Sherpa Leadership Podcast
Welcome to the Sherpa Leadership Podcast, where we help you climb higher in life and leadership. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, business owner, or leading a team, this podcast is designed to give you practical leadership tools, frameworks, and real-world insights to help you grow.
Sherpa Leadership Podcast
Episode 1 - The Leadership Ladder: Mastering Individual Performance
Leadership isn't what most people think. Many aspiring leaders believe reaching a management position means escaping hard work, but the opposite is true - leadership demands more responsibility and a completely different skill set than individual contribution.
In this foundational episode of the Sherpa Leadership Podcast, Reed and Chase explore the crucial relationship between individual performance and organizational leadership. We uncover the two dangerous "ditches" leaders fall into: becoming the bottleneck by never effectively delegating, or seeking leadership positions without mastering personal excellence first.
McKinsey research reveals leaders who focus on their own performance create cultures that generate 4.2 times better results than those who don't. This isn't surprising when we consider how demonstration drives culture more powerfully than words alone. We challenge the limiting belief that "nobody cares about your business as much as you do" and explore how effective leadership transforms this mindset.
As you climb higher on your leadership journey, your responsibilities shift from tactical execution to strategic vision. This requires developing new habits - reflection time, continuous learning, networking with experienced leaders, and imposing productive structure on newfound freedom. Perhaps most importantly, leadership growth demands abandoning fixed mindset statements that transform skill deficits into rigid identities.
Whether you're an established leader or just beginning your journey, this episode provides the fundamental mindset shifts needed to climb higher in your leadership effectiveness. The path upward is challenging, but with the right approach to personal excellence, you'll create the foundation for lasting organizational impact.
Join us next episode when we interview Mike Monroe, who will share a six-step process for effective delegation to help you grow in your leadership journey.
Usually, the people you lead are not exactly like you, right, right. So even the way that you did it successfully, which still works for you, might not be the exact way that they need someone to guide them. So it'll work for them.
Speaker 1:You'll hear this just broad statement well, nobody cares as much about your business as you do. That's actually not been my experience. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Sherpa Leadership Podcast. This is episode one, and we are here to help you climb higher in life and leadership. We're going to be deep diving into individual performance and results, which is a foundational element of helping you grow into being a better organizational leader. And, as always, I'm here with my co-host, chase Williams. What's up, everybody Glad to be here? Yes, all right. So individual performance and results. Why are we?
Speaker 2:starting here. Well, I think, Reid, we would both agree that you know individual performance and results is kind of the cornerstone, or the foundation, if you will, of good leadership or great leadership, Right? And what we're really talking about is kind of this idea of self-mastery or finding some level of success as an individual performer before you pursue this long, long climb and journey of leadership. Yes, Right, so what are some elements, would you say, of someone's thinking about? You know their individual performance and results. What does that actually look like practically?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think there's a couple of things.
Speaker 1:One is, if you think about this, a little bit like a highway, every highway has a ditch on either side and of course the goal is to highway has a ditch on either side and of course the goal is to not end up either in either ditch. And, as you know, in coaching leaders and in navigating this highway myself, I find that there's two different errors that you can have as a leader. One is that you have a level, a high level of success. So maybe you're a founder, you're a CEO, right, and you got where you're going by being a problem solver, by just getting stuff done, and now you are the bottleneck in your organization. And so you've made peace with individual performance and results right, it is deep in your core, but now it's limiting your capacity when it comes to you being a leader, right. And I think in the other ditch there's somebody who is an aspiring leader. They love the idea of leadership. You know, patrick Lencioni kind of makes the assertion that everybody that starts a leadership journey does it with the wrong motives.
Speaker 2:Okay, tell me more.
Speaker 1:Well, there's this idea of you know sometimes that, like a leadership is this position and it's this thing, and you know, and this is the people you know, somebody that people look up to, and all of these different things. Fundamentally, it's a service and it's a responsibility. True, and the idea for somebody who is maybe a really good performer is that leadership is a path out of having to do that type of work. It's a path out of individual results and performance, and they're in for a really rude awakening right when they find out that it's actually much, much harder.
