Listen if you're good with having crucial conversations and you have a process that you use, you need to teach that to your leaders. Not, not when a conflict comes up, not when it's time to have a crucial conversation like you need to be training them continually how to have these conversations because they're going to need to have them the rest of their career. This is the l three leadership podcast, episode number 168 what's up everyone and welcome to another edition of the LTE leadership podcast. My name is Doug Smith and I'm the founder of LTV leadership. We are a leadership development company devoted to helping you become the best leader that you can be. In this episode you're going to get to hear part two of a two part series that I'm doing on developing yourself in the leaders around you. If you weren't able to listen to part one, that's okay. You don't need to listen to it in order to listen to this episode, but if you do want to go back, you can listen to part one in episode number one 64 before we jump into the episode, just a few announcements. I want to let you guys know that we recently introduced l three leadership membership. That's right. You can now become a member of[inaudible] leadership. You might say to me without why become a member because I believe every leader needs a group of leaders to go through life without all. Encourage them, hold them accountable to their goals and help them reach their potential. At l three leadership, we've developed a community of leaders that'll help you do just that. As a member, you'll get access to our community of leaders. You'll have the ability to join a mastermind group, which I believe is absolutely critical to your success. You'll get access to extra resources, content and a member only forum on our member only website memberships only$25 a month and you can sign up in l three leadership.org forward slash membership I also want to let you guys know about an amazing new leadership conference that's coming up called the future forward conference. It's being held on October 24th through the 26 at amplify church in Pittsburgh and it is a leadership conference for church leaders and their staff and it's led by amplify senior pastor and my friend Lee Krajcir. I've had Lee speak at one of our events and I've interviewed him for this podcast. He is a phenomenal leader in what him and his leadership team have been able to do at their church has been nothing short of amazing and so you need to sit under their leadership. I encourage you to check out the conference and check out all the great work that amplify churches doing to learn more about the conference. Go to future forward conference.com with all that being said, let's jump right into the lesson and I'll be back at the end with a few announcements. Everyone today I'd like to talk to you on the subject developing yourself and the leaders around you. This is part two of a two part series that I'm doing. If you miss part one, you can go back and listen to that in episode number one 64 but it's not necessary that you listened to that in order to to get value out of today's lesson. So with that being said, let's dive right into the content. Most of today's content focuses on developing others. So the first principle I want you to know is this. You need to give the leaders around you responsibilities you don't think they're ready for yet. Give leaders around you responsibilities you don't think they're ready for yet. I remember when I started l three leadership, I had no idea what I was doing. I've never started a business before. I don't know how to grow a business. I don't know how to do so many things. And I would meet with successful entrepreneurs and I'd say, Hey, can you, can you tell me what I need to know to be successful? And oftentimes the response they would give me, which annoyed me was, Doug, you're a smart guy. You'll figure it out. Doug, you're a smart guy. You'll figure it out. And I'm like, it'd be a lot easier to figure out if you just told me a, but they never tell me. And they just said that. But fast forward a few years, I'm finally getting it. I'm figuring it out. Uh, you know, I remember when I became a major gift officer at light of life rescue mission, I didn't know anything about fundraising. They just came to me and they said, we think you're good with people. We think you could be really good at fundraising. Why don't you try this out? We want to make you the major gift officer. That gave me one day of training and fed me to the wolves and I had to figure it out. And I was 26 years old and I'd figured out how to meet with major donors, how to ask them for money and uh, it's gone well. But it was something that I had to figure out very, very quickly. And here's what I want you to know. The leaders that they report to you, they can figure out whatever you hand off to them. I was recently interviewing a woman named Liz Wiseman and uh, she worked for Oracle when she was very young and she was 24 years old. And the executives at Oracle came to her and said, Liz, we want you to create Oracle University. And they gave her the vision for it. While she had no idea what to do, she was 24 years old. She actually joked in the interview, she said, I wouldn't let a 24 year old drive my car now, but they gave me an opportunity to do this. She actually ended up killing it. She grew Oracle University, she crushed it in year one. And they said, this has been so successful here in San Francisco. Now we want you to go global and we want you to figure that out. And you know what? She figured it out. And I just want to say this, leaders let your people surprise you. Let your people surprise you and teach them to be resourceful. They're smart enough and they can figure it out. You know, I saw an Instagram the other day, this hilarious little quote. It said, I never knew that so much of my adult life would simply be googling stuff. I mean, isn't that true? We have Google at our fingertips. And how many times a day do you say, I have no idea how to do this. I wonder how to do, Oh, I'll just look it up on Google. Let your people surprise you. Let them surprise you