership journey. Ron believes that leadership is the fundamental driver towards making a difference. So now to find out more of what it means to unpack leadership, here's your host, Ron Harvey.

Speaker 2: 0:28

Good afternoon. This is Ron Harvey, the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, global Core Strategies and Consulting. We're a leadership firm based out of Columbia, south Carolina. My wife and I have been in this business since 2013. We're retired veterans and we wanted to find out another way to continue to serve at the level that we're serving while we were in uniform and we found our fun and our passion around leadership development and helping leaders really be effective at leading, and what we mean by that is how do I help leaders be better and responsible to the people they're taking care of, who they're responsible to and responsible for? So we spent all of our time helping to be great at that.

Speaker 2: 1:04

But what I do outside of that is we record a podcast called Unpacked with Ron Harvey, which was a brainchild of COVID and a lot of other things that we may get into that. But our podcast guests come on without really knowing the questions because I don't know them either and they say yes to it, so they're a little braver than I am sometimes, but we do let you behind the curtain. We have real conversations, but we have fun, and so we take the time to invite guests from around the world, with all different backgrounds, to share something behind the curtain that you normally wouldn't hear from us if we were just in an open room sitting at lunch or breakfast or doing a formal presentation. We really relax, so have fun with us, enjoy the conversations. Hopefully you come back again, but today I'm excited that I have Jeremy on the call with Jeremy Duran.

Speaker 3: 1:47

Thank you for saying yes and I'm looking forward to the conversation. I'm so glad to be here and one thing that I always say is being brave isn't being unafraid, it's being afraid.

Speaker 2: 1:58

And doing it anyway. So, yes, yes, so he's already dropping some nuggets. If you're listening, be afraid, but go for it anyway. That's being brave. So, jeremy, can you share a little bit about who you are? There's no requirement, but I love for people to get at least an understanding of our guests. So you want to?

Speaker 3: 2:15

share your business or what you want us to know about. What would you share with us? I will give you a quick summary of my entire background. I'm the youngest of 10 kids and that is where I learned a lot about communicating with different types of people. I went to school for both mechanical engineering and psychology, so that got me some interviews, because people are like who's the weirdo doing this thing?

Speaker 3: 2:34

I worked in corporate America traveling around the world helping different country leaders develop strategy and then for about the past 18 years, I've been doing leadership development and then I found that a lot of the people I was coaching were engineers who have become managers and leaders and, on top of all the struggles that everyone has when they go from being a producer to a manager, they also don't communicate the way most other people want them to communicate. So about a year ago, I started doing public speaking on the topic of communication and what I find is there may be engineers in the room, there may be realtors in the room, salespeople, everyone. Everyone's got issues with communication. So that's why I started a podcast about communication with people who are different than you, because everyone's different than you.

Speaker 2: 3:24

Oh, my goodness. Yeah, all of us struggle at communicating, and so I mean, I think everybody can use the service. So if you're listening, like everybody's different from you and you got to figure out how to communicate effectively with those that are different, so you have a really, really solid background and we have something almost in common. You know, you're the youngest of 10 and I'm the youngest of 12. So I understand how much you learn. Yes, I understand how much you learn from being the baby, right?

Speaker 3: 3:46

It's rare that someone's got more siblings than I have.

Speaker 2: 3:49

I'm one of those people like how much do you learn from watching the mistakes that they made? Well, thank you for coming on. Well, we talk about leadership a lot and you come with. You know mechanical engineering, psychology, you went into, you know doing leadership and you're talking around communication. Now, if you can help leaders understand how important leadership is, the value of it, what would you share? How would you help people begin to wrap their mind around how valuable it is to the team to have an effective leader?

Speaker 3: 4:18

I will start with one of the things I often have to deal with when people are new to being managers, and that is a change in the mind shift. You got promoted to management because you were so good at doing what you did and you probably took a lot of pride in that, and so you're used to getting pride from what you produce. And the big mind shift that people need to make when they become a manager, and then especially a leader, is the thing that you take pride from is no longer your product. Your team is now your product. So the thing you need to take pride in is how well your team does and give up the need to actually be doing anything quote unquote productive yourself, because your team is your product now, and that mind shift goes a long way towards how you interact with everybody on your team is your product now, and that mind shift goes a long way towards how you interact with everybody on your team.

