Leading Beyond Any Title

Leadership is one of the least taught occupations that there is in the world, but it’s the occupation that transcends every occupation.” - Coach Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University

Gone are the days when technical skills alone could secure a leadership position. Contributors now need to consider the essential skills and mindsets required for success in leadership roles. Whether you are an individual contributor contemplating your leadership journey, a current Leader planning for succession, or simply curious about the foundational skills required for new Leaders this discussion will be for you.

Join Jennie and Craig as they delve into the foundational pillars of pre-leadership support, explore the crucial skills for transitioning from peer to leader, and uncover the attributes that drive effective leadership in today's social workplace dynamics. From the power of storytelling to navigating productive conflict, from fostering self-awareness to understanding personality dynamics, this webinar promises to deliver actionable insights to elevate your potential leaders’ journey.

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Connect directly with Jennie and Craig on LinkedIn:

Jennie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniengilbert/
Craig: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craighess/

Have burning questions about leadership that you'd like us to address? Email them to leadership.questions@sait.ca and let your voice be heard.

Craig: 0:00

This is the Leading Beyond Any Title podcast, your guide to transformative leadership. We're your hosts. Hi, I'm Craig Hess.

Jennie: 0:06

And I'm Jennie Gilbert. Each episode of Breakfast will bring you weekly quick lessons and conversations about topical leadership challenges. You're guaranteed to leave with one big idea, two applied strategies, and three questions to consider that can help enhance your leadership every day.

Craig: 0:22

We'll bring you insights on how to lead beyond any title and unlock your own leadership potential.

Jennie: 0:27

And we both hope you enjoy this episode. And for those who are listening, one thing we didn't mention yet is everything that we do in here live becomes a podcast, which you can find wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you are listening to us and you're like, what photo, what picture, head to the show notes and you will find them in there. Today is a view. We're not quite there yet. We do not have all the leaves on the trees just yet. But it is a glorious view any time from Heritage Hall at SAIT. Yesterday I took the advantage of a spare half hour and went for a walk. And actually the aim of my walk was to go a route that had trees all the way, even though they're not quite in bud or bloom just yet. And it was pretty cool. Campus is alive with people everywhere, up to all sorts of antics. I've seen cricket and soccer on that AstroTurf this week as well. And when you just take that time to get outside, you end up I think feeling a little bit grateful and just grateful for where we are and the land that we are situated on. As always, at this point on a Friday, thank you for pausing with us. Our campus and where Craig and I live is situated on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy. And today that encompasses our indigenous people of the Siksika, the Pekani, the Ghani. The Seatinna, the Stoney Nakoda, and the Northwest Métis homeland, wherever you are. Thank you for recognizing where you are, where you've come from, and what might be ahead of us. It is truly a glorious place. Thanks, Craig.

Craig: 2:12

Perfect. Thank you, Jennie. And before we get going on today's topic of emerging leaders or aspiring leaders, just a quick reminder about some upcoming. Discussions we will be having. I've thrown them into the chat next week. We are back with Jennie and myself as well as Rod Miller, who will be joining us. Rod and I have known each other for some years. It's been far too long. I'll just leave it at that. But that'll be a fantastic conversation talking about strategic intelligence and how it relates to leadership. We'll then be off for a few weeks and coming back in May with two episodes. One around trust with a fantastic guest, Ila Egger. And another at the end of May around business writing in the day and age of Tik Tok and again, I'm always amazed that business writing does so well in this format, but it has been one of the best attended and best reviewed episodes that we have done. So we're going to revisit. What is a really important important topic. Again, any time you register for the webinars, you will get a copy of the recording, that will happen. The chat, please do carry on the conversation there. We can't necessarily keep up with it all of the time, but we will do our best. If you have a specific question, please use the Q& A function. And Jennie, emerging leadership, aspiring to be a leader, right? So you want to be a leader essentially is what we're getting at here, right?

Jennie: 3:40

Yeah.