Speaker 2:So if we have these two ditches right, this like this founder type that's an incredibly hard worker and has been working hard and getting results for a really long time but might have a challenge in starting to succeed through others or delegate certain things. The other ditch, as you mentioned, is this person who has this, um, this fantasy of what leadership is and that it's somehow going to be easier than just doing the work. But we want to stay on the road. How does someone do that? What are some of the practical things we want to think about, or help the help our listeners think about in terms of individual performance and results?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if you're the, if you're the person who has mastered individual performance and results, then you've you've had to make peace with this period of time in your life where you were in that that crucible of mastering those particular skills, and those skills set this foundation, but now you're going to have to wrestle with this idea that I actually have to build a whole new skillset and I have to get results out of a whole new skillset, right? So what are the kind of things? You know, I'll pitch it back to you what are the kind of things that somebody in a leadership position has to perform at Like, what does that look?
Speaker 2:like I love that question, reid Like, if you think about the idea that someone who's a really hard worker and has been doing it for a long time, they're good at showing up, they're good at doing the things necessary to succeed. Sometimes they're not great about even creating cadence with the people that now they want to succeed through. Yeah, so they just kind of expect the others that they lead to show up like them every day with their boots on to do the hard work and just get after it Right day with their boots on to do the hard work and just get after it right. Versus what? Another method of leading people well is creating that cadence with the other person, whether that's accountability or checking in to see how things are going, helping them remove roadblocks that might exist for them.
Speaker 2:Honestly, just understanding that usually the people you lead are not exactly like you, right, right. So even the way that you did it successfully, which still works for you, might not be the exact way that they need someone to guide them. So it'll work for them. Yes, and that's a new skill set for that kind of hardworking founder type that just knows how to do it Right, and a good element of that, or a skill even is learning how to communicate well what needs to be done, yeah, and then learning to to communicate well what needs to be done and then learning to guide someone through that what, based on who they are, their background, the skills they brought to the table, how far along they are on their mastery of those skills. Right, every person's a little bit different, so those leaders are really needing to develop this idea of okay, I know how to do it, but how do I communicate, teach, train, help people over the roadblocks that they experienced?
Speaker 1:so that they can get similar results to what I've gotten all these years. Yeah, and there's, there's this fundamental mindset that I see a lot of founders uh have and that is, you know, it's, it's the whole uh, like I, uh, I had to, I had to walk, uh 10 miles uphill, uphill, both ways, in the snow. Yeah, sure, Right, and so there's really there's this fundamentally ineffective mindset.
Speaker 1:And that is, I had to do it, nobody taught me. So figure it out. Yep, the problem is is this person hired you to lead them? Yeah, exactly, which is a responsibility? Which is this responsibility? And you're starting out actually from a fixed mindset position and that's not going to serve you well, because your personal leadership is I have to grow in my ability to take and transfer these skills to somebody else in an effective way to be able to help them grow and then multiply our efforts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you see this play out when you have someone who's really good at what they do and they've kind of cycled through a bunch of people that they brought into their world to try to help them do it, and sometimes they actually get resigned to this idea that, like I just can't find anyone who's willing to work, or I can't find good help, or, you know, no one seems to be able to do it as good as I can. Right, you can slip into that thinking and that truly is a ceiling or a limit on where you can go as a leader, because you're you're. You're just not developing the skills um around helping someone else succeed at the thing that you're already good at.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's a coaching conversation that that can kind of help break that up and that is asking this question is that true? And then the second question is is that a hundred percent true? If it were a hundred percent true, every single leader that was in a position like yours would not have other people that are around them that they are effectively delegating to and that are growing their companies, and it is likely that there's a multiple billion dollar company out there that is bigger than yours, right, like, unless you're, you know, like Jeff Bezos and you're listening to this. That'd be cool.
Speaker 2:It would be super cool.
Speaker 1:Then the answer is no, it's not 100% true. And so now you're going to have to wrestle with the fact that actually it's you, actually it's your leadership, or maybe your lack of growth as a leader.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's another thing that happens here and it's easy to slip into as someone who knows how to do something really well and is now teaching someone else. There's this idea and we hear it often and no one likes to hear it, but it's like micromanagement, right? It's like, instead of giving someone space to learn and space to develop, you're kind of like hovering over them in every sense of the word. Now, in certain aspects of a job that might be necessary early on, the trick is identifying when people need space to grow into on. The trick is identifying when people need space to grow into and and when, uh, they might be able to achieve a similar result as you in a slightly different way than the way you did it, right, right, and so identifying those times when you need them to do it exactly like you showed them and those times when they can start to apply their own behavioral style, their own DNA, their own background and skillset and still achieve a similar or maybe even better result yeah, and that really is the ideal, right?
