294 | Summer of Leadership: Lead Yourself Well to Lead Others Better

This summer, leadership gets personal.

In this kickoff to the Summer of Leadership series, Jenni Catron invites you into a focused season of growth—because leadership isn't just about strategy, it's about you.

Leaders today are navigating more pressure than ever. And what your team needs most isn’t a new policy—it’s a more grounded, self-aware, communicative you. That’s why Jenni is diving into the eight essential leadership skills that shape culture from the inside out:

→ Self-leadership
→ Emotional intelligence
→ Communication
→ Decision-making
→ Delegation
→ Accountability
→ Feedback
→ Ownership

These are the human skills that build unstoppable teams and thriving cultures. In this episode, Jenni outlines each one and explains why developing them isn’t optional—it’s essential.

Whether you lead five people or five hundred, this episode is your invitation to reflect, reset, and re-engage with the habits that fuel healthy leadership.

🛠️ Takeaway: Your leadership sets the tone. And this summer, you have the opportunity to raise it.

 📍Listen now and commit to becoming the kind of leader your culture can thrive under.

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Transcript

Hey, leaders, welcome to the Lead Culture Podcast. We're a part of the Art of Leadership Network. I'm your host, Jenny Catron, CEO of the 4Sight Group. We're a company dedicated to helping leaders develop thriving teams. Each week, I'll be your guide as we explore practical strategies to equip you with the tools you need to lead with clarity, confidence, and build unstoppable momentum in your organization. My mission is to be your trusted coach, empowering you to master the art of self-leadership so you'll learn to lead yourself well, so you can lead others better. Each week, we take a deep dive on a leadership or a culture topic. 

You'll hear stories from amazing guests and leaders like you who are committed to leading well. So let's dive in and keep learning on this leadership journey together. 

Friends, today I am starting a Summer of Leadership series. And specifically today, we're gonna talk about the skills that make or break your culture. And I'm pretty excited to start this series because summer's a great time to give us space to pause and to be intentional. Yes, you've got some things going on and there's lots of extra activities, but there's something about the summer season where I just get some space to think, right? My work schedule isn't quite as intense and I often have a little more margin, a little more time for some learning. So I hope the same is true for you. Either way, I would love for you to dive in and to commit to this series because

What I do know is that regardless of how full your summer is, your fall gets crazy. And I wanna equip you to be purposeful about jumping into those fall rhythms and being ready to lead well. So this series is really an invitation to sharpen the skills that don't just make us great leaders, but leaders who build great cultures.

Jenni Catron (02:25.676)
So here's a little bit about the why behind the series. Today, I'm kind of giving you the overview. So I want to tell you why I want to give you an overview of what we're going to be looking at. But the why for me is my team and I are noticing just this increased pressure on leaders at every level inside of organizations. And there's a myriad of reasons. You've all felt it. Like it's just, there's lots of change and there's external forces and there's internal forces, but there's just a lot of

pressure on leaders. We have leaner teams in many cases where again, lots of things are shifting and so we're requiring more from fewer people in a lot of cases. And then there's this growing need for more human skills, more what used to be called soft skills. Like there's a growing need for how to show up as humans and there's lots of reasons and there's a lot of good data.

around why some of our people skills have actually waned over the last few years. We can blame COVID, we can blame technology, but whatever we blame, the result is the same. That our skills in leading people and dealing with people have not necessarily increased. In fact, they might have decreased. And so we need more intentionality in these human skills because we know that

Maxwell says, everything rises and falls on leadership. Like leadership still matters, regardless of what is shifting and changing in the world around us, we still need great leaders to help lead the way. Another favorite axiom, I'm not even sure who said this, but so goes the leader, so goes the team, right? Like however you're doing as a leader is going to influence how your team is doing. And so my passion point, as I'm seeing this play out with a lot of the teams we get to work with,

is I want leaders thriving and healthy. That has always been my why behind my work, is to equip leaders to lead well, because your leadership matters, your influence matters, the people you lead matter, the culture you're building matters, right? And so I want to equip you to feel confident to lead well. So every episode this summer will focus on one of the eight.