Craig: 3:40

As we talked about this, there's really two or three different paths this could take, right? We could have individuals who have joined us today who aren't necessarily in a leadership position, want to be in a leader, leadership position, whether it's formal or informal. You could be a leader on this call with individuals on your team. You want to help. Move into leadership positions, or you could be a leader on this call with an individual on your team who's an expressed in a desire to be in leadership, but you just don't quite see it, which is an interesting conversation, right? So maybe let's start with the, from the viewpoint of. We have folks on the call who want to be in leadership, want to enhance their leadership profile, want to be a better informal leader, or really trying to get to be in that space of a formal leader. Where do we go from here?

Jennie: 4:36

Okay. So I'm going to throw a caveat out first in that the sort of age old conversation management leadership, which one's showing up by header referred to this week is human doing versus human being. It's cool. And. There's all that management side that's really important, but our conversation is in here about leadership. So yes, get, get your understanding of how finances work planning, all those good things, really important, not coming up today so much. And then to go back to your question for that leadership part, my, my first question always when it comes to leadership is, do you like people? And it's that simple because the minute that you move from. Doing, individual contributor into some kind of leader position, whatever the name is for that, there are people involved. And it was, I think it's Simon Sinek's infamous quote, leadership is not about being in charge, it's about looking after those who are in your charge. And you move from doing the job to looking after the people who are doing the job, and that's possibly one of the harder transitions for a lot of people. Do you like people, would be my starting place.

Craig: 5:53

Yeah. And if you don't, it's going to be very difficult path, right? And I think, when I look back on my career, the first leadership role, first formal leadership role that I was put in was going from being a sales representative on a team to being the sales manager of the same team, which is also brings its own challenges with it. But all of a sudden you realize you are in a position where you have to start winning through other people. Thank you. As opposed to winning yourself, right? And the ability, your ability to simply do the job, which you were doing has gone away. You've, in some aspects, you've given up a ton of control. As a leader, right? And so I think there's something interesting in that piece too, that perhaps we could dive into is just this whole piece around, how do you win through others, right? And so if you're trying to make that transition from an individual contributor to being a leader, what does that mean then? How do you think about that transition from doing to, or lack of a better phrase, winning through others?

Jennie: 7:01

There's a huge flag there too for you mentioned at the beginning for leaders who have people on their team. Who want to become leaders, and that is promoting someone who's the best person at the job. It's not always the best route through. That's a bit of a sidebar conversation, but it is, it's a good point there as well. Just because you're brilliant at sales doesn't necessarily mean you'll be brilliant at managing people in sales or love it. That's way more important. Do you like doing it and how do you manage that piece? I always come back to, I think you have to know yourself and this is the part if you're thinking about leadership that you can actually spend some good time on now is how well do you know yourself? Because so many times it's those blind spots or you're in a critic that stops you from having the conversation that you need to have or whatever that might be. And so know yourself first and then know your people and it's really likely we see it a lot. Okay, you're, these are all your peers, half the time they're your friends, not always, but a lot of people have good friends at work. And then you're going to shift into that point where you hold more of the responsibility, more of the accountability, they're in your charge. So the more that you know the people around you, the easier that transition can become. And as you start to move towards that, knowing yourself allows you to hold to your, or I've got these down to talk about later, non negotiables, set your boundaries and stick to your boundaries, have the conversations that you need to have, you just, you set yourself up for better success by knowing yourself really well, and then getting to know the people around you.

Craig: 8:48

Yeah. And it's interesting too, because I think. The first time a lot of individuals move into that leadership position, I shouldn't say this, I shouldn't say a lot of the time, depending on the organization you're at. I was incredibly fortunate when I made the shift that I was part of a large organization that had a very robust program in helping individuals make that change. Cool.

Jennie: 9:08

Right?

Craig: 9:10

But if you are not, all right, the onus on you to invest in yourself to, and that doesn't have to be through, dollars out to make investment in yourself, but take the time to do that work to to your point, understand yourself, where are you at as a leader? Why do you want to be a leader, right? So yes, you've decided that you like people, which is, really good place to start. Why do you want to be a leader? Is it because you're just tired of doing and you think that might be the next best thing. And to your point, how often do we see. Somebody end up in that leadership position because one, they were the best at it. So obviously Jimmy or Susie is going to be really good in the management role or Jimmy or Susie has been here a long time.

Jennie: 9:57

This is the next, this is the next

Craig: 9:59

step, right? And how do you, there's something in this about, I don't know if you can comment on kind of the, Self discovery or self reflection that you would advise somebody to go through about deciding why you want to be a leader.