Speaker 1:It's actually that your ego gets squashed and somebody else rises up and they excel past you, right? That's the goal For me. There's been more than a few times of immaturity in my leadership where I haven't actually empowered somebody and given them a step-by-step path and given them feedback, but I've actually, you know, I'm tired, I'm exhausted, I don't want this responsibility, so I just throw it on their shoulders, yeah. And then I'm surprised, like how come I just threw 500 pounds on your back and your and your legs buckled? Obviously you're not talent, right? That's not good. And then the other one is like I give it to you, but not really. Yeah, and as soon as I find you doing anything outside of the way I would do it, which actually is probably somewhat ineffective, I'm going to, I'm going to pull that back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've struggled with this along the way in terms of, like, not communicating well some of the basics and fundamentals of how to succeed at something Right, like I see this sometimes in my parenting.
Speaker 2:I just kind of expect my kids to know everything I know right, and I don't know why that is. It sounds dumb when you say it out loud, but I show up sometimes that way in leadership. Instead of understanding that, I have to go all the way back down to the fundamentals and give a lot of rationale of why we do it this way and why that's important and how these things are interconnected. Right, and it's challenging because for someone who understands something very, very, very well, to explain it in what feels like an elementary fashion can actually be hard, yeah, and yet it might be exactly what that person needs so that they're they're able to understand what the goal is and how everything's interconnected and then how they can move forward. So it's actually slowing down to speed up rather than just saying, well, hey, reed, like you're here and you should know everything I know, so let's just get to work right. That's sometimes the trap we fall into and that's just usually not as effective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, one of the one of the limiting beliefs I think that I hear from from leaders that that are just these high level individual performers is, uh, you know you'll hear this this broad statement Well, nobody cares as much about your business as you do. That's actually not been my experience. Uh, it turns out that wasn't my experience. Growing up, my dad was a caretaker and and he genuinely cared more about the things that were under his stewardship than the owners did.
Speaker 1:So I got to see that modeled and I've been in business now for years with people and I think, gosh, there are times where I'm about to make a stupid decision and they'll fight me over it because they actually care more in that moment than I do. So it certainly doesn't have to be that way. The other thing is there's this almost arrogance or egotistical look at this that, like, people don't actually care about their life, because if they're in business with you, they're fundamentally growing their life, and a lot of people do care about that as much as you do, and they see their life and their goals tied to this direction that you guys are going together. So it certainly can be true, but it's also not always true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it can be really hard to delegate responsibility or give up certain things inside of your business as a leader when you are actually are really good at them. Right, think of it this way, like if you've been doing something inside of your business for 20 years, like there's a there's a really high degree of certainty that you have a mastery around that thing. Yes, and someone else that expects you to lead them and you want to be successful comes into your business and your world and they're actually pretty good at it, but they're only about 80% as good as you are because you've been doing it for 20 years. Yeah, right, well, dan Martell says 80% done is a hundred percent awesome.
Speaker 2:Yes, but there's that tension between they might not be as good as you yet, Right. And yet how can you still give them, you know, delegation of authority, empower them to go and be successful and then guide them to one day being as good or better than you, if that's possible? That's a real friction for someone who's kind of maybe actually pretty good at the thing, yeah absolutely, you know.
Speaker 1:So when we get to our next episode spoiler alert we interview Mike Monroe and instead of this binary like I do or I don't, he has a six part process for how to effectively delegate. That is just absolutely fire from somebody who is you, mike Monroe, and instead of this binary like I do or I don't, he has a six part process for how to effectively delegate. That is just absolutely fire from somebody who is outstanding at individual results and performance.
Speaker 2:I love that so um, I want to now talk about the other ditch of the road right and that is kind of as you framed it up.
Speaker 2:It's this person that aspires to be a leader but maybe hasn't gone through enough individual performance and results themselves because they think it's going to be cool. Or there's just this aspirational piece to who they want to become ego, whatever you may call it Right. And so they're. They're trying to ascend into a leadership role before going through the crucible, before taking their licks, if you will, or having success at a thing for long enough. Tell us about that a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so. So you have that now, and I'll do like a little asterisk, and that is that there's somebody that's just flat out exhausted, right, like they've been doing something at a high level and now they, they, they're just like I'm going to be a leader because I just don't want to do this anymore. Yeah, right, so they both kind of fall into this bucket, yep. And the challenge, I think, is that when you look at what are the most important things in life, are they things or are they people? Right? My answer is it always comes back to people, sure, and I would say what is the harder thing? Is it a thing or is it a person? It's a person, it's a person.
