Episode 33: From Bottleneck to Boss: How to Lead Without Losing Control

“If you can develop leaders within your business, you free yourself to actually grow it.” ~Jennifer Kok

In this episode, Jennifer Kok interviews leadership development coach Shaina Lane, who specializes in helping corporate professionals and small business owners transition into effective leadership roles. 

They discuss the challenges business owners face when hiring and managing people, the importance of shifting from a task-driven to a people-centered mindset, and how to build a thriving team. Shaina shares her journey from sports medicine to leadership coaching, emphasizing how proper mentorship and leadership development can transform businesses. 

The episode also covers key leadership strategies, such as 

1. Conduct One-on-One Meetings Regularly
   • One-on-one meetings should be employee-led, providing them with the space to share their concerns, goals, and ideas. Clearly communicate the purpose of these meetings to avoid fear and uncertainty.
2. Delegate with Autonomy, Not Just Tasks
   • Instead of micromanaging, focus on setting clear expectations and outcomes while allowing employees to determine how to achieve them. Encourage problem-solving and ownership of responsibilities to foster leadership growth.
3. Give Feedback Using the SBI Model Instead of the Sandwich Approach
   • The Situation, Behavior, Impact method ensures direct and constructive feedback that is clear, actionable, and tied to the employee’s personal or professional growth. Avoid "feedback sandwiches" that dilute the message and create distrust.

Meet Our Guest: 

Shaina Lane is a Leadership Coach and founder of Premier Professional Coaching.  She is also the author of “Leadership is Easy, said no one ever” 

She coaches leaders to be someone everyone wants to work with, help you achieve productivity and profitability, and improve employee engagement and retention.  You can learn more about Shaina and her work

https://www.premierprocoach.com/

Buy her book - A must read for all small business owners 

Meet Your Host: 

Jennifer Kok has been a business owner for over 25 years and now is a business coach.

She turned her first business into a franchise and successfully sold it 20 years later.  She was passionate about building a business and a family at the same time.

Today she works with creative business owners who are tired of not getting paid enough for their hard work.  She walks them through the 3-step process she developed to allow them to Create More…Earn More…Stress Less.

Get your free guide to grow your business

https://nextwavebusinesscoaching.com/3-steps-to-be-instantly-referable/

Connect with Jen:  https://nextwavebusinesscoaching.com/

Transcript

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Jennifer Kok: Shaina. Welcome to the show today. I'm so excited to have you.

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Shaina Lane: Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

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Jennifer Kok: So, Shaina, you are a leadership development coach, and you usually work with people in corporate America. But I was really, really wanted to have you on the show, because I know firsthand from owning my own business and just out there talking with small business owners, most of us well, probably all of us, but I'll say most of us did not go into business to manage people.

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Shaina Lane: Yep.

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Jennifer Kok: We started a business because we had a passion for something, a product, a service. And we really don't even think about the people aspect until we get a few years down the road, and then everyone's telling us we got to learn to delegate, and we need to hire a team because we know we can't build a business without a team.

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Jennifer Kok: And I love your approach. And I really wanted to bring you on today to just help us kind of understand

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Jennifer Kok: what it is that as we're growing a small business as we start to hire people and even promote them to manager positions, some of those tools that we we need to know, and I know you have a lot of tools in your toolbox. But before we dive in, give us a little brief kind of how did you end up becoming a leadership coach.

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Shaina Lane: Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. So I started my career in sports medicine. And I rose through the ranks of leadership until I was in a position to have my role eliminated, and you know they they say you never really arrive as a leader until you've had a position eliminated.

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Shaina Lane: I had to kind of rethink what I wanted to be when I grew up again. And so

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Shaina Lane: it was. Everything that I loved about like leadership and management roles kind of lived under that Hr umbrella. I wanted to shift my career from doing management and leadership to developing managers and leaders. Because I know what a difference it can make when you have somebody who invests in you as a leader. So I shifted my career into Hr.

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Shaina Lane: And then eventually got into leadership, coaching through a couple of courses that I took. I was like, Hey, wait a minute. This is different. This is a different direction. And I kind of like this. So that's how I got into leadership coaching. And then, of course, I took so many career pivots along the way I went and got a career coaching credential just to kind of formally say, I could support you in your career. I can help you get you to where you want to go navigate some of those ups and downs. I've been there done it. And now I'm official with my credentials.