Jennie: 10:16

I think the answer is almost in your question to it's a self reflection and self reflection is one of the skill sets that is being talked about and publicized more and more. And generally we're not very good at it yet. And we're not very good at the self awareness that comes as a result of self reflection. Where to start? Your question is a good one. What does leadership mean to you? What are you looking for? Why would you want to be in this? We're all pretty much governed to grow. And so when we look at. Motivation. We, Daniel Pink refers to it as mastery. Chris Schambert refers to it as competence, but we like to grow and we like to get better. And so nowadays, fortunately, there's a few companies, not too many yet, that have two tracks of growth. You can technically grow. Where you grow because you're good at the job and you become more and more of a specialist expert in that area. And then there's people tracks. So they call it people leadership and technical leadership, for want of better description. So that might be your first point of reflection is actually what you have is this urge to grow. You've been doing for a while, you've got this you're performing really well and you need to grow. What does that look like? And, Decades ago, maybe two decades ago, maybe even still 10 years ago, we were very fixated on which ladder were you going to climb? And it was all about the title that you held at the top. And nowadays it's actually that important to a whole ton of people, especially our younger generations. And growth career is a little bit more like a jungle gym that's been described as. And so what is it that you want to grow in? And that's a really good point because in a lot of places it's actually hard to jump to leadership. Because we're saturated, we watch too many people, but that doesn't mean that you can't grow. It doesn't mean that you can't pick a skill set or take one of your strengths and get even better in that. And self reflection, I haven't even answered the question yet, sorry, is, it is as simple as make time for yourself. Just stop. And consider what your strengths are. Stop and look at what's going really well. Stop and look at what's not going really well. Stop and look at your team and say, please, I am really well with these three people. What is it? That person, there's something, there's a chemistry in it. Okay where's that sitting? It's going to be 50 50. It's as much on them as it is on you, chances are. And so that reflection just allows us to see ourselves better. And once you've got comfortable with that, You're probably stepping into where you're comfortable to go ask for a feedback, feed forward information input from others as well.

Craig: 12:56

Yeah. The I think you struck a chord here around the comment around growth, right? Going into leadership isn't necessarily the only path to growth, right? Thomas highlighted a really important point here is that some high performers just don't want to be leaders. They're quite happy doing what they're good at and perhaps are looking for other ways to grow in that way. Yeah, and Sherry has commented that, not seeing the leader role is the only way to grow. It's very Seussian, but in that it rhymes so well. But that's, I think that's just, it's a really important point, and I would encourage anybody who's, on the, on with us and listening. Afterwards, just if you want, if you think you want to be in that leadership position, really consider the why,

Jennie: 13:38

right? The why,

Craig: 13:39

why you want that, because it comes with a cost, it comes with burden. There's a responsibility to it. I'm not going to, I'm not going to quote Spiderman at this point, maybe I will, with great power comes great responsibility, right? And so you really need to think that through and don't necessarily jump at the promotion just because it's a promotion. This would, it would be what I would say the comment that you've made here also around getting to know your people, right? So if you are somebody who's looking to get into leadership and you think you know the people Stuart has commented that it is so much more difficult now to figure out how to get to know people from a hybrid or work from home environment.

Jennie: 14:24

Yes, and we did okay during COVID actually, so it is. I think it comes back to, we say this really often, it's intentional work. You decide to get to know people. And of course, you're always going to face that part. There are some people who don't want you to get to know them either. And that's okay. Like we all have our boundaries and the limits that we'll go to where we want to share information, but it's not getting to know them on a personal level, although I think the depth of relationship is really important. It's about building trust, but it's also about paying attention and what makes those people tick, what makes them thrive. If you're on a virtual meeting and you've got your cameras on, if you can, if cameras are off, it's a little bit harder to get absolutely granted, but, pay attention to what's going on the screen. You absolutely will know when people are checking in and checking out Body Language Speaks, Volumes. Notice how people respond or react when information is given during a meeting. When somebody is given feedback or the team has given feedback, everybody will have their own unique way of showing up and of holding that. And an interesting, I think it was Adam Grant who brought it to the forefront in social media. The people who are getting promoted currently are still the people who talk most. And so we know that in meeting, the meeting six to eight people, two people are generally doing the talking. And actually what might be a really good idea is to stop talking for a while and pay attention to what other people are saying, how they're contributing, what they have to offer. Because if you're doing all the talking, you're rarely actually able to pay good attention to everybody else in the room. That's an

