E26 Mastering Emotional Intelligence in Leadership Communication

What if shifting your mindset could transform how you connect with clients and lead your team? In today's episode of the Everlasting Podcast, I share my powerful journey of evolving my business focus towards high-level clients, guided by the incredible coach Nienke van der Lek. We delve into the significance of transitioning from a sales mindset to one of service. This pivotal change allowed me to communicate more effectively, maintain control in conversations, and foster deep, confidential relationships with clients. Listen in as I recount a transformative mastermind experience and the role-playing exercises that revealed the true power of utilizing an authentic voice.

Discover the critical role of voice in daily leadership and how different situations demand different vocal approaches. Being mindful of this can significantly impact your effectiveness as a leader. Join me as I challenge you to move from your head to your heart, connecting deeply with your emotions to truly feel the beat within. And don't forget to check out our new ebook available on the website and follow the podcast on your preferred platform. Embrace your authentic voice to enhance your leadership skills and create lasting value in both your business and personal life.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within. In a few seconds, you just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life. And today's episode? I'm your host, nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment. Striving to Achieve Everlasting Fulfillment. Welcome to the Everlasting Podcast. Today's subject is based on what's your most powerful tool?

Speaker 1: 1:08

In the last couple of days, I've spent an amazing time with a group of people in the mastermind that I've joined since the beginning of this year. At the beginning of the year, I was at a point where I wanted to change a few profound things in my business. I no longer wanted to work with the medium marketplace, where we have a lot of different kinds of people and so on, and everybody there has their merits and their ambitions and so on, but I wanted to go towards a more premium level, high level clientele, client clientele because I know that the impact that I can bring on the world is not necessarily with with everybody. So becoming selective and focusing on who I can touch, that can have an effect on a much broader audience. And when I was thinking about that, I came to a point where I started to see that the leaders of companies are mostly the ones that can bring the most effect to the audience that I want to touch. So I started focusing on CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs of medium-sized businesses to much bigger companies, who have a minimum turnover of about 10 million turnover of about 10 million. Now, what I've learned in these past couple of days has a profound effect on those leaders, because sometimes we end up in a position where, as a leader, we sometimes forget how strong our toolbox is and, to go specifically on, one tool within that toolbox is our voice. The effect of our own voice on our environment can be extremely profound.

Speaker 1: 3:20

I was undergoing a role play and let's be open and honest here is it was a sales conversation. Now, bear in mind that I am not at all a salesperson and I do not feel very comfortable with pushing somebody towards a service. I know that it is a part of being a business person or a leader in a company to be able to sell the company, but the methodology that was used was very comfortable, where I was more directed towards being of service instead of being of sales, let's call it that way. So we were role-playing and from the moment that the role-play started, it was extremely clear that I was not using my core voice. So the wonderful coach who was guiding the whole mastermind, nienke van der Lek, stopped us right there at that time to clearly indicate and taking it on with a bit of humor where she was saying where is this little guy, where is the little guy that I know? Blah, blah, blah. So it was kind of confronting for me how profoundly I changed my voice when somebody was in front of me and, um, it's somebody that I've I've talked to, uh, many times in the past and and she plays it very well. So she was role playing, um, let's say, my target audience, um, for my services, and she took up a very powerful role, which to me was kind of a a moment of surprise.

Speaker 1: 5:23

Surprise, because if you talk to somebody for a while, you have a certain way of understanding, communicating in general. You know how you use the tone of voice, how you become a little bit more friendlier towards the person, more personable, instead of taking on a role where you are taking control of the conversation because you want to be of excellent service towards that person and give them the best you can already at the time. It's not only from the moment that they let's say, stop paying for your services that you become who you really are. No, it's already within that conversation. So I had to kind of backtrack and give myself a moment to really get into.

Speaker 1: 6:16

I am a loving and caring father. From time to time I am strict. At other times I am very lovable. So it is a completely different tone of voice or a different attitude that goes towards my children than I would have towards a new connection, a new person that I get to know or somebody that I meet regularly in a job because you talk the same language, or who you meet and you want to explain your services to. So it's very important to know that that tool in our backpack called the voice or the attitude, together with the voice is, is a very important tool that we need as a leader, because we can go from being supportive to being directive, to being whatever you want to be um in a few seconds time and at the time within that role play a few seconds later, I took up my very firm and leader-oriented voice again to direct and clearly make the conversation about the other person, but still holding the control in hands, where I clearly defined how long the conversation was going to be, what the scope of the conversation would be, especially for the other person, what they wanted to achieve with the conversation and how we were going to go and look at how I would choose that idea of service to them, because I'm very selective with whom I present my services to.