Jenni Catron (04:46.318)
critical leadership skills that I believe culture carrying leaders need, right? That there are, and this is just eight, we could find a lot more, but I zeroed in on eight that I think are exceptionally important for culture shaping and culture building and leaders, every one of us is shaping culture. Every one of us is helping shape the environment or the experience of our team. And so I want to equip you to do that well. So let's talk about some of

the pain points or the problem that we're seeing, some of what we're noticing and you're probably feeling. Recently Gallup released their State of the Global Workplace report and this comes out every year. It's always really insightful and I geek out and devour it because there's just so much helpful information in there. But this year's data was not very encouraging. In fact, it said that only 31 % of US managers are engaged at work.

31, actually it's not even just managers, it's 31 % of employees are, only 31 % of us are engaged at work. And that's the lowest like we've seen in a long, long time. 31 % of us engaged at work. The primary cause of that was a drop in manager engagement that we're seeing a direct correlation from employee engagement related to manager engagement. Our managers, our mid-level leaders in organizations are...

struggling, they're feeling the pinch points. And if managers are disengaged, their teams are as well. And so I just became incredibly burdened by this statistic that 31 % of employees are only 31 % are engaged, which means if you reverse that number, 69 % are disengaged or at least not engaged. They might be like neutral or whatever, but 69 % are not engaged.

And leaders, that's like less than one in three of your staff are engaged on your mission. Now, I hope your culture is stronger and healthier and better and your stat is higher, but let's just assume we fall somewhere around this number that has borne out in the data. And I think it's worth us taking a look at, even if you're like, gosh, I don't think that's true of our organization. I would love for you to start from the premise that what if it is true?

Jenni Catron (07:11.596)
because that's the opportunity, right? Harvard Business Review said the number one predictor of team engagement is the effectiveness of the manager. And yet most people leaders are promoted without leadership training, right? We've all been there. We've been promoted into more responsibility and kind of expected to just figure it out. And so again, we're seeing this lack of development for

people that are in management and leadership positions. And then of course, there's a ripple effect from that. Leaders are experiencing higher emotional labor, greater pressure to retain talent, and are the culture carriers, but often without the tools to carry culture well. So again, I wanna help. And my team and I are seeing this consistently play out in the organizations that we serve. The expectation for managers are greater than they've ever been, but...

we're struggling to equip them well. There's a number of really good reasons why that's true, because you might be kind of feeling a little defensive right now. I don't want you to feel defensive because we're all in this together. But there are really good reasons why this is so hard. We're seeing teams express trust in their leader's vision, but not trusting their decision-making and their leadership. And so there's this tension, this frustration internally.

where managers feel all the responsibility and don't feel equipped. And so what do we do when we're in that position? We kind of give up and we have employees who are looking to those managers for more support and more encouragement and more direction and getting frustrated because they may not be getting that from those leaders. And then what do they do? They give up. So no wonder so many are disengaged, right? So here's why these eight skills matter.

now more than ever. We're entering a new era of leadership where soft skills are now kind of the hard skills, right? Like it was never a good word for them. I like calling them people skills or human skills, but historically they've often been referred to as soft skills. Some of these interpersonal skills that we need to lead well, but they're hard to build, right? They're hard to grow and develop in. And so we need to be aware of

Jenni Catron (09:29.858)
the need for them and the importance of developing them. We're also in an age of AI and automation. Like it's not going away my friends, like this is where we live, but it's the human centric skills that set leaders apart. You know what they can't replace? They can't fully replace your ability to connect with someone, to read the dynamics, to empathize, to connect. Like we can't replace that and we need it so.