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Jennifer Kok: You are certified and have a very impressive list of credentials, and I think you really hit something on the head there. When you said, develop leaders. You know, my background is in corporate America. A lot of my friends are in corporate America, and I feel like the typical linear path is, people get promoted.

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Jennifer Kok: They start managing people, and then I don't know. 6 months down the road all of a sudden it's like, Oh, do you need help. Do you need some? You know some tactics or some strategies, you know. How's that going managing all those people? Really, you know. Why is that? Why is that like a skill that is not taught before you get promoted.

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Shaina Lane: Yeah, it's interesting, you know. I equate it to learning a new sport. Right? Let's say you grow up playing basketball, and you're really good basketball player, and then somebody has you a golf club and says, Hey, go play golf

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Shaina Lane: completely different. Right?

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Jennifer Kok: Right.

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Shaina Lane: And so a lot of times we go through either college or we get our training. And we get into a career where we're a subject matter, expert in something, whether you're a nurse, whether you're a software developer, whether you're in sales

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Shaina Lane: and you get promoted because you're really good at those skills. And you're promoted because those competencies you manage work well. So they say, Hey, let's just keep

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Shaina Lane: jumping you up the hierarchy here, and then you get into leadership, and nobody's taught you how to lead. It's a completely different skill. Set that for some reason nobody talks about before you get into leadership right. And I think a lot of times it's because those leaders just have their head underwater just trying to survive to get to the surface. And so they're not thinking about

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Shaina Lane: developing that next level of leader. And so that's what my goal is is to number one. Start the conversation early, start it now, if you're thinking that you might want to be a leader, let's start talking about leadership competencies. So that's an easy transition for you when it's time for you to make that jump you're prepared.

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Jennifer Kok: Oh, wouldn't that be a nice world we live in? And I think you're right, especially, you know, when I'm thinking about entrepreneurs we are. We have a huge list of tasks, and when our tasks start to overflow and take over our lives, and we can't, you know, get things done. We start to hire. And what do we do? We hire? And then we

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Jennifer Kok: give the tasks to our people, and you mention it in your book, which I loved your book, by the way, and I do want to talk about that in a little bit here, about how do we start to move from task driven to people centered, and that is.

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Jennifer Kok: I think, the piece that can really be missing. So you must have gotten into leadership. Coach. You saw this need was there like a really bad experience you had with somebody who maybe managed you, that the light bulb went off for you, and you thought you know what I need to really help people learn how to be better managers.

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Shaina Lane: Yeah. And Jennifer, you know. And it's really funny that you say that coming right off the heels of talking about being task focused versus leadership focused because that really was the pivotal point for me. When I was working in an organization I had for a few years worked on a really really strong leader. She was like the epitome of leadership. She she invested and she developed her senior leadership team. And it that was the 1st time that somebody ever told me.

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Shaina Lane: Actually, I was several years into my leadership career. That was the 1st time anybody ever told me that leadership is different. You're Shana, you're not leading. You're managing your your producer mindset. Right?

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Shaina Lane: She invested. She showed me what leadership was.

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Shaina Lane: and then she left the organization and my department got rolled up under another department, and the leader there was exactly the opposite. And the funny thing was those 2 worked together in a different organization. Both came to this one running different departments, and they were polar opposites.

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Shaina Lane: And so the leader that I was working with under was very task driven, wanted to keep control of everything, and I had been functioning quite independently in my role for 3 years, was capable, and she was slowly pulling it away from me, pulling my autonomy and my responsibility away from me. I can only guess as to why, but when I've seen people do that in the past, it's because they want to own and control. Well, she became a stopgap in the organization.

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Shaina Lane: Things would get to her, and they would die because she was so so busy she couldn't keep up. It was completely ineffective, but it got to the point where she decided she was going to eliminate my role, and luckily the chairman of the department. The physician that I was working with at the time said, you know what Shane has been here for 10 years. She's had 2 promotions. Every job she's worked in has run better than it did before. We'll have a job for her as long as she needs it.

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Shaina Lane: So ultimately they didn't put me out on the streets.

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Shaina Lane: but this leader was slowly pulling all of my responsibility and autonomy away, and it wasn't a fun spot to be in. And so again I was in that point where I was like, I have to think about. What do I want to be when I grow up, and it just really hit me that

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Shaina Lane: the difference it made in my career, and how I showed up for my team, and what we could accomplish when I had really strong leadership. And I said, You know what

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Shaina Lane: there's a better way to do this. We need more of those good leaders in the world. And so that's why I set out on the journey that I set out on is to help people understand how to do it right.