Speaker 1:When I look in the mirror, I find myself harder to lead than anything in my life, right, and so. So when you get to that place where you're just like, hey, I want to lead people, for whatever the internal you know, like you know, makeup is, you are going from something that's easier, even if it's really hard, to something that's fundamentally harder, less mathematical, more emotional and prone to. I figured this out yesterday and I nailed it, and today I don't have any idea what just happened and what changed, right? Well, what changed is that person went to bed, they had bad pizza, and now they show up as a totally different person and I have to be able to pivot and do that as a leader. So so how do you, uh, how do you navigate this, this idea of I'm now stepping into leadership and uh, and it's. You know, my hallucination is I'm not. I don't have to be a performer anymore, I don't have to actually get results or I don't have to do the job anymore. I'm just going to lead.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to point out that this idea, uh, is as old as time, right? It's biblical even like don't point out the splinter in your brother's eye if you don't take the log out of yours, something like that, it's just easier to point it out at others than it is to fix it in your own life, right? I think that one of the practical things that you want to think about is have you developed the habits, right, and the skills of something that you're about to lead someone else in, right? Right, because that's going to be very, very valuable. And, by the way, if you haven't, people have this ability to see through that pretty quickly. They do, yeah, right. And so, when you think about the habits that you're developing, you think about the ways that you're thinking.
Speaker 2:We'll talk a lot about fixed mindset, growth mindset, as two different ways of thinking. Those are things that you want to be developing, not only before you become a leader, but ultimately forever. Yeah, and I think the other practical thing that you want to think about here and you mentioned it is, if you think that becoming a leader is going to be easier, I want you to toss that to the side. That's not real. It's just not real. It will be fundamentally harder, right?
Speaker 2:So if you're, if you're, if you're wanting to get away from doing certain things in your business that you've done for a long time, that's actually not a bad idea. But understand it's like climbing a ladder, right? If you let go of one rung, you have to have a firm grip on the next rung in order not to fall off the ladder. So it's a good analogy for leadership you might actually stop doing something in your business because you're going to delegate that to someone else, because you're going to delegate that to someone else, but understand that you're going to be grabbing on to something else that then you'll need to perform in as the leader, and more than likely, that thing is harder than the last thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, if we even just go back to the Sherpa analogy, right, the higher you climb on the mountain, the thinner the air gets, the harder it is to breathe, the fewer people can help you. Right, like, everything gets harder, everything gets gets more more limited, uh, and, by the way, everything gets better in so many ways, right, and just because it's such a cool experience, but it is, it is harder. So, um, mckinsey and company did a study and in the study, what they found was that leaders that focused on being somebody who was uh, was dedicated to their own performance and results. They created a culture that was dedicated to individual performance and results, and the study found that they were. They created 4.2 times the results compared to other leaders that did not focus on meaning, track uh and actively grow in uh and and and uh and set goals around their own results.
Speaker 2:Yeah, think about this from a household perspective, right?
Speaker 2:If I want to teach my kids that, let's say, a good habit would be reading books, right, as an example. But all they ever see me do is sitting around on the couch scrolling through my phone, right, right, like I'm not modeling for them. What is a good habit? Right? Well, the same thing in business If I'm the leader and I'm showing up in a way where I don't have something that I'm focused on, something that I'm focused on being good at, something that's delivering value to the people and the organization on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:If they don't get to see that, what are the chances that they show up and do the same things in their area of expertise or their silo in the business? However you want to think about that and become successful at it, it really becomes a culture of demonstration, right, like a do as I do, not, as I say, which is the opposite of how we tend to think about it, right, and so I think that you're right about that. It's like, okay, if we know that building a culture of performance right, a culture of results is important, then what days was the day after I handed over the reins of my company to a new person as the CEO.
Speaker 1:Because, up until that point, I knew what a productive day looked like. I knew what leading and producing side by side looked like, and I knew all the tensions and all the hardships of that and I passed the baton finally right. After many years of, of, like you know, navigating this, I woke up the next day and I had no idea what a productive day was going to look like. I woke up the next day and I'm like I don't know what to do. Right, because everything that needed to be driven through individual performance and results for me at this new level in my company was unknown to me and I hadn't prepared for it. I hadn't even. It's kind of like parenting adult kids, right, like nobody ever talked to us about that and all of a sudden you blink and you have adult kids. Like I don't know what to do. Yep, right, am I done? Parenting?