Desperately there's other studies talking about how insanely isolated we are now and so in the workplace as leaders We have the opportunity to create connection to create meaning to keep the human Component of our work in our relationships at work. So there's a huge opportunity for us

Gen Z is entering the workforce with high expectations for clarity and purpose, but they're still developing their workplace confidence, resilience, and emotional intelligence. And so they're coming in with the need to develop some of their own skills, but having pretty high expectations of their leaders. So we've got that dynamic at play. So without these eight leadership skills, your culture will drift or decline. I feel that very deeply and we're seeing it bear out in the data with the

the teams that we've been able to work with. And it's not because you or your team don't care, but because your leaders might not be as equipped as we need them to be. In the lead culture framework that I outline in my book, Culture Matters, I hope you all have gotten the book. If you haven't, go get it. Because it is just packed with great resources and great tools to help you with all of this.

But in that, I outlined the Lead Culture Framework. Phase four of the framework is called the equip phase. And it's all about making sure our leaders at every level understand how to build culture in a healthy way. And that all comes back to their leadership. In fact, it's why the framework is called the Lead Culture Framework because we need leaders to lead culture and we can't have great culture without great leaders. Like they go hand in hand.

Jenni Catron (11:39.138)
Even though the book right now is Culture Matters and you've heard a lot of our talk about all the culture work that we do, it is inextricably linked to leadership. they can't, those two things just exist together. And so that's why I want to spend this summer helping you develop those skills, the eight critical skills for culture carrying leaders. They aren't just skills for your executive team. These are the leadership muscles that

every people manager needs. So what I want to do now is I want to give you an overview of these eight skills, because I've told you all the whys and all the reasons why we need to give attention to this. And I hope I've made the case. I hope you are with me and saying, yes, we need to focus on this. And then in the following weeks, this summer, we'll dive deeper into each one of these eight skills. So

Again, I'm going to try to very quickly give you an overview of these eight. I'm going to have to control myself from wanting to fully teach it out and to answer all your questions. So you're probably going to hear that tension in me because I'd start talking about it then I want to keep going, but I need to just give you a quick overview. Here's what I want you to do. I would love for you as I share each of these eight very briefly right now. None of these, by the way, are going to be a big surprise to you, but I want you to think about them more deeply.

And I want you to rate yourself from one to five on how strong you think you are in this particular skill. So one would be, ooh, ouch, I need a lot of work on this one. This is a big weakness for me. Five would be, I'm really strong at this one. Like I got this one locked in. So one to five, rate yourself on these eight. Now this can just be for you. You don't have to share it with anybody. It would be awesome if you did share it with somebody.

In fact, you might find a friend, a coworker, or maybe your manager and say, I'm listening to this series this summer, and here's how I've self-rated on these five or on these eight skills. Where would you rate me? I did this years ago with a good friend of mine. We would get a leadership book and then we would go and process what we learned from it together. And we would give each other feedback on how are you doing with that leadership skill? How are you doing?

Jenni Catron (13:58.71)
Is that a strength? it a weakness? And so we would give each other that feedback. And it was a powerful, powerful season of growth and development for me. So find a buddy and then share honestly with, Hey, here's my quick self evaluation of these eight skills. I'd be curious what you see. And then as we go into, we deep dive into each of these skills over the next eight weeks, it'll be fun for you to kind of keep.

digging in and keep learning on each of those skills. regardless, rate yourself if you're super brave, find a friend and lean into this together. So let's look at these eight skills. The first one, self leadership. Now, probably not a big surprise. You all have heard me say lead yourself well to lead others better. Everything rises and falls on leadership and leadership starts with leading yourself well. In fact, you're the hardest person to lead. You really are.

So self leadership is the foundation of all leadership. Leaders who don't lead themselves well eventually burn out or at a minimum kind of break trust with others. Self leadership is a commitment to consistent growth, discipline and doing the right thing for the sake of those you lead, right? Like you start to develop this philosophy of leadership that leadership isn't all about you, even though you need to lead yourself, it's not all about you. It's about developing yourself, having

and crazy self-awareness so that you can lead others well. It's taking responsibility for your growth and your development and recognizing what you need to serve and lead others well. What do you need to do to make sure that you show up strong, consistent, healthy for the people around you? Owning that no one else is responsible for your development, you are, right? Like no finger pointing, no blaming. You've got to own your own development.