by giving them responsibility that you don't think they're ready for yet. The second principle is this. Focus on results. Not facetime. Focus on results, not facetime. That's something Sheryl Sandberg, the CEO Facebook said recently in an interview that I was watching with her and she talked about how there were people that they only had to work, you know, 20 or 30 hours a week and they were able to produce extraordinary results for the organization. And so as a result, they got a ton of freedom. And so they didn't have to work as many hours as everyone else worked. And people started complaining to Cheryl and they'd say, hey, how come so-and-so doesn't have to work as many hours or how come so-and-so doesn't have to be in the office as much as we do? And Cheryl said, if you can produce the same amount of results that they produce in the time that they're here, you can have the same kind of freedom. And uh, it, listen, I just want to tell you leaders, if your people produce, give them freedom. You know what, if a leader in your organization could produce more than you expected in less than a 40 hour work week, what if you unleash them and gave them the freedom they needed? There was a an old sign that was on a grocery store one time and it said this, it's at 57 this 50 rows of success. Rule number one, deliver the goods. Rule number two, the other 56 don't matter, and I love that if your people produce the goods, if they deliver the goods, give them freedom. There's a great book out called work rules and it's by Google's old HR director. That certainly wasn't his actual title, but that's what he did and he wrote a book about how Google Works and here's some of the things that he said in the book. He said, the number one mistake organizations make is that they fail to trust their people. He said, productivity, wages and freedom go up when things are self run and cost goes down, freedom, productivity and wages go down in a controlled environment and Costco's up. He said, if you're a leader, give your people more freedom than you're comfortable with and if you're not uncomfortable, you're not doing it right. Focus on results, not facetime. The next principle is this. Teacher leaders define their identity in the right things. Teacher leaders to find their identity in the right things. Cs Lewis said, if your identity, your happiness is in anything that you can lose, you're in danger of a crisis. And all too often I see leaders finding all of their identity in all of their happiness and the organization that they work for and what they've accomplished and what their title is and what people think of them. And those are all things that you can lose very, very quickly. And you might be listening to this and say, well, that's not me. I don't find my identity in those things. But have you ever lost them? Because too often I found that you don't know what your values in until you lose that thing. You know, for me, I was 26 years old and I was working in a big church and if you would have asked me if my identity and worth and value was in the fact that I worked at a big church, I would've said absolutely not. However I left and I was helping my mentor plant a church and when I left I realized I W I was having an identity crisis. I was depressed for a few months and a, it was just, it was so strange. I didn't know what to do. And what I realized was all my identity wasn't working in a big church and I no longer had a big church to point to. I could no longer say I'm on staff at that church. I was at a startup. No one had heard of our church when we launched it, right? Because we were starting from scratch. But all my identity was in that, in a crushed me for six months. And thankfully I have good mentors around me and I was able to bounce back. But I know leaders that lose lose a position that they had and it ruins the rest of their life. And they never bounced back because they never find their identity in the right things. Teach your people to find their identity and things they can never lose. For me, I'm a person of faith and so for me, that's God. I have to find my worth and value and God because he's the only thing I can never lose. It can't be in my position, my title or organization that I work for and we must train our leaders to know this. We must help them find their identity in the right things because here's what I know and it's the next principle. You need to teach your leaders that there are necessary endings in life. You need to teach there your leaders, that there are necessary endings in life. If I could recommend one book to you, I recommend this to every leader that I talked to. It would be necessary endings by Henry Cloud. It's a phenomenal book, necessary endings by Dr. Henry Cloud, and he said this, he said, without the ability to end things, people stay stuck, never becoming who they're meant to be and never accomplishing all of their talents and abilities should afford them. Again, as you so many people held back by this because they never expected an ending to come. They thought they were on top of their game. They never thought they'd get fired. They never thought they'd not be at the organization. They never thought that someone else would get promoted ahead of them. And an unnecessary ending comes and they don't know how to do it because don't know how to navigate it well because all their identities in the wrong thing. And so they ended up stuck and never growing to where God intended them to grow because they don't know how to end things. Well. We need to teach our people that they may not be in our organization forever. They may not be a part of everything forever. They can't rely on their gifts and talents in this season of their life to get them where they need to go in the next season of their life. Right. And so we just need to teach our people to find their identity and write things. And the fact that endings are necessary in life sometimes and sometimes necessary endings are the best thing that could possibly happen to you. You know, I've had to let people go in the past, and that's always my prayer for them. Hey, I hope, you know, look at this