Speaker 2: 5:09

Yeah, jeremy phenomenal way to kick off this conversation. Easier said than done. Yeah, because there's some vulnerability, there's some insecurity, there's. This is what I've always done. It's gotten me here. You know. I literally have leaders that we work with that says, but I feel like I got to know everything. I've always done it. It's gotten me here. You know, I literally have leaders that we work with that says, but I feel like I got to know everything. I've got to be the expert and I can't say I don't know it because I got promoted because I didn't know it. So it's not a light switch. Let's unpack that for a second. What are some methods to help that leader get past this? Having all the answers technically to being and, depending on other people, to be the product and the service to make them look good. Now how?

Speaker 3: 5:44

do you help them get there? Well, a lot of it comes from trust. Someone trusted them to run with things in the past and now they need to turn around and trust someone else. So I teach delegation a lot, and when I first bring up the topic of delegation, let's say there are 10 people in the room, at least five roll their eyes and lean back and cross their arms, and one will normally stand up and say I tried it once, it doesn't work, I'm not doing this. So people are so against it because they've done it so poorly. And then the person who stood up and said they weren't going to do it invariably is the person who gets the most out of it and talks about how delegation changed his or her life. So learning how to delegate and trusting the other people is a big step towards becoming a leader.

Speaker 2: 6:38

Yeah, jeremy, you're absolutely right. And when you say delegate people, if they depend on how many times they've been burned or let down or things weren't getting done, my name is on the line, my reputation is on the line, my position is on the line. My evaluation is on the line. My bonus is on the line. There's no way I'm giving this to Jeremy. How do you help me get past that? Because those are real conversations.

Speaker 3: 6:57

Yeah. So there are generally a couple of reasons why people won't delegate. The first one is because I can do it faster myself. Why people won't delegate? The first one is because I can do it faster myself, and that is probably true at least the first time. But if you can get someone else to do it, and it's going to happen over and over again, you're making an investment in time. That first time you're not spending time, you're making an investment and it's going to really save you down the road. And another one is no one can do it as well as I can.

Speaker 3: 7:28

And I have to remind them when you were first learning to do this, were you perfect at it? Nope, did the person who used to do it know more than you? Yes, were there any improvements that you made over what they used to do? And they normally pop up with pride. They're like yeah, I fixed this and I fixed that and made it better and better. So is there any chance that the next person can make even more improvements? And they always resisted at first and they're like maybe.

Speaker 2: 7:59

Reluctantly, they don't want to admit to that yet Like yes, yes, so when you, talk about delegating and you use the word that I would love to unpack a little more for us trust. My impression and my take on it is it's at an all-time low right now, for a variety of reasons. How do you get people to retrust, if you will, or to even build trust when you're in a leadership role? How do you help people get past being stuck with trusting people?

Speaker 3: 8:26

I think a key thing that you just said there was build trust, and so the step-by-step that I give people when they're delegating is crucial to building that trust, because I've made the mistake before where I would give someone something to do and then, just before it's the deadline, I would ask did you get this done? And they're like oh no, I didn't. And that wasn't really their fault, that was really my fault. I delegated poorly, and so what I will have everyone do is you have to spend a lot of time making sure people understand the exact deliverable. It's not just I need to report by Friday, it's I need a printed written report on Friday covering X, Y and Z topics, and I need it on my desk by noon.

Speaker 3: 9:18

And the key thing is having them give you a check-in ahead of time. So you have to figure out when is the last time. If it's due Friday and today's say Tuesday, as long as I can get involved, if there's a problem by Wednesday, I know I can get it done. So I'll ask that person to give me a check-in on Wednesday. Tell me Wednesday how far you've gotten, what problems you're having, let's review it, and even if they've done nothing, I know that at Wednesday I can pick it back up. And then you give little steps along the way, Because if you don't let them know exactly when they need to report in and you keep asking them questions, that's micromanagement and no one likes, that. Everyone's frustrated. But if you let them know here are the three check-ins we're going to have, then everything gets built. So you build that trust as it goes, as each step is covered, then the trust is built and you know it's going to get done.