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Jennifer Kok: Wow! Thankfully that chairman stepped in. Or like you said one person could have been so pivotal in the change of your career and the detriment to your career, and when you were saying that it made me think of small business owners, you know, we struggle with letting go. We struggle with

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Jennifer Kok: delegating and the control because it's like our baby, it becomes emotional, and sometimes we lose the objective view of everything. And you know what happens. A lot of times is a small business. Owners become the bottleneck. You said the stopgap, but I call it the bottleneck and small business. You know we hire people.

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Jennifer Kok: and then we don't give them the autonomy, or this

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Jennifer Kok: the support and things that they need to produce, what we want them to do. So then we just become the bottleneck. We're just managing one more task, really, instead of a person. So let's dive into some kind of practical things that small business owners can do. Let's start with like your traditional brick and mortar. So these would be boutiques or coffee shops or restaurants, and a lot of these

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Jennifer Kok: employees are minimum wage. A lot of them are college students, and

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Jennifer Kok: you know, I find. And I made this mistake. You know I owned a bakery

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Jennifer Kok: and a lot of my staff were this market college students, high school students. They were there for a short stint of time, maybe a couple years. If I was lucky, and I made the mistake as a leader of not really bringing them into the big picture of what I was doing, because in my mind I thought, well, they're just here for their Starbucks money. They're just here for a little gas money, and that was a mistake, and I learned that because

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Jennifer Kok: there tend to be this lack of enthusiasm for my my product and my customers, and and they wanted to do a good job. But I wasn't allowing I wasn't bringing them in, so help us kind of understand if we're if that's kind of the big pool of people that we tend to bring in, how can we get them excited about our businesses?

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Shaina Lane: Yeah. Well, I think you said it. It's really involving them. So your business is your baby. You care about that business like nobody's business right to put it. To put it short.

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Jennifer Kok: Right, exactly.

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Shaina Lane: But sometimes as a business owner, you can get a little bit tunnel visioned. And what you have to realize is that

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Shaina Lane: innovation

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Shaina Lane: solutions to problems. It's born out of heterogeneity. One person doesn't always have the right answer. So while you've got your business to where it was, you know, there's that saying like, what got you here won't get you there right. If you want to take your business to the next level, you got to do something different. You can't keep doing the same things and so helping these employees connect them to the mission. Help them like.

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Shaina Lane: let them bring in ideas. So they've got some ownership, too, because then they start to see it as their baby, and they care about it like their baby, just like you do right. And they might have. You know, if you say to them like next year, my vision is that we increase our profit. 50%, right? You're still the visionary for the business you still get to set the expectation. But if you say, let's say you've hired somebody who's

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Shaina Lane: the director of Operations, or you know you've got this group. That's business students who are just working for their Starbucks money now, but you can incorporate them into the strategy and the vision and give them. Some say

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Shaina Lane: they're going to be like they're going to stick around, and when it does come time for them to graduate and leave, they're going to tell their friends in the business school. They're going to say, Hey, you want to go work at Jennifer's bakery, because you know what I got to do. I got to sit in on strategic meetings with her. I got to. I had an idea when she wanted to increase profits. 50%. She was just tunnel vision and thinking sales sales. I actually created this operational efficiency that saved

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Shaina Lane: money right? And so they're gonna they're gonna tell their friends. And that creates a pipeline then for you as a small business owner. Right?

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Shaina Lane: But maybe they get an internship, and they still they want to stick around and stay with you part time, right?

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Shaina Lane: Maybe they come on. Maybe they're a college student that's just working in the bakery. But then, when they graduate with their business degree. They want to be a director of operations for you, you know by that time, maybe you've grown that much. You need. That person.

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Jennifer Kok: Yeah, that's a good perspective. And I feel like it's a little bit of a mindset shift for the small business owner that your role isn't just to

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Jennifer Kok: dump and delegate and pass these tasks on to your staff that you hire. It's an opportunity to mentor them to help them build skills, soft skills, hard skills that they can maybe take to their next job, you know, especially if they're going to get a degree that's completely out of baking. And you know this situation. But you know what an impact you can make. And I think sometimes we get so short sighted because we're just so busy that we forget. That's that's an opportunity for us.

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Shaina Lane: Yeah, that's what keeps most leaders stuck right? Is that busy producer mindset? I've got all these tasks and what I what I often hear that is, people are talking about retention. I can't keep people. I'm always recruiting. I have to spend all my days finding people and hiring them, and then they leave a couple months later.

