Something shifted. You can feel it. You just can't name it yet.
Stand Tall & Own It is for women in the second half of life who are high-functioning on the outside and quietly disoriented on the inside. You built your life inside systems you trusted completely — until you realized you couldn't tell what was actually yours from what you'd just learned to navigate well.
Host Andrea Johnson doesn't offer formulas. She offers honest thinking, sharp observation, and the kind of conversation that makes you pull over and sit in your driveway.
You're listening to Intentional Optimists, the public helps for unconventional leaders, where you'll find inspiration, learn to discover and develop your own strengths, and hear some inspiring women just like you who are making a difference in their community. Who knows? You just might find yourself stepping up as the next unconventional leader right where you are. I'm your host, Andrew Jonathan, the original intentional optimist. Welcome to episode 99. The last two years have been really hard on teams and organizations. There's no way to sugarcoat that. However, the lack of trust and respect between leaders and their teams isn't new. Although it has been exacerbated and exposed by first the need for remote work and now the desire to get back to, quote, normal or what we had before the world was turned upside down. Organizations had to completely change the way they interacted with their teams, and the logical response, the way we do things as humans, is to go back to, quote, what we've always done. Now, as I've spoken to my guests over the last few months, I've noticed that we all have the same concerns about the state of the morale and culture in the workforce. I've experienced this myself prior to leaving my corporate job, and I see plenty of evidence in my social media feeds and in conversations with my friends that this is still, or worse, a very real issue. I've come to the conclusion that at the heart of all of it is a lack of trust and respect. As a consultant and coach working with local clients to change organizational culture, building and empowering leaders at all levels, I'm encouraged to see plenty of leaders and organizations that really want to change this particular trajectory. So today we're going to look at how to do that. If you find yourself in a situation where team morale and engagement are low, or you're frustrated with trying to motivate yourself and others to really care about the direction of the team or organization, this one's for you. Now, two episodes ago, before we get started, in episode 97, we looked at the importance of trusting yourself and how to begin that process. I think I'm always surprised at myself in this particular journey, but it's all part of how we grow. Here's the thing: the ability to trust your team, either as the leader or a member, or to help your team trust you, all begins with, you ready for this? You. It all starts with trusting yourself. So if you've not listened to that episode yet, I encourage you to go listen, just hit pause, scroll back two episodes to number 97, because this one will build, this one that I'm doing today will build on the principles that you find there. I will be doing a brief review, and part of what we're going to do is start with, like I love to do, a few definitions. First, as a reminder, the definition of trust is as follows the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. Synonyms include confidence, belief, faith, freedom from suspicion or doubt. And the second word we're gonna look at, shocker, is respect. Respect is a feeling of admiration for a person's abilities or qualities, or a general regard for their feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions. Trust is integral to any relationship, and it is usually earned. Without it, there is no foundation upon which to build. When there is no belief in the reliability of your word or support or the strength of connection, we lose confidence and faith in the relationship. We become suspicious and doubtful. This is especially true in team relationships. Between the members, between the members and the leaders, we're all connected and we have to work together. And if those things are broken down, when trust is damaged, the team will not flourish. Respect, on the other hand, while also integral, is what is given when trust is earned. Yes, we do use the language of earning respect, but in most cases, what we really mean there is trust. It's difficult to, quote, earn other people feeling admiration for your abilities and qualities, or earning their regard for your feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions. In the area of team and organizational dynamics, the two go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other. But before we worry ourselves into a chicken and egg cycle, let's just be super real for a second. Where does it actually start? Well, it has to start with you. You're the leader. Even if you may not be formally recognized as the leader of the team, building trust in your team begins with trusting them. It starts with you. You have to go first. Period. Trust for others flows out of trusting yourself. So again, if you've not listened to episode 97 entitled Trust Yourself, super simple, you should pause this one, go back and listen. Because I'm going to apply all the same points for how you learn to trust yourself to how you do that with others. You ready? In that episode, I defined my framework of think critically, create imaginatively, and lead effectively, and how that helps you overcome your own mistrust. Now let's look at how you can apply that to working in your team or organization. In each of these examples, I'm just assuming that you've done this work on yourself so that we can actually flow into talking about how we can do this in teams. All right, the first is think critically. Number one, you must be willing to diagnose the quote problem. And guess what? It might be you. Yep. This is the be a grown-up segment of