And here's how this connects to culture. When leaders at all levels take ownership for their growth and development, they're more deeply engaged. And when every team member is leading themselves well, engagement and commitment levels go up throughout the organization. So starting with leading ourselves well, and this is every, every leader at every level leading themselves well, then we see the water level rise everywhere. So how are you doing on self leadership? One to five. Ooh, ouch. One is I got a lot of work to do.

Jenni Catron (16:26.242)
Five is like, man, I have done the work and I have, I am really intentional. I'm really disciplined about how I lead myself.

Okay, number two, emotional intelligence. This kind of piggybacks on the self leadership one, but emotional intelligence is a little bit broader and it really is the superpower of the best leaders. It's a skill that can't be automated. Teams don't leave organizations, they leave emotionally disconnected leaders, right? Like they leave leaders who are lacking that self-awareness, lacking that emotional intelligence. This is again, the superpower of the best leaders.

is emotional intelligence. Because we live in a time when much of our work can be replicated by machines and artificial intelligence, right? So there's a lot of things that are getting done by crazy AI. And that's a whole other world and a whole other set of challenges that we're figuring out. So a lot of stuff can get done there. But what can't be reproduced authentically are the people skills required to emotionally connect and interact effectively with others.

This is that understanding of self, the understanding of others and understanding how others experience themselves around you. Let me say that last one again, that understanding of how others experience themselves when they're with you. How do you make others feel? What happens in them when you walk in the room? Do you know that? Are you aware of that? Do you assume everybody is completely at peace and comfortable?

Or are you aware that when you walk in the room, you might make people a little nervous or a little anxious. Maybe you do make them bring peace and calm to the room. But what do you bring? Like when you walk in, great question around this is what's it like to be on the other side of me? I think my friend, Jeff Henderson is the first person who made me aware of that question, but I think a lot of leaders have used it. I don't know who it's officially attributed to.

Jenni Catron (18:27.618)
But what's it like to be on the other side of you? Do you have awareness around that? That's the power of emotional intelligence. And so this is an extraordinary skill for us and really important for us to develop. Number three, communication. Now this one is a sticking point. Every survey we do with every team we're working on culture with.

communication like rises to the top of one of the core issues impacting their culture. It just does. I don't know any team that is exceptional at communication. There are certainly ones that are better than others, but it is hard to make sure the right people are getting the right information at the right time. That's the heart and spirit of communication. Good communication though, at its core, this is my deep conviction, it is an act of respect that

intentionally, purposefully communicating to our team members is an act of respect. It's, it's showcasing that I am about to do this or I'm making this decision or this is about to happen. And I respect you enough to make sure I've given you the information so that you have what you need to succeed. And most of us are our worst communicators than we think we are. Like we always give ourselves like grace or the benefit of the doubt that

yeah, I said that or I communicated that and we might've actually even said it, but did they hear it, right? So there's always that making sure that not only did we communicate it, but they actually heard it or received it. So to be a good communicator requires intentionality. And I'm not even talking about public speaking, that's a whole nother different part of communication, but it's about learning the best practices that allow your everyday interactions

to provide the clarity and direction that equips others to succeed. Are you closing the loop? Are you connecting the dots? Are you helping equip people with the information they need to succeed? That's what great communicators do. Number four, decision-making. Culture suffers when decision-making is unclear. This is another one that stands out in a lot of our culture work is that

Jenni Catron (20:45.454)
people don't know how decisions are made within their organization. And it causes disengagement and finger pointing when there's not clarity around decision-making. I often hear from teams that they don't understand how decisions are made in their organization. In fact, it's one of the questions I love to ask when we're doing culture work is like, hey, tell me how decisions are made here. And I typically get like deer in the headlights looks from people because they're like, what do mean? Like, tell me the process of how you make a decision.

And everybody kind of looks to each other and like, I've yet to work with a team who can give me a clear answer to that. So we lack clarity for who has the authority to make decisions. That's often a culprit, which also results in complacency because team members are exhausted by trying to figure out who needs to make the decision. And then of course that leads to inaction, right? Like if I'm exhausted trying to figure out how to get a decision made,

then I'm gonna kind of give up on it, aren't I?

at its extreme, then we start finger pointing or blaming. Like if I start to feel attacked because a decision needed to be made, I didn't know how the decision should be made, the ball got dropped, and all of a sudden then I want to point fingers everywhere else because I don't want to take responsibility for that.