Craig: 16:24

excellent point. Question here from Tim. So let me work through this. Moving into leading a team. I was once part of, I held a mentality that I worked to serve the team reporting into me. Within the boundary of the company's resources, rather than to serve the organization and extract as much as possible from my team. It's generally served me well, but I don't know if that was the best approach I could have taken. Curious to hear the experts weigh in if that's a good part of this conversation. And I'll defer to some of the experts to provide us some feedback in the chat, but I think I don't know where would you go with this one? It's an intro. I love the sentiment here. Are you trying to serve your team or are you trying to get what you can get out of them to help me help the company meet the objective?

Jennie: 17:14

I'm going to be really annoying. I think that it's a case of both. And it's interesting, servant leadership. Like I get it. I agree with it. Be careful with it. We talk about leaders growing others and that absolutely is a number one job role. And actually it's when a lot of the joy comes back from in the process, grow yourself as well. Do you want to keep up with them as it were in that growth piece? And the other part in there is if you are, if you're serving your team within what you have and do the best with what you have, where you are. So if you're doing that and you're creating the environment, the conditions for the people there, you're actually going to be serving the organization anyway, that the best will come from them.

Craig: 18:04

I would 10. Yeah, I would, sorry, I would tend to agree. I think I once had a leader who looked at me when I was moving into a leadership role. And he said, Craig, you've got three jobs. He says, one is to grow yourself. The other is to grow your team. And the third is to grow the business.

Jennie: 18:20

Right.

Craig: 18:21

And I think if you take that approach, Yeah. It's a give and take. I knew your answer was going to be and, or both. But it is a give and take in my mind because there are times as you were going through the cycle of any business or whatever that cycle may be, whether it's monthly, quarterly, annually, where you're going to have to try and extract what you can to, get the widgets produced, hit the number, meet your marks. But there's other times where you're going to have to serve and give back to bring your team up. If you can find that balance in general, I think you're going to be okay.

Jennie: 19:01

Yes. And there you go. I think that is the right term symbiotic? I'm not sure, but I think, when you care for your team and when you set the conditions up well, that hard push isn't as hard, that hard push is really hard when you. When perhaps you've been absent and I don't mean like you're, leaders are there, but they're not necessarily present in their leadership. And I catch some of the chatter as it comes past, and I think we're on track in the track in that it is, you've got to take that time for yourself and in, in every way. So there's that self care, growing is self care as well. That's part of our human nature. And then within those conditions or the environment that you're creating, that's a probably a better way to put it. If you're extending all the different facets that we talk about all of the time, and they're each a conversation in their own, but, does your team have control? Does your team have the ability to show up and do the job that you're paying for without you getting in the way or the organization getting in the way? Hey, the energy that goes off in different places, and do they understand their purpose as much as you're understanding your purpose? And then everything else that ties into that. It actually happens, it almost feels like it, there's not much effort to it because it's that flow of leadership and it gets hard. When we haven't necessarily put the work in or when the conditions outside us change, COVID being an example, an organization is struggling and it starts to put the pressure on that external pressure, that's what causes stress. But then again, if you have been working with your team and extending all of those things, when that pressure happens, there's two choices how we react to it. We can react to it negatively, stressful, or We've already got the culture and the behaviors and the conversation going on to say, this is a big one. How will we deal with this? And I think there's a point where you have to, to push a little bit harder, to drive a little bit harder, but that actually is part of The team conversation, rather than it all resting on that leader's shoulder, but you can't do that if you haven't been building that along the way. I'm hoping that made some sense.