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Shaina Lane: at some point you have to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and say, Why am I purging employees. What can I do differently to keep them so I can get out of? I call it the ring of fire.

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Shaina Lane: Cycle of yeah. Sure

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Shaina Lane: staffed right? How do I get out of this ring of fire and be able to do the strategic work that I want to do, and that's where you know your engagement and retention. Strategy comes in.

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Jennifer Kok: One thing you talked about in your book is the importance of one-on-one conversations. Take us through kind of

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Jennifer Kok: some good steps, like, let's say, there's somebody out there that isn't really doing that today. Take us through. How to get started. What are some? How do you lead the conversation? And what is the purpose of having those one on ones with every single employee, whether they work 5 HA week in your bakery, or they are your operations manager.

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Shaina Lane: Oh, my gosh! So many thoughts come to my head. But you know

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Shaina Lane: the the thing is start. Just start start today.

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Jennifer Kok: Okay.

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Shaina Lane: Have you?

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Jennifer Kok: Just start.

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Shaina Lane: If I if you remember anything from this, it's just start. You know, one to ones are one of the most powerful tools that leaders have at your disposal because it keeps that feedback loop going with your team. Right? What's most important to them. So ultimately, one on ones effective, one on ones are employee led.

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Shaina Lane: They drive the conversation. What is most important to them now, if you've never had a 1 on one with them, and you sit down for the 1st time and say, Hey, we're gonna have a 1 on one. They aren't gonna know what to say. You're gonna have to prep them a little bit too. Right? What is the purpose of this meeting? What do you want to get out of it.

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Shaina Lane: hey? I want you to really have time with me to tell me what's most important to you. What do you want to get out of this job here? Right? You may have that college student that you kind of think is transient. They're just gonna be here for a little bit, and they're going to move on. Maybe you find out something in that conversation that's really important to them that you can mentor them on.

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Shaina Lane: So the the one to ones are the time where we sit down. We shut off all distractions, turn off the phone and the computer. And we say, Hey, tell me, what's important, what's going well in your job here? What do you not like what keeps you here? What would make you leave right? What do you want to do with the rest of your career? Do you enjoy what you're doing here. Is there a project here that you'd like to get involved in?

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Shaina Lane: How can I support you so one to ones are really about. How do you support your employees? But you learn so much through them as well that it's it's a tool for you to be better at your job to engage and retain your employees to get out of that vicious recruiting cycle.

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Jennifer Kok: Okay.

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Shaina Lane: Strategic work that you love.

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Jennifer Kok: You know I love how you said employee led, and, boy, do I wish I had you in your book when I was managing, because I will tell you. I started doing one on ones in my bakery, and I scared the crap out of my employees because all of a sudden I said, oh, we're going to have meetings, and you know when you are

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Jennifer Kok: the leader and the owner, there's this level of Oh, gosh! Why is she pulling me into her office. What did I do wrong? What happened? Because I didn't approach it properly? I didn't explain the purpose of it properly in my mind. I thought it was all going to be Kumbaya, and positive.

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Shaina Lane: And.

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Jennifer Kok: These poor employees were walking into my office scared to death, and I remember physically seeing the release of when I said, Oh, you know. I just want to talk to you about how you like it here. And you know, do you have any ideas? And they were just like, Oh, thank God, I thought I was getting fired so obviously have some clear communication on the purpose of one on ones right.

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Shaina Lane: Yes, I always say share your intent right? Because we're judged on our actions. We judge ourselves on our intent. Other people judge you on your actions, and, like you, you brought up the topic of uncertainty which creates so much fear for people that is really a trigger for that fight or flight response in people uncertainty. So if they don't know why you're doing this all of a sudden, it seems really odd, right? No amount of like, hey? I got you a cookie couldn't fix that right, but share your intent upfront, and that eases a lot of that fear and uncertainty.

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Jennifer Kok: All right. So as we're out there managing one on ones are critical employee led. And you're going to find that you have a lot of gems. You know, I had a college student that became my social media manager, and unless you sit down and ask, you're never going to find that. Well, then, as we grow as business owners, there becomes a need to start having our own management levels. You know, an operations manager is usually pretty typical 1st start or a general manager. And this can be tricky for small business owners.