Speaker 2: 10:20

I love what you're sharing and I want to unpack, because this shows up in most conversations. Like people that are good at what they do and I kind of use the analogy yeah, you can't be coach and player. No, you can't run out there and throw your own pass. You can't run out there and catch your own ball. You can't be coach and player. And I tell leaders all the time like you can't play both roles. How do you help leaders? You know, as you look at it and you watch leaders that really struggle honestly with it's not a safe environment. There are some expectations that they do everything. The culture of the workforce is is puts pressure unspoken of that the leader shouldn't know everything and be able to do everything. How do you help me navigate that space that sometimes the organization is just the temple of the organization, that you're supposed to know it all?

Speaker 3: 11:03

Yeah, I mean it depends on the organization. A couple of things that I'll tell people. When they talk about delegating and they give me pushback about how it's more efficient to do it themselves, or whatever their pushback is, I say the only way these other people are going to get better is by delegating. So you know that you need to spend time training them to do their job. Delegating well is the best way to train them to do their job, and the more you give to them, the more you empower them as they do well, the more you free yourself up to A be more productive in other things that only you can do, that someone else couldn't do. And I always say your job is to obsolete yourself so that you can then get promoted. You can't get promoted if no one else can do your job, so let someone else figure out how to do it so you can move up.

Speaker 2: 12:00

Awesome way to walk into that. If you don't delegate, well, what I'm hearing from you is it limits your opportunities to move up.

Speaker 3: 12:07

Yeah, it traps you there.

Speaker 2: 12:08

Yeah, you get trapped there. How do you help a leader that struggles with dealing with conflict and holding people accountable? Some leaders really have a hard time when they see the problem because I don't want to go tell Jeremy. I hope he figures it out and fixes it himself. They just don't want to deal with that thing. That may be uncomfortable, oh yeah. How do you help leaders in your space? How do you help leaders get past that?

Speaker 3: 12:30

I think to some degree, having a script is really, really helpful If you step back and you think about it, and the script that I'll give people managers is sit down with that person separately and then simply state the problem. A really simple one is someone was late for work. Yes, and instead of saying you're always late for work, what do you have to say about yourself? For yourself, which that conversation is not going to go well. You just say hey, you know our time that we're supposed to be here is 830, and you arrived today at 845, and last week you got here once at 850. Tell me about that. And then just shut up and let them explain it, because it's so tempting, if they don't respond right away, to jump in with. Was it this? Was it that? Nope? Just ask the question. Jump in with. Was it this? Was it that? Nope? Just ask the question.

Speaker 3: 13:27

If you need water, drink water right then, so that you can wait much longer and they'll start telling you what's going on. And once they tell you what's going on, then you can say let's figure out a solution for this. And once you say let's, then you're on the same side as they are for this. And once you say, let's, then you're on the same side as they are, and if you let them come up with what the solution is, they're much more likely to follow it. If you tell them you know you need to do this, this and this, they may do it, they may not. But if they say, you know what I could do is I could, you know, go get my car fixed at the and then I should be able to be on time. Great. If they come up with a solution, they're probably going to follow it.

Speaker 2: 14:10

Yes, yes, if they invest in it, they'll follow through with it, which is huge. So leaders, if you're listening, let them be a part of the solution. They'll probably invest and you don't have to work as hard to get buy-in. So that's phenomenal. So the other thing that shows up for us when we're talking to organizations and you talk to leaders how important is it for leaders to do at least quarterly or semi-annually evaluations or feedback with their team, because oftentimes it's like I don't have the time, it's too many people. I got 15 people around. I really just don't have the time to do 15 check-ins or to give feedback, just that they're doing good and I'll give them in the year evaluation. How detrimental is that to an organization for leaders not to give feedback on a regular basis?

Speaker 3: 14:58

So this? I'll answer that. But this analogy is not exactly to that. But I've been in manufacturing situations before. In manufacturing situations before, and when something goes wrong and you go back and you figure out what the problem was, you can see where the process broke. And you ask that person why they're didn't you follow the procedure. Right there they say, well, I didn't have time. Like, well, look at how much time we're spending now fixing that. If you didn't have time to do it correctly, you certainly don't have time to fix the problem. Yes, and reviews are kind of like that. They should be as often as possible. Your job as a manager is to talk to your people, right? So if you're talking to them once a week, then a little portion of that once a week conversation can be the review and then it just builds in. Quarterly you can just kind of summarize what you've been doing every week and annually you can summarize what the quarterly results were. But it should be an ongoing process.