Craig: 21:20

It does, and the key, I think the key phrase that you put in there at the end was along the way. Because this is going to take time. The symbiotic relationship that you were talking about. We're talking about aspiring leaders, right? So we've got an individual contributor on the line with us today who is now tomorrow in a leadership position, right? It's, it doesn't happen like that. You're going to have to prove yourself. You're going to have to take the time. You're going to have to put in the effort. You're going to have to build those relationships. And the other place I just come back to where it would fail. is if you look at this on a transactional basis, right? As a leader I've served you by doing this, and this, and getting this out of the way for you. So you owe me by performing, right? That is not. A way to look at that. You can't look at it as a scorecard. This is a long term investment. The other thing that it highlighted, and I'll come back to a follow up comment that Tim made, is that, he felt he was often protecting his team from senior leadership.

Jennie: 22:23

And

Craig: 22:23

The same leader that I had that shared the other words of wisdom told me, he says, Craig, you've got two choices as well as a leader. You can either be a shock absorber or an amplifier, right? As you move into that position of leadership, you need to think about that, that you're going to have to, at times, decide, what do I amplify down, and what do I amplify up, right? Because we all know there's, oftentimes, there's little stuff that percolates that probably does not need to go any higher than your level as a leader. But on the other hand too, you also have to know what to not necessarily cascade down, or cascade down in a different way. I don't know if you've got any thoughts around Kind of the skillset that somebody would need to think about. How do I decide when and how to amplify or absorb?

Jennie: 23:12

There's two things within that, if you're sitting thinking I'm not sure if I want to be a leader. And you're just investigating that path. What a great conversation to have with your leader. How do you do that? What's your role? And ask people shadow people, talk to people about those kind of things. And in terms of how do you do that, I think we're right back to that reflection piece again, in one of the parts of leader mindset that you can practice leadership at any time, we're always saying that, is this ability to pause. and reflect. So if you're constantly caught in reaction mode, you're literally doing that. You're reacting and you're reacting on a gut impulse or a first impulse or just one piece of information. And so to your point, do I need to amplify this? Take the pause. What happens if you do, what happens if you don't, like literally you could go that simple. What are the ramifications? What's the impact? Who will this affect? How does it tie in with our top priority or our top three priorities? Like where's the focus going to go? And you can start to practice those pauses at any time. And we do it in our personal relationships. How many times has somebody said something and the reaction has been instant? Whereas if we'd actually just paused and stopped for a second, we may have had a different response in there that would have saved us time and energy on the other side. And I think it's really important to pop into here as well. We've used the word at the beginning of today. We are all humans. We will not get this right every time we, you just, you can't. And so it's leaning in and putting it to the test, trying it, practicing it, talking about it.

Craig: 25:01

Yeah, exactly. And I think you just touched on something else there that aspiring leaders need to consider, be confident in. I'm not sure what the right phrase is here. You do not and you won't be perfect quote unquote as a leader. And so if you think that aspiring to leadership means that you need to have all the answers all the time and manage every situation that comes up in the best way possible, it's not going to happen, right? And even if you think you've done it in the best way possible. You were going to have folks who go, I wouldn't have done it that way, right? It's, it is, it's just, yeah, I find that fascinating. That one thing I often reflect on is how much pressure I think the majority of the leaders, and maybe I'm projecting here put on themselves to think they have to have it all figured out.

Jennie: 25:58

So I think there's another thing to practice, even, if you're just stepping into everyday leadership or if you're looking at that role and that practice is almost like a kindness to yourself, self kindness the term that gets thrown around nowadays is self compassion,

Craig: 26:14

but

Jennie: 26:14

how are you talking to yourself and I am all about, it can always be better, we can be better tomorrow than we were today. Yes, a hundred percent. But if your inner critic is alive and well, and judging you and shaming you for a mistake, for a failure, that is a really good aspect to turn around before you take on a role of leader. And it's not difficult to turn around, but the way you talk to yourself is the way that you've been talking to yourself for all the years that you've been here. That's the habit. And habits are, it takes a little bit of time to turn around. And I think that's absolutely key. Can you be kind to yourself? And when you can, it's much easier to extend a compassion and a care to other people. And I was talking to our son about this the other day. You can be very firm. And very strong or assertive, whatever you want, and still be kind like it's not a soft kind. It's just, there's that compassion piece. And that's a really good thing to think about.

Craig: 27:21

Absolutely. You have to give yourself a little bit of grace. And it's not an easy role,

Jennie: 27:28

right?