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely not, definitely not. So how do you, how did you navigate that and how would you, how would you encourage someone to navigate that if they've, they've, they've, they've, they're about ready to grab onto the next rung and leadership and they're not sure exactly what that looks like? What are some ways you can think about that to determine what it is?
Speaker 1:The first thing that I would say is uh, who are the people that have gone there before? Who's? Who's the Sherpa? Great Right, so I'm going to sit down with that person. I'm going to hire that person. Secondly, I'm actually going to rewrap my head around this idea of I have a whole new set of tasks and duties and responsibilities. I still have a job. I need to figure out what it means to win in my new job. So it's going to be fundamentally a who. It's going to be a relationship that's going to help you navigate that. But then, secondarily, I think it's going to be a mindset that I didn't just arrive. You're not dead, you didn't arrive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think another way of looking at that same thing is, if you look around and you've kind of delegated your jobs or your tasks or most of the ones you're used to, the way you can think about that is what should I be doing now that makes everyone else in the organization's job easier or better or creates more opportunity for them, and along with a great guide that'll help you start to identify the things that you actually still need to do If you're not real clear on those, think about it that way what can I be doing now at this rung of the ladder that makes it better for everyone else in this organization? That'll probably quickly lead you to some, to some things that you can be focused on, and then going back to this idea of performing well in those things again, leading the way by demonstration.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So one of the ways I think about this is almost like a theater of operations. If you're in the military right, you have. You have troops on the ground. You have maybe you have maybe planes that are. They are flying at a 10,000 foot level. You have other planes that are at like maybe 30,000 foot level that oversee the entire theater of operations, and then you have a general sitting in the Pentagon that's overseeing not just that theater of operations, but multiples.
Speaker 1:They all have to have a certain level of removal from being in the trenches, and it's not that they don't have a job, it's not that it's not hard.
Speaker 1:It's that when you have a gun in your hand and you're in the trenches, your perspective is not what it needs to be to be able to make sure that everybody's winning and nobody's dying. And this looks different A lot of times for leaders. One of the things that you'd see like a CEO get knocked around on social media for is oh, that person's always golfing or they're always this or that. The reality is that person is probably blogging an obsessive amount of hours, but a part of what they have to do is to be able to clear their brain and be able to zoom way, way, way out and it looks like a luxury, but it's something that you have to learn how to do at higher levels of leadership, because if you can't think strategically and your brain is always inside the business and tactical, then you actually are not effective yeah, going back to the ladder analogy and I hate to overuse it, but with every rung that you climb, you can actually see farther out.
Speaker 2:Right, and now it's your responsibility to see farther out. To this, not not just because you're higher and you can. If you're not looking out maybe you're looking five years and the person below you is only looking at the next year's goals but you have to be looking at industry changes or roadblocks that could potentially show up or new areas of opportunity that you would want to be thinking about five or ten years ahead. That's actually the new job. It is and, believe it or not, that's not an easy job. That's a job that carries an even heavier weight of responsibility. So if you think of it like that and you have the right guide, you can identify those key things that are now your new area of individual results and performance right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, one of the interesting things I think, uh, kind of in just in the world of leadership, is there's maybe a theory that's easy to latch onto, and that is, if you grow in your leadership uh capabilities, if you grow in your leadership skills, you can go from industry to industry to industry and be effective. And it turns out the research says that that's um, uh, it's not that it's not entirely true, but um, it's, um, it's not that it's not entirely true, but um, it's, it's highly compromised, you know. And and the reason is, is that, uh, I think there's two reasons. One is that you lack empathy for people who are actually doing the job, because you've not done it, you haven't done it right and it doesn't. It's just like a football. You know, professional football coach like you may not have been the best player, but, man, you've been hit a few times. That's right. When that kid gets hit and he's laying down for a little bit of time, you know what that felt like, like you know what it means to get your bell rung Right.