Speaker 2: 15:59

Yes, yes, and for leaders that are listening, I mean I love how Jeremy is putting this together. It's small conversations building up to the bigger appraisal, or review, if you will. But it's actually unfair to not give people feedback, because that's where the growth happens, that's where they get to close the gaps and work on any deficiencies, if you will. That may show up. It doesn't mean they're bad, but they can become bad if you don't give feedback and it becomes much bigger long-term.

Speaker 3: 16:23

Or they're good and they can get even better.

Speaker 2: 16:25

Yes, yes, it goes both ways, so I love that. So, when you think about people that you work with and you think about what you're seeing across the board with leaders, what are some of the common challenges that you're seeing new managers or new leaders having on a consistent basis? What's happening in our workforce today with managers or leaders?

Speaker 3: 16:42

That first one that I talked about is a big one. Just, the mind shift from your job is to make them productive. Your job is no longer to be productive yourself. And then when I start training people, I like to do usually about a 12-week training program so that they get spaced repetition. Yes, the first thing I always do is time management, because no matter how good you think you are or how good you are, you can always be better, and I view really good time management as the oxygen mask on an airplane. It is the thing that you need to do to save yourself first, so that then you can be a good team leader. But if you can't get control of your own time, you don't have any time to give to anyone else.

Speaker 2: 17:27

Yes, yes, and I think oftentimes that's super important to prioritize and using your time wisely. And it's a learned skill, quite honestly, I mean, I think, someone helping you figure it out and knowing it, because sometimes you think you've got 24 hours in a day and you really don't. It's just you're burning the candle on both ends. So the other question I'll close out with this on this particular question, jeremy how do leaders? I want to talk about self-care. I want to talk about leaders because I got it, you take care of people. I got it, that's your team.

Speaker 3: 18:02

But how important is it and how do they get better? Or how do we get better? How important is self-care and how do we get better at it? It's a very important again, much like time management If you don't take care of yourself, you don't have anything to give to anyone else, and some of the things that we talked about time management, delegating and empowering people.

Speaker 3: 18:18

I had a client once who, the very first day of training, he looked at me square in the face and said I don't have time for this. I said I know, but your boss is making you be here, right? He said yes, I'm like well, then you're going to do it and we're going to start with time management. And I gave him a few small things to do, like stop answering his phone every time it rings, because he would get 30 calls an hour and he said they need me. I say how long is the longest meeting that you go to in a week? He said two hours. I said do you answer your phone in the meeting? He's like no, I'm like so then you can go two hours without answering your phone.

Speaker 3: 18:55

And I had him do it for a week and at the end of a week he came back to me and he complained about how awful it was. He said I missed 90 calls a day. I said, oh, what were they all about? He's like, well, only 10 of them left me voicemails. I'm like, oh, so 80 of them weren't worth leaving a voicemail. I said, what about those 10? He said half of them had actually solved their problem before I called them back, like great. So over the course of three weeks people stopped just handing him their problems and solving their own and he got back time and he started actually being able to take two days off on the weekend, which he hadn't done in about seven months.

Speaker 2: 19:36

Wow, how much does ego get in the way of that? Because all of us want to feel like everybody needs this, I mean, which is a myth. But how much does ego get in the way where you feel like I'm the subject matter expert and they need me. They can't do it without me. How much does that get in the way of that scenario that you play Because it does feel good to be needed?

Speaker 3: 19:56

It does, and I think some of it goes back to no one can do it as well as I can. Yeah, so, yeah, so it's an issue.

Speaker 2: 20:04

It is across the board. So if you were to leave three nuggets with people that are listening and watching, that you've learned from your work and your experiences and working with leaders and managers at all levels and you're talking about communication what three things would you give me? Say, hey, I want to get better as a leader, I'm new in a role. What are three things that you highly recommend that, if you're a new leader or a new manager, that you want to do to be effective in your new role?