And I probably didn't even know if the decision was within my power, right? When there's not clarity of decision-making or who has the authority for decision-making, it creates confusion, creates frustration. And so the question to ask yourself on this one is, I clear of how I'm making decisions or who has the authority to make decisions? Now I realize depending on your seat, you might have question marks about your level of authority in even deciding how decisions get made.

Jenni Catron (22:36.076)
But when it is within your authority, I want you to rate yourself one to five on how good are you at making sure everybody understands how decisions are made or how you make decisions. Number five, delegation. This is a big one. Delegation isn't about offloading. And there really are two extremes. We either like just dump everything to everybody else or we hold on to everything.

The people who are able to master good delegation are my heroes because you are exceptional in your ability to understand how to release the right things at the right time. And the heart of delegation is about development. We really want to understand the purpose of delegating so that we can be intentional with how we do it. Purposeful delegating really does two things. It grows the skills of the other people on your team.

And it forces you to consider what you need to let go of, or we should say what you need to release control of. Right? So there's really two key things happening. Again, it's not all about you and you getting stuff off your plate. It's about how can I empower others to grow and how can I develop them by delegating meaningful work, important work, things that will help stretch them and grow them. And so there's an intentionality about delegating that's about development.

And then there's also a part of delegating that's about making sure you're creating capacity for your own development, which means getting rid of the things that you don't need to be doing and releasing them. Because leaders, we are control freaks. And so sometimes we hold onto things because we think we can do it better than anybody else. So we have to ask ourselves that question, am I holding onto it? Because I don't want to let go of it. Delegating done well allows team members at every level to continue to increase their capacity.

and grow their skills. So how are you doing in delegation? All right, number six, accountability. By definition, accountability means an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions. So we get that, right? Accept responsibility, account for your actions. The best teams embrace a culture of accountability where this is natural. We do this, we take responsibility for our...

Jenni Catron (25:01.966)
we accept the responsibility for what has been given to us. Each team member accepts responsibility for their role and they understand that they will be expected to account for their actions, right? Like they get it, they know this is, and this goes back to that clarity word that you hear me use all the time around culture is that we need to clearly identify the roles and responsibilities for team members so that

they can accept that responsibility and then they can be held accountable for their actions. Accountability is only possible when organizational clarity has been provided. So where accountability goes wrong and gets labeled micromanagement, which is what we're all afraid of, is when accountability isn't accompanied by ongoing conversations that clarify expectations, ongoing conversations that are checking in on those responsibilities. So if we...

give somebody their role and responsibility and then we go months without checking in or asking about it. And then we come back because we see that maybe they've dropped the ball on something and then we get super micromanaging and we're directing every detail and we're following up on every little thing because now we're freaked out because something got missed. Well, that's on us to a degree because we weren't checking in to make sure that that team member had good clarity about what they were responsible for and that they were accepting.

that responsibility, they were being accountable for it. So accountability requires good communication. So hearkening back to the communication one. So how are you doing on that? Are you good at taking, being accountable for what you're responsible for? And are you good at holding others accountable for what they're responsible for? So you might actually give yourself two scores on that one. Number seven, feedback. Feedback is

simply evaluative communication. So it's another like level of communication and it really is the ultimate act of respect. said that communication is an act of respect. Well, feedback is the ultimate act of respect. It's saying, I respect you so much that I want to give you intentional feedback about how you're doing. Like I care so much about your development and your success and your growth as an individual.

Jenni Catron (27:24.546)
that I'm willing to do what sometimes is hard to do, which is give you feedback about how you're doing. Now, the positive feedback is good and fun, but also that constructive feedback. It's feedback done with a desire to help others grow and improve, help them grow and improve, which builds trust. And it emphasizes care, that I'm giving you feedback because I care about your growth. I care about your development. And I'm gonna give you the positive feedback because that's...

