Boss-Level Bounce Back: Leadership Tactics You Need To Know

In 'Boss-Level Bounce Back: Resilient Leadership Tactics You Need To Know', you'll unlock the resilience essential for exceptional leadership. This episode unveils how successful leaders overcome setbacks and turn challenges into opportunities for growth. With insights into navigating both personal and professional hurdles, you'll learn the secrets to not just surviving but thriving in the face of adversity. Discover the strategies that enable top leaders to emerge stronger from trials, ready to tackle any obstacle with confidence. Immerse yourself in the art of resilient leadership and transform your approach to challenges into a pathway for success.

Transcript

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Welcome to today's episode, boss level bounce back, leadership tactics you need to know. In a world of leadership, resilience isn't just about standing strong in the face of adversity. It's actually about making a comeback that sets you apart as a true leader. Today, we're gonna dive a little bit deep into what it means to not only survive change, but to thrive because of them. If you're ready to elevate your leadership resilience to boss level, you've come to the right place. Let's get started and unlock the secrets to becoming a leader who not only bounces back, but bounces forward. Resilience is about rising again and again. As a leader, you're going to get slammed again and again. Ultimately, you carry the results of your team. You also get the agile. So that means that you get the kicks too. So you get the good and you get the bad. That's the joy of leadership. Some days you're really not gonna wanna face the world, and there will be other days when you ask yourself, why do I put up with this stuff? These are the days that you learn whether you're a leader or not. These are the days when it really matters what you think deep down inside. And as a true leader, you have to really decide what matters to you. Do you want to be the leader? Do you want to be the person in charge? Are you prepared to take the responsibility on and live with the kicks and the accolades? Because there's gonna be more kicks than accolades when you're a leader. That's just a fact of life. There's always someone who's unhappy with you, but you can always do your best to improve that as you go along. To stay a leader, you really need to work on your mind. It's a case of mind over matter. That old saying about being a duck, water off a duck's back, is really important. You've got to remember people are just gonna say things without thinking, and sometimes they sting. So you've just got to let them flow and understand that's their point of view at this point of time. The best thing you can do, obviously, is ask a question to find out why they feel that way, and it can often be something you can quickly deal with. All challenges will pass. Nothing lasts forever. It doesn't matter whether today it feels like it's the end of the world. Tomorrow, you wake up and it's another day. Stay mission orientated and focus on building your team. This is important. When your mind gets blocked up a bit, go back to your mission. Think about what is it I'm trying to achieve? What is it we are trying to do? Look at other leaders who you respect when you're going through tough times. Look at them. Look at how they deal with situations. Learn from them. Talk to them. Spend time with mentors and people who lift you up because they will give you the information you need to keep moving forward. They'll also say things like, yep. Don't worry about that one, or, yes. You probably need to look at that. They can see what you're going through from a different point of view. And often, because of their experience, they've been through it before and can help you. I recommend that you keep a list of things to do, because when your mind gets clogged up, having a list really makes a difference because you can refer to it. And it doesn't matter if it's only a short list. It just has to have the next couple of things you need to do on it and maybe a few things you need to think of in the future. So, for example, on a fire, one of the first things we actually need to start thinking about is how we're going to feed our people and what cruise we've got coming in to swap over. And often this is the last thing on people's minds. And I probably annoy people who are above me because I'm constantly asking, so where are we sleeping tonight? Where's our food coming from? And what time will it be here? But the thing is, I'm thinking of the people on the ground, the people that are working below me, and I know they need to be fed. Now I'm fine. I'll eat a protein bar or something, but they need food. They need somewhere to stay. And leaving it till late in the afternoon is far too late, especially if you're trying to organize replacement crews. So as a leader, you need to keep lists because it allows you to get ahead of the curve even if it is annoying for some people sometimes. Remember to investigate things before you jump to conclusions. As I said before, ask questions of people. You can automatically assume they're thinking one way when in fact it could be entirely different. It could be they've seen something you haven't seen before, and that has left a mark on their psyche. So they'll bring it up each time because they're worried that it might happen again. This helps you become a better leader by asking the questions. Make sure you investigate. You need to build systems and teams. As a leader controlling your mindset, one of the things you can do is structure. As I said, make a list, but structuring teams, structuring systems allows things to flow better. So this will help your mindset stay more free because you follow a system. That means you can automatically fall back into the system whenever things get hard. And remember, resilient leaders have resilient people next to them. You wanna surround yourself with people you can count on. That is, they're resilient too. People you can't count on don't make good partners when you're trying to achieve things. So look for other resilient people. As a leader, you need emotional fortitude, so you need to strengthen your inner leader. You need to read. You need to listen to things. You need to learn. It's an ongoing up, I suppose, upscaling curve that you're on. You need to make sure you do that. Personally, one of the things I like to do is listen to fearless motivation on Spotify, which is just some positive music and songs, and that just helps me through the day and especially useful if