Speaker 1: 8:20

I just don't take on all the customers that I meet. I've come to a point where I have a clear view of my expectations of my customers, the go and no-go um within our working relationship, um which, in honesty, it's always turned out to be a friendship at the end, because as a confidant, you get to know people very profoundly, very deeply, and you have certain things that they tell you that you just keep for yourself at all times. There's no spreading of any information or anything like that, and there are a lot of roles that contain that same confidentiality. But for me it is a core part of what I do, because I am here in the very first and the highest priority that I can bring is creating a safe environment for my customer, for the person that I'm talking to, so that they can actually tell me things that they want to tell not especially to me, no, but to someone who can keep that as a confident subject, because not everything within a leadership role can be explained either in the boardroom or with employees, or with peers, or even with managers that are, let's say, higher up in the hierarchy.

Speaker 1: 9:50

There are certain things that you just don't speak about, and mostly these are very personally personal things. So I cannot, um, create a safe environment by being um too fluffy or too, um empathic. Uh, all the time I need to be the person that also gives the the hard questions and bounces back um some of of the parts of the conversation that other people would not do. I have to be the leader of the leader, and sometimes I am just there to listen. So these are different kind of voices and different kind of attitudes that come up while joining that conversation.

Speaker 1: 10:35

So it is a wonderful thing when somebody else really clearly makes you, puts you kind of a little bit on the spot, that you realize, wow, I do need to take on a role, which is a natural role, but not a natural role when you've met somebody before and you have been out for drinks or you've been out for lunch, or you've had them in your network for so many years and still meet each other at some point. And at some point sometimes, people that you've met in the past might have been following you for many years and you might have had conversations with them, but when they come to you for services especially what I bring into the world, where I guide people towards feeling a lot more fulfilled in their successful life it is important to know which role you take on and the associated language or voice or attitude. That's necessary to bring them to the next level, because one of the questions that I ask a lot with my customers is what are you not telling me, for instance and it is shocking sometimes for people who are in a leadership role to get this question because they're not in the habit of explaining themselves to somebody else, which is which is absolutely fine and it is a part of the job. You know you're taking up a responsibility, you're the person that decides what needs to be done, but at some point we all have our doubts, even the most powerful leaders or the richest people in the world have their doubts on which decision to make. Decision one decision, the, the a decision, um, in any case. But sometimes it's good if you can still, you know, talk to somebody about a decision or something that has already been decided and afterwards you've noticed that it is not, it was not the right decision and how you can approach to change it and and redirect resources to improving or maybe mitigating or saving what can be saved at the time.

Speaker 1: 13:09

So then you need somebody who actually has the voice and the attitude to put you in your place and ask you the difficult questions of okay, great, tell me about it. And then, after a while, you clearly ask the question and say what aren't you telling me? What else of the information do I need to guide you on? And it's always in the moments where, let's say, those profound questions come up that a solution presents itself. I'm not here to provide solutions. I'm here to guide somebody through the process of asking those questions and coming from one point to another and even might change their perspective completely, which brings the most value.

Speaker 1: 14:00

So the attitude with a voice and words are key in any position that you are in, and that's something that I wanted to share with you as an audience of leaders who sometimes come into a position where you quickly need to take a couple of decisions and you need to swap over to the directive voice and then later on clearly take the responsibility if the decision wasn't the right one. To clearly take on the responsibility and start asking the questions or getting the questions from someone who you can trust and who you know. That is not going to go further into the story, because they are third party. They're not involved within every little aspect of your business, and that's a big advantage. I always felt privileged when I am outside of a company because I am not attached to any agendas that might exist.

Speaker 1: 15:08

So, yeah, I think it's a very, very interesting thing to take that with you in your daily leadership role of what voice are you using at the time? So that's what I've got for you today and thank you for your time on. Keep on listening to the podcast. Just a reminder to check out the new ebook on the website and um follow, if you haven't already follow the podcast, um on one of the systems that you are on and always remember to jump from your head to your heart and feel the beat within. Bye.