Craig: 27:28

But if you are putting in the effort, we've got a few hundred people here this morning or who have joined us because they want to continue to focus on leadership, presumably to help themselves improve. That's a great step forward, right? And, Monique has made the comment here that, a leader continues to grow just like their team. Absolutely. If you don't, your team is going to pass you by and you're probably going to fail as a leader if you're not, Learning and growing along with them. Question here. How do you navigate trying to become a leader in an organization that follows quote unquote archaic leadership ideals, wanting to mentor and build others, realizing that if your team succeeds, you succeed. When the leadership is more concerned about themselves than those they are actually trying to serve. I'm trying to make an impact at my level that has well received, that has been well received by those around me, but upper management seems stuck in their ways and doesn't see value in this approach.

Jennie: 28:25

Okay. So leadership culture for an organization does stem from the top hundred I love that the work has been done and I also am delighted that you're seeing the recognition and the appreciation from the people around you. Then you know that the work you're doing is worthwhile. When you're bumping on the ceiling of those who are stuck, I think the term was archaic leadership. It, this is tough and we keep saying this, that. If the team's results, if the team is doing really well, the results will be showing that they're doing really well. And that's one sort of angle of conversations to say, this is working, this is building. It's without having the conversation and if it, if they won't budge, I think we come back to the choices that the leadership culture that you want to work in. And once you've spread it as far as you can, how will you influence up? How can you help them to see what they're not seeing? Those are different techniques. Both of them are different techniques. And the other part that we always have to put into here too is. Okay, so that's the perspective, it's archaic, is there a chink, a way in, a different conversation? There might be a different angle, and without, actually diving into this, it's hard to find out.

Craig: 30:04

Yeah, and I think my comment here would be, if you're delivering the results that you're being expected to deliver, and you can live with archaic leadership,

Jennie: 30:15

Yeah. Yet

Craig: 30:15

still do things the way you want to do that. That becomes a dis, that becomes a decision point, I think, as to where you're at in your career. What company? Is it the right place? And that not, again, not easy, and then not knowing all the detail. Certainly very easy for me to sit back here and make that type of comment, but I think that becomes a decision point you have to consider. And I think we all have choices in how we can approach it and, can you make a game out of it by doing it your way, but. I think also there's what

Jennie: 30:48

does that leadership listen to though? It might not listen to the conversation from that leader, but does it pay attention to, I don't know if the company runs pulse surveys or engagement surveys or had all the different avenues. What are the avenues that you could take that you haven't taken already? That might just be another pops in there.

Craig: 31:19

Okay. Let's shift gears a little bit.

Jennie: 31:21

Okay.

Craig: 31:21

We've talked a little bit about, talked a fair bit about if you're an aspiring leader, here's some things to consider. So if you're now a leader on the call and you've got individuals on your team that want to be in, move into leadership, how can you help them? I think there's going to be a lot of similar yes and right, but the other, so to be is also. You have an individual on your team who wants to be in leadership and you're looking at that person and you go, I don't quite see it. Choose your adventure. Which direction do you want to go next, Jennie?

Jennie: 31:59

Choose your adventure. Let's deal with the last one first in that I think you have to come this way straight away to what, how is it that you define talent? What are your assumptions with talent? And we all have them. And if you think let's just say. That this person is they're the talker in the meeting. I let's flip it a little bit. Perhaps they're, all they do is they talk a good game. They don't produce a good game as such. And. You're sitting there now thinking, Oh, actually my assumption is you've got to have the best results to be the best leader. Let's go beyond that. What else does that person have? So when we talk about strengths if I asked you to highlight my top three strengths, you would come up, hopefully, with three, three strengths pretty quickly. They're bound to be different than what I see the three strengths as. And so the first step always, if that's the case, is are you having the right conversation with this person? They've said, I, I don't want to be a leader. I see myself in this role. That is the beginning of a great conversation. And within that conversation, make sure that you're running the checks and balances on your bias. Because you will have them. It's based on your story, your experience and everything else in there. And if you don't see it, who might see it? So who else do they connect with? Who sees, who actually sees them filling that role really well? What is the evidence, and I use that word lightly, that they bring that might shift your way of thinking a little bit, change your mindset a little bit? Doesn't mean that you'll actually come all the way, but I think it's definitely worth investigating and discovering.