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Jennifer Kok: because we are really letting go. We're really starting to feed that autonomy. We want someone to kind of handle those things and get us out of what I say. The 4 walls you've got to get out of the 4 walls if you're going to grow a business. So what are some good steps, or what are some things that small business owners need to think about as they start to lead that mid level.

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Jennifer Kok: And you know we have to keep in mind that a lot of times small business owners might not have the large salary to attract really talented people. They have to bring other things to the party to get someone excited about working there. So what are some thoughts for that group of leaders, that group of owners.

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Shaina Lane: Yeah, well, I would tell you. Since you brought up salary, I can't tell you how many times I have the conversation with leaders about like. Well, I can't keep on keep people on my team, because the person down the streets paying more money right?

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Shaina Lane: Listen. I've coached so many people through career transition. Who said, I am taking a big pay cut. But I want a better culture. I want to like what I'm doing. I want to enjoy what I'm doing. I don't care if I make less money. When people get to that burnout point of this just isn't a good environment. It doesn't matter what you're paying them right. And we've all heard people say you couldn't pay me enough to do that job so

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Shaina Lane: like, hey, is one thing. But if you are treating them like a partner, right? If you are hiring the person who is passionate about operations, who has good ideas

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Shaina Lane: and you bring them on you. Let them do what they're good at. It's going to be hard. But, like you talked about earlier, it's a mindset shift. You have got to know. Now you're leading a business. You're leading a person, and your job is to develop that person, because as long as you're investing in them, and they're seeing that you care about getting them to where they want to go in their career, whether it's with you, whether it's with somebody else. Maybe they want to own

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Shaina Lane: their own bakery someday, and this is kind of a learning opportunity for them. Right?

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Shaina Lane: They probably stick around a lot longer. The more autonomy you give them the more good challenges the more they see themselves growing. They stick around, probably a little bit longer than maybe they jump ship if they're like, okay, I learned what I can learn from Jennifer. Now I'm out of here right? I'm gonna go do my own thing.

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Shaina Lane: So did I answer your question. I feel like, I went on, a couple of tangents there.

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Jennifer Kok: No, this is all really good stuff, because you're right culture. It comes to it. And I think we're seeing that more and more in today's world. I am hearing that

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Jennifer Kok: employees are not motivated by the money. They're motivated by the fact that they can maybe bring their dog to work one day a week, or they get, you know, a longer lunch break on Fridays just to have some personal time. There's lots of things that we can do to

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Jennifer Kok: inspire and motivate and attract the right people. And I think autonomy is probably the key word, and probably one of the hardest things that small business owners have to learn, and I always say to them, just because you are allowing that person to run with that role doesn't mean you're an ostrich and putting your head in the sand.

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Jennifer Kok: you can have checkpoints. You can have benchmarks, you can, you know, have those things so that you, as the owner, feel

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Jennifer Kok: less scared about letting go. And it's a baby step. You know it's not. You're not gonna hire somebody, and then tomorrow you're gonna be like, okay, go run with it. I'll talk to you. Yeah, you know, it's it's a baby step which I think helps the the owner and the employee kind of find their way. So one of the things oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

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Shaina Lane: I was gonna say, and it's how you delegate, too. Right? So a lot of people think delegation is just like

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Shaina Lane: I have to tell you exactly what I want you to do and how I want you to do it. And when I want it done right, but it's really setting an expectation. Here's the end result. This is what good looks like.

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Shaina Lane: And if it's still new to you, say, how would you want to get there right, ask them and have them walk through it with you, because then you can kind, of course, correct as they're going, which could be more important if you've if you've got to delegate some high risk things, but let them have some autonomy, and how they're going to do it, hey? That sounds like a great plan.

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Shaina Lane: Go ahead. Execute. I'll check in whenever right. But you set the expectation, like you said, of let's check in every week on Friday, so that you're not calling them every day, saying, How's this going? How's this going? How's this going right.

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Jennifer Kok: Or why didn't you do it my way? Why didn't you do it this way? You know, I think we also think it needs to be done the way that we do it.

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Shaina Lane: Right, and that's where people start to feel micromanaged is like.

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Shaina Lane: give me an outcome and let me get there. But you're still setting an expectation. This is the outcome that I want to see. So you're not just blindly handing it over, you know, but give them some autonomy, and how they get it done.

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Jennifer Kok: Yeah. And the open ended question seems brilliant, asking, you know, putting it back on them. Here's something that comes up a lot with my clients, and and this audience of small business owners is how to have the hard conversations. And I had to laugh in your book because I used to use the sandwich approach where

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Jennifer Kok: you've got.