the episode. You have to look at your own leadership or engagement and be honest about how you're contributing to the group dynamic. If you're the leader, do you trust your team? In talking with last week's guest, Marianne Snow, I was reminded how obvious the lack of trust becomes when employers require staff to be on site so that they can actually see them working. As if not seeing them means they are not working. There's no data to support that. But it also means that the evidence of the employer not trusting the staff is very clear. Next, if you're the leader, are you a worthy role model? Are you engaging the way that you would like the rest of the team to engage? Or are you asking them to meet one standard while you meet another? I have seen this plenty. I have seen supervisors have one standard for how they do things and another standard for how their staff does things. That never works. That will kill morale every single time. So first it might be you. Next, it could be a toxic team member. Take a look at how every other member is engaged, contributing to or leading within the team and how that affects the dynamic. Any one person can completely throw off the balance of an entire team. So if it's not you, being honest and figuring out who it actually is will give you so much good information. If you determine that you have this kind of situation, you may or may not be able to do something about it immediately, but we'll get to some ideas on that in a minute. The other thing it might be is the organizational culture or even the structure. Organizational culture can be a real bear to tackle, especially if the culture has been developed or allowed to grow without checks and balances for many years. But when the leadership is dedicated to truly making a difference and the team can see it, morale begins to shift, upping engagement and ownership. Keep in mind, however, this is mostly effective and actually really helpful in small to mid-size organizations. Tackling this in larger situations can be a real challenge and take many years. I just want to keep expectations real. Now, organizational structure, however, can make an immediate difference, especially in small to mid-size organizations, because clear boundary lines can be established, people can be placed in positions that highlight their strengths, skills, and abilities, and allow for new leaders to emerge. If people are in leadership roles not suited to their strengths, skills, or abilities, or values even, the organization will struggle. If the structure of an organization or a team inhibits information flow or leadership development, the whole organization will stagnate. Once you figure out the problem, once you diagnose it, you need to know all your players, every single one of them. What are their strengths? What are their skills? Are they in the right positions based on that information? How are they wired to communicate? This is where disc types come in very handy. Just knowing how best to communicate with someone can clear up misunderstandings and frustration, allowing for peace and productivity. What are their interests? Have you invested time in understanding where they're coming from? Do you know their dreams and aspirations for their work, for their life? Do they know these things about you? All of that stuff will help you diagnose what's going on, figuring out your people, and then be able to use all of that data to create imaginatively. This is where you get to build respect through demonstrating your own abilities and skills and uncovering, highlighting, and developing the skills and abilities of the individual team members. This is also how you can demonstrate or role model regard for their feelings or traditions. Here's some ideas. Number one, get creative about solutions. If your organization isn't where you want it to be, structurally, culturally, productively, then what you've been doing isn't working. Go back to the thinking critically part and start over. Doing things the way you've always done them because that's the way you've always done them is never the answer. You just don't need to be right about this. You also don't need to go it alone. So, too, ask for help. This is what I do as a consultant and a coach. I use tools, workshops, and coaching to give each member new information on how to best lead themselves and engage in changing the culture of the organization. I then provide the leadership with information that they need to implement changes from their perspective. One of the tools I use is disk assessments and workshops. This is where individuals learn how they're wired to communicate and lead, and then how to recognize the unique communication needs of others based on their own wiring. I can't stress how earthshaking this process can be. One client said to me, and she's a team leader, understanding that most of my team are C's, which are the compliance and they're very detail-oriented, she said, I now know to be more clear and how to do things. I tell them how something will impact them using facts, and my biggest takeaway, she said, with a giant smile on her face, was I slow things down. It's completely changed the engagement in her team. Another client gave me a list of all of her significant work relationships and how she's actively changing the way she communicates with each one according to their style. Yep, her emails are now getting answered. Projects are getting completed, and they are trusting her more and more to do her work. Leadership coaching is working with individuals who could benefit from one-on-one attention to help them grow more quickly for any reason. They might need some basics on personal growth, or perhaps they're one of those rising star team members who just need a little nudge to set them on a really nice trajectory. Executive leaders benefit from coaching through the change process, diagnosing issues in their leadership, and culture of their organization. And then there's workshops and training. You could do things on