We all need to hear that. We need to hear when we're doing well. So we need to actually say those things out loud when somebody does something well, when they meet expectations, say it out loud, tell them so they know you're giving them like that anchor point of this is what it looks like to win. And then make sure you're giving the constructive feedback. That's saying, hey, and here's what I feel like you could have done better, or here's an opportunity for next time.

Or when you did this, I think it was misunderstood this way. Whatever the situation might call for, give them that feedback. Now, healthy feedback, and we'll dig deeper into this in the episode we do on this topic, but it should be relational, right? We have to have a relationship in order to give it. It should both be positive and constructive. Like again, we need to emphasize the positive end. We need to give the constructive. It needs to be consistent.

that there's a rhythm, there's a regular rhythm of giving and receiving feedback. And then we're thoughtful about it. And then finally, number eight is ownership. Great cultures are built by leaders who act like founders. Like we believe in what we're doing so deeply that we are owning it, we are in it. In great cultures, every leader at every level has this deep commitment to their work.

to their team and to the mission of the organization that they behave like owners, like they are all in. Ownership, however, is really an attitude rather than a skill. And it's often a byproduct of development. Like when we're intentional in developing the people on our teams, they will develop more ownership. As they see us model ownership, they will develop more ownership.

Jenni Catron (29:40.554)
As you develop your leaders, you increase their buy-in and their commitment, which helps them develop an attitude of ownership. It's not really a skill. It's really more of an attitude. Okay, friends. So those were the eight. I tried to do them as succinctly as I could without going into great detail, but I hope you gave yourself a score just to give yourself a little bit of sense of, where am I on each of these? Which ones should I focus on a little bit more than others? And again, if you're brave enough,

go share it with a friend and have them do this with you. So each week this summer, we will walk through one of these eight skills. And I want to invite you to make a personal commitment to grow in your leadership. Go on this journey with me. We're gonna spend 20 or 30 minutes every week. This is not a lot of time. You can listen in one and a half speed like I do and you're gonna like make that even quicker. And it's not just for you, this commitment to your growth, but it's for the health of your team.

Because friends, your leadership matters, whether you are leading one other team member, 200 team members, dozens of volunteers, whatever that scope of influence looks like for you, they will benefit from your growth. You will benefit from your growth. So even if you're just doing it for yourself, but I want to challenge you, the people around you, the people you influence are going to be affected by your growth. So don't just do it for you. Do it for the health of your team.

because your leadership matters and we need you leading well. So we're gonna do the summer series here on the podcast, but if you wanna go even deeper, we created the Summer Leadership Institute. So this is our Foresight Leadership Institute. We've got a summer program just for leaders like you. It's a three month leadership development experience designed to grow these very skills that we're talking about and there's a handful of more, but it's on your time, in your context,

with coaching to help you integrate it all. So there's like some preset video courses that you can work through. And then you also get some one-on-one private coaching calls to help you work through it. So you're going to listen to the series and that's going to be really helpful. But if you want to take it even deeper and you want to get some feedback and some coaching on how you can grow and develop these skills even more, that's what the Summer Leadership Institute is about. And so it's for people managers, team leaders, culture builders,

Jenni Catron (32:07.032)
who want to lead better now, not someday in the future. You're saying now, I want to commit now. I want to do a three month sprint and really invest in my leadership. The Summer Leadership Institute is for you. So you can go check that out in the show notes or go to getforsight.com and check out the details there, but a great resource and great opportunity for you to get some specific one-on-one coaching in some of these human skills that are so essential.

See friends, leadership isn't just about leading tasks, it's about shaping culture. So this summer is your invitation to grow the skills that truly make or break a thriving team. You don't have to master all eight of them at once, just start where you are, commit to one skill this week, and we'll walk through this summer together learning and growing. If you found this episode helpful,

Share it with another leader you think would find it valuable. Maybe listen to the series as a leadership team, but we grow best when we grow with others. So find a friend and commit to the Summer of Leadership series with us. Keep leading well, and we will see you next week.