happened to me. There's going to be necessary endings in your life and I hope looking back that you'll say, man, if that ending would've have happened, I would have never reached my full potential. Necessary. Endings are never, never fun while you're going through them, but looking back, I think you'll find that those are some of the biggest opportunities for growth in your entire life. We need to teach people again that there are necessary endings in life. The next principle is this. We need to teach our people how to have healthy conflict and crucial conversations. We need to teach our leaders how to have healthy conflict and crucial conversations. There is a great resource I would recommend and it is a book called crucial conversations. I'll include a link to it in the show notes. It's phenomenal. You'll want to read it, but listen, in life there's some people who are very comfortable with conflict. There's others who are not, whether or not you, I don't want to say people enjoy it, but whether or not you're comfortable or not, you need to learn how to have crucial conversations and it's a skill that you can develop and you need to continue to develop throughout the rest of your leadership journey because crucial conversations happen all the time. For me personally, I was someone who was not comfortable at all with crucial conversations, was not comfortable with conflict at all. So as a result, I was the king of gossip. I mean, I'm just, I'm just telling you how myself here I was the Goto for gossip and people would come to me and they'd say, I can't believe this is wrong with the organization and this is wrong with that leader, and this was wrong with that leader. And I was, I actually enjoyed the fact that people would come to me and I'd smile and I'd say, yeah, you're absolutely right. That's horrible. I can't believe that either. It's crazy, but let's not do anything. Let's just feel good that we're complaining about it. That used to be me. And so I hadn't experienced, and my boss gave me permission to share this story because it involves her. And I'll preface this by saying, my boss and I have a wonderful relationship now, um, but at the time we, it because I didn't know how to have crucial conversations. And so I had some frustrations boating with my boss, but I was afraid to, to confront her about him. And so I would hold them in and hold them in and hold them in. And so one day I had the opportunity to do a 360 degree review on my boss and I thought, here's my chance to actually show how I feel and say what I'm thinking. And so I wrote down a nasty three 60 degree review and it went very, very bad. And Long Story Short, uh, my boss read everything that I wrote and I had to own up to everything that I wrote at initially. I did not think I was going to have to. Um, but I did. And man, we had a hard conversation and there were a lot of tears and a lot of conflict. But out of that I actually learned how to have crucial conversations. And for me there's a tool called the conversation wheel. If you're interested in it, I could talk to you about it, but there's a wheel that actually walks you through how to have healthy conversations. And basically what I did is I wrote out my entire conversation that I wanted to have with my boss. Everything that I was feeling. Um, you know, you walk through this whole process, but I journaled out the entire conversation. Then I met with my boss and I said, Hey, I'm going to share with you everything that's in my heart. I wrote it down. If you could just listen while I talk and then I want you to repeat back to me what I said so I can know you have proper context and didn't take anything out of context. And after you repeat it, I want to discuss it. And we ended up having a wonderful conversation. Everything that I was complaining and frustrated about pretty much went away. And from that point on we basically have been able to have great conversations, great conflict, and it's been wonderful and it was such a huge source of growth for me. And so now I'm no longer the King of Gospel and people come to me now complaining about something in our organization or about a certain leader. I just say, Hey, what do you, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to talk to that person about it? You need to and hey, if you need help having that conversation, let me show you my process for having hard conversations and I walk them through it. Listen, if you're good with having crucial conversations and you have a process that you use, you need to teach that to your leaders. Not, not when a conflict comes up, not when it's time to have a crucial conversation. Like you need to be training them continually, how to have these conversations because they're going to need to have them the rest of their career. And I wish I would've learned the Senate early age. I wish I wouldn't have spent 10 years of my life just holding frustration and, and not being able to express it in and just end up being the king of gossip. I did. Oh, I wasted 10 years when I could've learned a simple process that I now use every day. We need to teach our people how to have crucial conversations. The next principle is that you need to teach your leaders to self evaluate. You need to teacher leaders to self evaluate. And one of the organizations that I work at, we do self evaluations all the time and the process we used was actually developed by an organization that we partner with called Grace Network International based out of Oregon. And if you're interested in connecting with them or include a link in the show notes, um, I highly encourage you to connect with them. This has been a source of growth for me personally and I know everyone else on staff who has gone through the self evaluation process has been impacted in a huge way as well. But all it is is when you either make a decision or you make a choice or you have a choice to make. You go through the sheet of paper with multiple questions on it and you reflect on the decision that you made or you're gonna make. And then essentially you sit down with your team or some of your coworkers and you work through the