continuing education on specific skill sets or growth opportunities. This helps build the skills of your team, giving them more confidence in their work. Communication workshops, including DISC and how to speak to everyone based on their type so that communication happens more freely and effectively. Leadership workshops and masterminds designed specifically to grow individual leaders to benefit the entire organization. Once you get through the think critically and create imaginatively process, it's time to be able to lead effectively. First, use what you've learned. If the changes need to start with you, do so. If you need help to begin diagnosing issues, ask. If you need help being creative, ask. Of course you can ask me, but there might be really helpful people around you with whom you can get a good, honest picture of what's going on. Use the people that know the situation. Next, get a little courageous. The third tenet of intentional optimism is all about courageous leadership. There are three characteristics every good leader possesses. They are charisma, which means you value others, and they can tell, trust me, and they are attracted to you, so they follow or they listen. Servanthood, putting others first, you know this is the best way to lead, seriously, and vision, seeing what can be and sharing that with others. Ask yourself how you could live into or embody more courage. Which characteristic of a courageous leader is most needed in your leadership? And become just a little wiser, which is the fifth tenet of intentional optimism. To be intentionally optimistic in this area, you need to look at the way that you see things, number one, which is your understanding. Are you willing to see all the sides? Like, is the problem you? Is it a team member, or is it the culture? You need to be willing to see the undercurrents, the spiritual, the physical, the mental. Maybe somebody is um is in pain, or maybe there's a pain in relationships in the actual team. But there's realities in the world around you that you need to be willing to see. Next, it's how you speak. What are the words that you use? Are you careful? Understanding that words matter and using ones that are helpful, encouraging, and that build others up. And then you need to look at what you do. This is about respect, right? Once people trust you, they can learn to respect you. It's given after trust is earned. So modeling respect for those you lead, understanding and setting boundaries. This is respected because you respect first. You see, you can change the culture of your team or organization. You can have an impact on engagement, trust, and respect. You might need some paradigm shifts. We can do that. You might need some new communication skills, we can do that. Your team, your organization, they deserve for you to be the best leader you can, even if you're not the boss. Your team needs you to step up and embrace the responsibility of thinking critically so that you can come up with some creative and imaginative solutions to help lead the organization effectively. It starts with you. You are the leader. Even if you're not the formal leader of the team, trust for others flows out of trusting yourself. So building trust in your team begins with trusting them. It starts with you and you have to go first. Period. Additionally, respect and trust go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other. Respect is what's given after trust is earned. My passion is to equip and empower you. So how can I help you think more critically? Do you need help creating imaginative options? Well, here I am. I equip and empower female leaders to do just that. To think critically, create imaginatively, and lead effectively in any situation, team, or organization. I know I say that over and over, but I need you to hear it. That could be your family, your church, your community, or your job, any situation where you might lead. You know, it brings me great joy to watch you realize your own leadership potential as you develop trust in yourself and your team. So the question is, how can I help you? Set up a 30-minute consultation where we can figure out exactly what you need. All my links are in the show notes. Alright, before you go, scroll down, hit that five-star button, and comment with your biggest takeaway from this episode. Then share this podcast with a friend. Women need to share when we find something good, a good message. And if this one has resonated, or if there are other episodes that really hit you, share. Alright then, until next time. Hey, thanks for spending your precious time with us today. If you love this podcast and find it to be uplifting and helpful, follow us, or subscribe, then please take a moment and leave a review in one of those amazing five-star ratings. You can also snap a screenshot right where you listen, share it to social media, and tag me. This helps others find us and will have an even bigger impact. If you're curious what it would be like to work more closely with me, or to step up as an unconventional leader yourself, schedule a free discovery session in WolfChat. But maybe you're an entrepreneur looking for a support team. I'd like to personally invite you into my collaborative community, Launch from the Beach. It could be just what you're looking for. All of my contact information and all the links are included in the show notes. And don't forget, you can always connect with other intentional optimists in our Facebook community. You can follow my Facebook or Instagram page, or even connect with me on LinkedIn. Additionally, I invite you to subscribe to my newsletter, Optimistic Living. It's good stuff delivered straight to your inbox on a not so strict schedule, but always from the heart. Remember, unconventional leaders lead at every level, in any area, using their unique gifts. And you, my friend, are a leader. You are the future of leadership and the role models for future generations. Until next time.
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