Speaker 3: 20:28

One is you can accomplish anything you want as long as you don't care who gets the credit. So, as a manager or leader, push credit to your people as much as you possibly can rather than trying to take it. Yes, stop making assumptions when we and this is a communication thing we all assume that other people speak and receive and process information the same way we do, and I 100% guarantee they don't. So get used to asking people more questions and figuring out how they learn, how they want to interact, how much they want to have meetings, how they want to have them. Stop making those assumptions and really I call it the rhodium rule.

Speaker 3: 21:13

There's the golden rule, which was treat other people the way you want to be treated, but it's not quite right because not everyone wants the same thing you do. Then I heard the platinum rule, which is treat other people the way they want to be treated. But I'm a nerd and once gold became more expensive than platinum, then I could no longer use the platinum rule. So I looked up the most expensive element on the periodic table and it's the most expensive metal element is rhodium. So I call it the rhodium rule, and I live in Rhode Island, so for me that's perfect.

Speaker 2: 21:46

It works perfect.

Speaker 3: 21:47

Yeah, so communicate with people the way they want to be communicated with.

Speaker 2: 21:51

Yes, yes, it went back to communication. You went all the way around and came all the way back to communication and tied it right back to. What you really do and enjoy doing is communication. It's how to write back to. What you really do and enjoy doing is communication, which, at the end of the day, is the place that we're not good at and we want to get better at. So your advice to us is become really, really good at communicating.

Speaker 3: 22:10

Yes, At least better.

Speaker 2: 22:13

Yes, become better at it. So, jeremy, you're in business. If you thought about ideal client or people that can use your service, what are three things that they will be encountering or experiencing? That says, hey, pick up the phone and call Jeremy.

Speaker 3: 22:26

Well, I will share this story. When I do networking events and I'm just walking around and seeing people, sometimes they'll ask me hey, what do you do? And if I'm feeling flippant, I will say I help engineers talk to humans. And no one's ever confused by that. No, everyone knows exactly what I mean. They always come back with a story so they have dealt with it. So anybody. One story this is my favorite is they started laughing and said yeah, at my company every once in a while we need to go and talk to the engineers about something and we draw straws. Whoever gets the shortest straw is the one who has to go and talk to them.

Speaker 2: 23:06

Like nobody wants that straw.

Speaker 3: 23:08

Right. So that's why I do a lot of work in the STEM fields for leadership. Whether it is a business person who comes in and now has to manage a bunch of scientists and engineers, or someone who's an engineer or scientist and got promoted and now needs to deal outside of their department, as well as the soft skills of managing, like dealing with conflict, If those things come up, that's a great introduction for me.

Speaker 2: 23:35

Wow, thank you for sharing. So how would someone reach you? If someone's interested in listening to the podcast and reviewing the podcast and they feel the need that you'd be a good resource for them to reach out to, how do they reach you?

Speaker 3: 23:46

webpage, which is neuroconversantleadershipcom. On there you can learn a little bit more about me, and it also has the podcast right there, or you can listen on Spotify or Apple or wherever else you listen Awesome, awesome.

Speaker 2: 24:11

Thank you for sharing and hopefully I get an invitation. So I'm putting it on. You know I'm communicating effectively. Hopefully I get an invitation to come join you and then I'll be on the other side and taking all your questions to be able to come on and share what we do. So, thank you, I would love to be a guest for you. So thank you for sharing, thank you to the audience that sat and listened and hopefully you walk away with something where we added value to make you more effective. Our goal is a couple of things to let you know that the's the difference that makes in every organization how good leaders are at taking care of the people they're responsible for and responsible to. We hope that you stayed with us the entire time and you join us on another podcast, but for today, jeremy and I will sign off and tell you thank you for joining us and we look forward to you on the next podcast, unpacked, with Ron Harvey. Thank you for joining us and we look forward to you on the next podcast, unpack with.

Speaker 3: 24:59

Ron Harvey. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Well, we hope you enjoyed this edition of Unpacked Podcast with leadership consultant Ron Harvey. Remember to join us every Monday as Ron unpacks sound advice, providing real answers for real leadership challenges. Until next time, remember to add value and make a difference where you are, for the people you serve, because people always matter.