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Jennifer Kok: you know, the nice fluffy bread. So you say something really nice, and then you get to the meat of it, and then you end it with something really fluffy. And you have a different approach. You call it the Sbi for situation, behavior impact.

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Shaina Lane: Yeah.

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Jennifer Kok: Take us through some quick, you know. Quick tips on. How do you handle those hard conversations when you know something just repeatedly isn't getting done, or they're things, you know. They're just not quite representing your business the way you want them to. How do you kind of approach that.

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Shaina Lane: Well, 1st of all, don't put it off right, because what you promote, and so the conversations get harder and harder the longer you put it off because the reaction from that person is going to get bigger and bigger. They're gonna say, I've been doing it like this for 6 months, and you haven't said anything. Right? That's when you get the big reaction. So Sbi is a feedback model. It's situation behavior impact. It's funny. I just taught this class yesterday on on feedback, and everybody was like.

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Shaina Lane: What's wrong with the sandwich.

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Jennifer Kok: What happened to the Sandwich, and for me, owning a bakery. I used to call it the Cookie Sandwich. But then I thought, Well, that doesn't work, because the frosting is really the sweetest part, and that's supposed to be the meat of it. So anyway.

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Shaina Lane: Yeah.

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Jennifer Kok: Sorry I'm digressing. I'm digressing here.

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Shaina Lane: I know, but it's so funny. But that's how we were taught to give feedback with that sandwich approach right. But that's been debunked over the years, because it leaves a bad taste in your mouth if you will, but people start to just expect anytime. Jennifer gives me a compliment. There's something else. There's a there's a criticism coming right behind.

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Jennifer Kok: Oh, interesting!

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Shaina Lane: They stop hearing the the positives that you say to them, because they're just waiting for that shoe to drop. All right. She just gave me a compliment where there's a criticism coming right after it, right? So that's why we've we've gotten away from the sandwich. So I like to think of it as a feedback bank account.

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Shaina Lane: Whenever you put money into a bank account you make a deposit, you don't just make a deposit to make a withdrawal. Right? You don't get anywhere that way. So if you're making deposits and you're giving positive feedback whenever you catch people doing something good, and it doesn't have to be extraordinary. Most people do work every day. That's good enough, and they want to be seen and valued for that.

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Shaina Lane: Find them doing good things, give them positive feedback whenever you see it, and then when something needs to be corrected.

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Shaina Lane: there's a number one. There's greater trust because they know you're not just looking out for the bad stuff. They know you're looking out for the good stuff, too, and it's not connected. So they receive that difficult feedback much better

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Shaina Lane: because and the other my other tip that I'll tell you on that is, when you have those one to ones, and you know what their career goals are, Jennifer, I know. Someday you want to open your own bakery. Here's something that you're doing that, I think might get in the way of that. Do you mind if I share it with you?

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Shaina Lane: Right? Because then you're tying it to what their goal is, where they want to go? So it shows that you're invested in them, you're supporting them. This is this is my intent. My intent is to help you.

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Shaina Lane: Can I share this with you most of the time they're gonna say, yeah, or Hey, you know, I've noticed something that's gonna kind of get in your way of of running a bakery. Someday. Do you mind if I share, we're gonna say, yeah, please, but again, you might react differently if you've been doing it for a year, and I've just been letting it go. And then I'm like, Hey, by the way, you know.

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Jennifer Kok: That's so brilliant, and I know we avoid it. We avoid it because it's awkward. And a lot of times these are small situations where there's only a couple people working for you, and so you don't want to set a tone or have a bad day, or bring that up. But I really like this this pivot from the sandwich to just kind of this feedback loop, because you're right. If you're just given a compliment, because then there's a Zinger coming.

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Jennifer Kok: it feels so disingenuine. And then people aren't going to

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Jennifer Kok: even listen to your compliments. So.

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Shaina Lane: And they get confused because they're like, Wait a minute. Am I doing a good job, or am I not doing a good job like, what am I, you know? And so it dilutes the message, good and bad, right.

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Jennifer Kok: Yeah, wonderful. So the work that you do you work with you know these newer managers tell us, share a story with something that just you love that warms your heart, that you were able to see a change in somebody's leadership.