Craig: 33:48

Yeah, it goes a lot. It goes back to what we talk a lot about here is having that conversation and being willing. And it's tough. You mentioned earlier in this conversation to watch for body language,

Jennie: 34:01

Craig: 34:01

cetera, other cues. As a leader, I think you need to be prepared to Perhaps in that situation, guard your body language because you don't necessarily,

Jennie: 34:11

right?

Craig: 34:12

You don't necessarily want to, totally demoralize somebody who may sincerely, I'm going to assume it's a sincere, I want to be in leadership and you're questioning it. Don't try, it's going to be hard, but try not to give away that you just don't see it, right? Encourage them perhaps to speak to others, encourage them to speak to their peers to find out what they think about. You potentially being, I don't know. There's just, I just think as a leader, you really need to be cautious about how you respond to those questions.

Jennie: 34:45

I think it comes back to something that we said earlier, pause before you respond. It's the productive response that we talk about always in psychological safety. You're always projecting something and your response to that dictates what happens next. Your impact is huge in that space. So yeah, you're spot on there Craig. And also with it in there lost my train of thought. It's not necessarily in terms of how they're performing, it's what else they are bringing. And I think that's really key. I think we're really quick to say your performance review is average. They're not going to be doing exactly that job, or are they? Do they have to do that job and lead on the top? That's a big key part. So looking at it from the bigger picture with them, helping them see that, what do they think? How would they manage that? That's all part of the good conversation. And the other part within there as well is, are there growth opportunities available? What can you give them that might offer them something? Or can they shadow somebody? Do they really know? And let them. Work within that. We see people flourish in places that we would never expect them to have. And we wouldn't see that if we didn't just give them that opportunity. And back to what you said originally, that's the beginning of a good conversation.

Craig: 36:14

Yeah, and I think you touched on something really key there as well, is this whole If you're trying to build a leadership bench what should you be looking for on your team and the high performer, right? It's the performance piece. I think that organizations often key in on, Jimmy or Susie or Sally or Bobby is fantastic at producing results in their job. They've got to be the next leader. Not necessarily the case, right? So if you're a leader trying to consider who are my next leaders, what are the questions that you would be asking yourself and what would you be looking for?

Jennie: 37:03

So leadership culture, what is your organization's leadership culture? What does leadership mean to the organization? And that is a difficult question and not many organizations can answer it. And so what other values that you. Need, want, would like each of your leaders to walk the walk and talk the talk in every single day. And the reason we should be really careful here because some of the highest performers will be great leaders. Absolutely. It's understood. The question is, how do they do that? And that's where values come in. The very few performance systems, let's just call them, have this, have that part encompassed, and we're going to leave it there because we know that's a really big conversation. What are you looking for in a leader and how can you join the dots for people to be able to see that? And Act through that, and then how can you empower and develop people within those streams? And so let's say you've got a great performer, but within your leadership, you value trust and transparency. Let's just say, okay, so does that person demonstrate that? as part of how they do their work. Within your leadership culture, you believe that the leader's job is to grow other people. How much do you see that brilliant performer helping the other people on their team around them? Are they willing to help others grow for the greater result of the team? Or is it all about them and hitting those top numbers? Are they a competitor or a collaborator, if you like? So there's a whole number of pieces in there, it comes back to, again know your people, but know what that leadership culture is. If your organization doesn't have a leadership culture, take a look at the company's values, for example, key behaviors that you're looking for. That's becoming more popular now, a KBI as well as a KPI, goodness gracious. But it really comes down to how are we doing the work and how are they looking out for people on their team?

Craig: 39:17

Perfect. And you mentioned earlier talking about identifying the top three strengths, right? If I could identify your top three strengths, I would probably come up with more than three, just like you generally come up with more than three questions to close off our sessions, right? So this is where we have to transition into our one big idea.

Jennie: 39:39

I was trying to,

Craig: 39:40

I was trying to find the segue, Jennie, and you

Jennie: 39:43

gave it there to

Craig: 39:43

him. Yeah.