I'm at the gym. I also like to listen to audio books. The one that put me on my path to leadership and to success in business was See You at the Top by Zig Ziglar. And I always recommend that to people because it's not a hard listen, and it's a bit of fun and he's a really great speaker, but it did allow me to get my mindset right. Exercise also allows you to shake off the demons. Picture the problems you're going through and let them be the drops of sweat pouring off your body as you exercise. Get some sleep and learn to turn off the voices when you're trying to sleep when you're worried. The little voices in your head really keep you awake, so you have to learn ways to turn them off. And that might be putting some headphones on with some surf sounds or some wind sounds, maybe using the car map. Make notes of things that bother you and make sure that you review them. Don't just let them sit in your consciousness and annoy you. Talk to someone about them. Ask questions of people above you to get a better understanding of those things, so that you can learn how to deal with them yourself personally. You're not a knower of all things, but just because someone else sounds confident, that doesn't mean they know anything either. Learn to triangulate your facts and your information. Some people have what I call a lot of face. In other words, they'll come up and they'll say something, and they deliver it in such a way that it sounds like it is a fact or it's something that's going to happen. But I've learned that a lot of those people actually don't know what's going on. They've heard a bit of this and they've heard a bit of that, and they're making up a fact. And then when you go and ask someone the right question, you find out actually, no, that's not what's happening. So just be aware of that. Know who you will get right information from. I know on a fire, I'm always looking for people who can be ground truthers, and those are people who really know fire and they know the ground and they can go out and look at the fire and tell me, look, the fire is coming this way. The flames are actually only a meter high. They're not 5 or 10 meters high. And they're gonna open up into an open paddock, so it's gonna move through the grass quickly, but they understand the fire. So ground truthing is really important from a fire perspective, but it's also really important from a business perspective. Know your people. Know who it is you can trust to actually give you honest feedback on something or give you feedback on something you want to report on. The backbone of resilience is finding strength in networks. You need to build your network around you. No one survives on their own. Leaders need to be with other leaders, but also leaders in other fields. You need to surround yourself with different viewpoints. But if you always hang out with the leaders that you're always around, you're never exposed to new points of view, new ways of thinking about things. Family is important, really. If you have one, treasure it as they are there to fall back on. It's very hard being on your own. Leaders have great families around them. Sometimes those families aren't relatives, but they are families. So how your family is built doesn't matter, but learn to look to your family. From my perspective, knowing other first officers means that I can call them if I need feedback or help. And that's really handy because, again, they've got different perspectives on running brigades, running fires, their experience, all those sorts of things that I can then tap into. Leading people is a people game. How do you expect to lead if you don't have good people around you? You can't leave bad people. You need good people. So you need to filter through your people and find out who it is that you can rely on. That will help you build your strong network around you. Remember to build networks below you as well, not just on the same level as you. Connect your team with each other and people like them so that they have help when they need help as well. Build your team together. And always remember, no one is an island. We don't exist on our own. We always have people around us. All we need to do is ask for help. Leaders fall forwards. We transform obstacles into opportunities, and you will encounter obstacles and nightmares along the way. Way. Don't spend time overthinking what might happen. Just learn from these obstacles, and sometimes I learn the hard way over and over again. Problems lead to solutions, and these solutions can often launch you in a new direction or towards a much better position than you were in before they happened. Not having maps was a pain in my neck on the fire ground. I like to know where I am so that I'm safe. Constantly turning up to fires and not being given maps led me to buy the software called Firemapper. So at least my crew knew where they were. Over time, people started relying on my maps, which has now led to us having Firemapper on a tablet in every truck in our brigade, and every officer has Firemapper on their phone as well. And that constantly leads to us being able to show people where we're up to, what we're doing graphically on a map. It is a solution that came out of a problem that has now led to us falling forward into a better era on the fireground because we have better mapping. The great thing is now other brigades are starting to do the same. As a leader, sometimes you just have to make the jump and lead the way when no one else will. Sometimes forgiveness is better than failure. Learn from every issue, build systems, and train to do better next time. Who knows? It could lead into a whole new business or lifestyle for you. So now you see the leadership is truly tested in adversity. If you want to become boss level, it's these tough days that define us, pushing us to decide if we're really truly cut out to be leaders. You need to embrace resilience, shape your mindset, prepare for challenges, lean on your support networks, and find opportunities in every setback. These are the keys to being a leader with boss level bounce back. Remember, to lead is to navigate through storms with the confidence to come out stronger. Let this be the lesson that you carry with you. Resilience is not just about bouncing back, but bouncing forward, ready for what comes next. Thank you for listening to Leaders in the Line of Fire. If this episode inspired you, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share it with your fellow leaders. Until next time, keep rising no matter how many times the world tries to knock you down. And as always, run towards the flames.