worksheet. You tell them all the answers to the questions that you reflected on and then you allow them to ask you questions. So it allows you to self evaluate and evaluate the decision that you made and why you made it or the decision that you're about to make and why you're going to make it. And it's absolutely wonderful. And the questions are, what did I choose to do? What did I want? What was I thinking? What were the results of my choice? How did my choice affect the community or the environment? If you're a faith based person, what does trusting God look like in this situation? And then what is my plan to change? Now, my question to you is that seems like a pretty simple process, but what if you went through those questions before, uh, after every decision that you made or before every decision that you're going to make, it would cause you to be self reflective around those things. And I'm telling you, get so much more insight and not only when you reflect on the answers that you wrote, but you also give an opportunity for your staff to ask questions so you go deeper and give feedback. It's a wonderful thing. So again, if you want more information, please email me at Doug Smith and l three leadership that org. I'd be glad to connect you with Grace Network International, but you need to teach your people to self evaluate. It'll be a game changer for you. The next principle is one that I talk about often, but you need to grow your team's character. You need to grow your team's character. I say it often, but the most important development really is character development. Tom Peter said, there is no such thing as a minor lapse in integrity. I love that there is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity. So how do you grow your team's character? Number one, I believe if you're a person of faith, you need to follow God. It's an absolute fact that the closer to God you get, the cleaner your life will become. Number two is you need to follow the example of men and women of character. And you need to be an example of a man or woman of character. Gerald Brooks said this, he said, just as leadership is more caught than taught characters more caught than taught. You need to surround yourself and the people on your team with men and women of character so they can see it modeled and they can catch that. And then lastly, you need to be teachable and you need to be open to correction always. And you need to teach your people to be teachable and open to correction. If you're a person of faith, God needs to correct you. He'll send people to correct you. You need to have people around your life that can correct you and tell, you know, I ask this all the time, but who do you have in your life that can tell you know that you will actually listen to? Because here's what I know. The most important leadership quality is self-awareness. And so many of us are not self aware and one way you become softwares by being teachable and being open to the correction of others. There's a phenomenal leadership book out that I encourage you to read and go through with your team called the dark side of leadership. Go through it with your team, but in it talks about Billy Graham and it says this. It says as his ministry grew, so did his self awareness as his ministry grew, so did his self awareness. I want that to be me. As my organization grows, I want my self awareness to grow. As my leadership grows, I want my self awareness to grow. I want to grow my character more than any other area of my life. If we're going to be leaders that last and we're going to develop a team of leaders that's going to last. We have to grow their character and we have to grow our character and that's going to wrap up our lesson on developing yourself in the leaders around you. Thank you very much for listening. Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening to developing yourself in the leaders around you. Part two I really hope that it added a lot of value to your life. You can find ways to connect with me and links to everything that I talked about and more in the show notes@lthreeleadership.org forward slash episode one 68 again, you can also listen to part one if you are unable to in episode number one 64 of the l three leadership podcast as well. Just a few things to wrap up. I want to thank our sponsor, Henny jewelers. They are jeweler, owned by my friend and mentor, John Henne, my wife Laura and I both got our engagement and wedding rings through Henny jewelers and they are just an incredible company. Not only do they have great jewelry, but they also invest in people. John Gave Laura and I a book to help us prepare for our marriage and he's been investing in me as a leader, a dad and a husband now for many years, so if you're in need of a good jeweler, checkout Henny jewelers.com I also want to thank our sponsor Alex to Landen. Alex is a full time realtor with Keller Williams realty whose team is committed to providing clients with highly effective premiere real estate experiences throughout the Greater Pittsburgh region. He's a member and a supporter of l three leadership and he would love the opportunity to connect with you. If you'd like to learn more about Alex and ways to connect with them, go to Pittsburgh property showcase.com if you enjoyed this podcast, I would mean the world to me. If you would subscribe and leave a rating and review on whatever app you listen to podcast through, it really does help us grow our audience. You can also share on social media. That would be awesome as well. But more than anything, thank you so much for being a listener. It means the world to me. And lastly, if you want to stay in touch with everything that we're doing here at l three leadership, you can simply sign up for our email list@lthreeleadership.org and as always, I like to end with a quote, and Brian Houston recently said this, I love it. He said, what is the one thing you are called to do? No, you're one thing, and pursue it relentlessly. Thank you so much for being a listener, Lauren, I appreciate you so much and we'll be back next episode.
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