Jennie: 39:44

Very good. All right. It is that time then. There we are. So we always finish and it's not like we didn't finish. We may have to carry this conversation on another time with one big idea that you can take away with you. Two applied strategies that it, excuse me, it doesn't matter who you are, you can take these and put them into practice, contemplate them before today, have a go. And then in Craig's world, ideally three questions and it is always my job to play perhaps with that parameter or that boundary that's put upon us. So a big idea, I read this quote, it came up somewhere in my social media feeds it just, it struck a chord in how important leadership development is. And we often think, oh, leadership development let's go hang out with someone like Jennie. Perfect. And you can do it yourself too. And lots of what we've talked about today is just mindset. It's just practice. It's. Just awareness and the willingness to step into that and so crucial. And I saw a few comments to parenting in the chat, help your kids with this. All three of our children have gone through various, picked leadership as options in their schooling and. Schools are really busy. Schools use leadership. They get some leadership from there. There's not all of this going on. So these conversations can start really early if you want them to. So two things that you can take away and put into practice. We talked at the beginning today about know yourself. And I really like this concept in terms of getting to know you. What are your non negotiables? They'll tie pretty tightly to your values. But there are some places where this is the boundary line. And those boundary lines are different for all of us. They're not straight and beautiful squares and patches. But they are ours, and so know your non negotiables and get comfortable talking about them and setting boundaries for them and recognize within there, they're different. Everybody's are different, and that's great. How do we work with that and how do we Adjust and make that help each other within there. Second one is, this is my favorite quote of all time, be more interested than you are interesting. And a lot of leadership is actually, we spend our time on your individual contributor encouraging you to talk. And when you get towards leadership, we're encouraging you to stop talking. How do you pause? We talked about that pause earlier today. Thanks for listening. So two things, both use the acronym WAIT. Why am I talking? If you're taking up airspace in a meeting, is it your time and place to do that? Just run a check on when you're contributing, how much you're contributing. We always refer to voice share, 50 50, at least, if you're in a one on one conversation in a meeting. How even is the voice share around the table? And the other one is what am I telling myself? And I spoke to that just a little bit earlier, that inner critic, what is the story that you're telling yourself? If you are constantly using that critic to put yourself into blame, shame, and judgment, then it's cruel. You wouldn't talk to anybody else that way. Time to change the script. Still hold yourself accountable. Still hold yourself to excellent levels, but change the story. Or if it's that person who wants to be a leader and you're like, I don't think so. Okay. What is that story that you're telling yourself and how much of it is confirmed and how much of it is your perception? There's so much just in those two acronyms. And then, Craig, three questions for the individual to think about if they would like to be a leader, and three more. That's because it's Friday, so for the sake of those listening and you don't have to go dive into this slide, you could ask yourself today, what does great leadership mean to you? Can you actually define leadership? My, my definition changes, and that's a tough one. What are the strengths that you bring every day? It's not on your leader to ask you, know your own strengths because you can use them so often in so many different places. And where are you holding yourself back? Back to that inner critic in there as well. And then if you want to step into leadership, three things that could kickstart you. Who will you elevate today? Who will you make look brilliant on your team, around your table? Where could you listen more? And there's a typo in there, we'll change that for the show notes. Sorry, everybody. And what can you learn from someone else today? Because it is about growth and we have mentors wisdom experience around us all the time. I am done. Thank

Craig: 44:37

you. Thank you. And always I learn from you every time that we get on these conversations and it feels like a little bit of a leadership therapy session for me. So I appreciate that. Thank you everybody who joined us today. We will be back again next week. And if you've listened to the podcast version, thank you for making it this far and join us again. Have a fantastic weekend as always, Jennie. I appreciate you and take care of everyone.

Jennie: 45:04

Thank you, Craig. Have a good weekend, everybody.

Craig: 45:06

Thank you once again for joining us on the Leading Beyond Any Title podcast. If you'd like to stay connected and receive more updates from us, please follow SAIT corporate training on LinkedIn. Stay in the loop with the latest insights and valuable content through the link in the show notes.

Jennie: 45:18

Additionally, don't miss out on the opportunity to experience Leading Beyond Any Title live. Sign up for our webinars and experience the podcast before anyone else. Finally, make sure to rate, review, and subscribe wherever it is you listen to your podcast. Thank you again for listening.

Leading Beyond Any Title – Aspiring to Leadership

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