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Shaina Lane: Yeah, yeah, there was a leader that I was working with last year, actually, who worked in a small business and was really struggling with her confidence as a leader, and and how she wanted to be kind of known in the business world. And so we worked a lot on her strengths, how to understand her strengths, how to leverage, how to advocate for those. And

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Shaina Lane: The biggest thing is mindset shift.

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Shaina Lane: She was still stuck in that producer mindset of like I've just got to do all of the work. And so we did some mindset work as well on.

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Shaina Lane: This is what it looks like to produce you. You get by addition.

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Shaina Lane: If you work on leadership mindset, you get by multiplication because you're getting work done through your team and one of her biggest challenges was, I have these strategic projects. I just can't get to them, because I've got all of this day to day. There's interruptions. There's distractions. So through our work together, she was actually able to hire 2 new team members, and she started that delegation process and was able to create and carve out time for those strategic projects.

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Shaina Lane: What else did she do? She crafted a couple of big proposals that she would have never taken the driver's seat on in that organization won those proposals. So her decision making got stronger. She felt better. She was less stressed, was able to go out and coach a kid's soccer team because she had the time and the capacity. And again it was all mindset work, because as a leader or as a leadership coach.

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Shaina Lane: I can give you all the tools. I've got tons of tools right, I can tell you, and give you all the advice.

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Shaina Lane: But until you shift your mindset to want to operate from that leadership mindset.

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Shaina Lane: You're going to stay stuck.

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Jennifer Kok: And boy. You hit it on the head when you said she was able. You know the multiplication because you have more people doing things for you, and that's what small business owners need. You know, we didn't start a business

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Jennifer Kok: to manage people to lead people. That's usually we don't even think about it. But we also didn't start a business for the business to own us. And that's typically what I see. We we lose our freedom and flexibility that we craved because we're doing all the things ourselves, or we're just hiring, dumping, you know, instead of actually delegating and focusing on the tasks instead of focusing on the people. So I love what you shared today. I am so thankful for this, and I love your book.

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Jennifer Kok: Your ship is easy.

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Jennifer Kok: said no one ever. And what I really enjoyed about your book was the fact that it's very inspiring, practical. But every chapter you give us a place to reflect on us as leaders, and then also what you call kind of habit trackers. You know. These are habits like you, said mindset habit shifts habit ideas, you know, how do we start incorporating these things? And

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Jennifer Kok: you know, I the encouragement is, you just got to start. You got to start somewhere because you have to think about the end goal here. And if you can attract and develop

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Jennifer Kok: a bunch of leaders in your organization, in your business, in your organization, even if some of them are college students that only work 5 HA week that is going to free you up to get outside of your 4 walls and actually grow your business. Go have the conversations that you need to grow your business. So thank you, Shana, today for everything. I am going to put a link

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Jennifer Kok: to her book. I highly recommend every person listening to go buy this book, because it is a great read and a very practical tool that you could keep close to your desk to pull out, for when you have to have those hard conversations, and that's another free resource. You gave us a template on how to have those conversations. So I'll include that in the show notes, too. So thank you so much.

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Shaina Lane: You're very welcome. Thank you for the shout out, this is so much fun. I really appreciate it.

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Jennifer Kok: Well, I love what you do. And so what does the next year look like for you and your leadership coaching.

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Shaina Lane: So exciting, so exciting. I've got a couple of big things coming up. Number one is, I launched my leadership at lunch series because I know how busy leaders are. And so the point of this series is 4 sessions, 50 min

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Shaina Lane: lunchtime. Let's get in. Let's talk about some practical tools that you can use. There's 1 course series that's mindset over management, right? Because it's a mindset.

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Shaina Lane: I'll give you all the tools, but you've got to shift the mindset, too. So leadership at lunch has picked up. And that's been really, really fun. And the other thing that I'm doing is I'm getting into keynote, speaking on leadership to help inspire more leaders to shift into that leadership approach. And I will give you your little a little teaser here for your fans.

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Shaina Lane: I'm going to tie in my sports medicine background. And the working title, so far is leadership is a people sport, and it's Game Day baby. So I love it. If you like sports and you like leadership, or you want to like leadership, you're still struggling with the stress of it now. But you want to like leadership that's coming up, too. So super excited about that.

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Jennifer Kok: Oh, I love that. I love that title because you're right. It's Game Day. Let's start today. So thanks

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Jennifer Kok: again, and I will be sure to put a link to your website, too. So everyone can follow along and keep up with all these great programs that you're offering.

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Shaina Lane: Excellent. Thank you, Jennifer, so much.