Speaker 1:And and the other thing is, is that the higher you go, the more responsibility you have to understand the nuances of the industry, the competitive marketplace and all of these things that are really really hard to know if you actually haven't spent any time mastering that industry. It's also easy to get fleeced. It's easy to not be able to know what performance metrics people need to be able to hit and what their capacity should be inside of that business. So there can be this idea of like I want to get to a place of leadership and then I can go do whatever because I'm bored with this vertical. I'm sure it doesn't mean it can't transfer, it absolutely can. But, um, I would say one of the biggest things for growing up in leadership and and in whatever vertical you're in, is this level of maturity. That's, making peace with boredom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's very true. I experienced this um in in part of my leadership journey in my career. I actually was in leadership in a fortune 100 company big tobacco actually and I was in leadership of some different sales teams. And ultimately, when I transitioned into real estate many years ago now, um I, I noticed very quickly there was some key differences in leading people in these two industries. Right, you go from corporate America where you know everyone's W-2 salary sort of you know folks that work for you, meaning that you pay them to do a job. Sure, right Now, all of a sudden you're in real estate where everyone's an independent contractor and actually in a lot of ways they pay you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it was very different, and the way that you had to go about leading independent contractors versus W-2 employees a lot of similarities. By the way that you had to go about leading independent contractors versus W2 employees a lot of similarities. By the way, good leadership is good leadership. Yeah, but there were some key differences and I think that's similar to what you said, which is like there's this idea that if you have a level of expertise, level of mastery, level of depth of understanding in your industry, you can be more strategic. You can understand what the decisions that you make or others that you lead make, are going to impact in other areas of the business. You can see a little farther because you understand the dynamics, some of the dynamics of the industry, um. So I think that's that's important for people to to understand and be aware of, in terms of um, the value that that brings in their leadership journey.
Speaker 1:I love it. So if you were going to give somebody like two or three things that like, hey, whatever's next in your leadership journey, these are some things that might be areas that you have to grow in, like, if you want to continue down this road of being able to get individual results, what would you say? What are the things that somebody maybe needs to make peace with?
Speaker 2:I think some of the things actually are things that maybe are behind the scenes, so to speak, or actually maybe don't even show up exactly during the workday. These are like the personal habits that you build even outside of work. To go to the next level of leadership, right, I want you to think of things like time to reflect. You mentioned that sometimes you get to a certain level of success in the business just by putting your boots on every day and getting after it. Right, and that's a good thing, that's that's that's required as well. But you haven't built habit around setting time aside for thinking ahead, planning farther into the future than maybe you've had to in the past. That would be an example, even just self-reflection, of some of the lessons that you're learning as you go along in your leadership, or reflecting around the people that you're serving and what their needs may be. Right, this could look like journaling, something like that, creating space in your life, in your world, to develop these good habits. Another one is learning itself, right. What is it that you're reading? What is it that you're listening to? What is it that you're consuming? That's helping you understand your new area of responsibility when you have mass mastery at the next rung down, right, but now you're kind of a newbie on this rung. You have a lot to learn now. You got to go back to school, absolutely Right, and you mentioned earlier, I think, one of the ways of thinking is that others have gone before you.
Speaker 2:So one of the things you see really great leaders do that continue to ascend in their level of leadership is they continue to look for people that are ahead of them on the journey right, willing to share some of their experience, and they just are really good networkers in terms of, hey, I'm not the only person that's had to ascend to this next level in an organization, in an industry, et cetera. So you'll watch these people and they spend more time having good conversations with other people that they can get value from and, of course, delivering value back the other way. Yeah, that's a habit that truly is a habit, absolutely.
Speaker 1:It also makes me think. I just kind of listened to you talk. It makes me think about the ability and willingness to self-imposed in self-imposed structure, right, because at some levels that somebody else tells you here's what you will do and here's how you will do it and here's when you will be at work, and now all of a sudden you might have enough freedom that you can become very ineffective, and so somebody who's going to grow in leadership is going to be able to lead themselves and actually be their own boss at a very high level, because if not, that freedom can kind of like erode itself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always say freedom and flexibility are a double-edged sword. Yes, we all want it, but sometimes when we get it, we're not very effective with it. Yeah, right, you see this happen in real estate. We're both in real estate as part of one of our businesses, and you see, people get into real estate because they want freedom and flexibility, right, yeah, they've been in in maybe the W2 world and they've had a job and a boss for a lot of years and they're like, oh my gosh, I just want more freedom and flexibility, which in and of itself is not a bad thing, right. And then all of a sudden, they can't get out of bed before 10 o'clock, right. Or they, they have this schedule that's all over the place and they lose effectiveness at doing the things necessary to succeed. Yes, right, and it's because no one's making them or telling them. Yeah, it doesn't mean that they can't get there, it means that they were so used to that Now they have freedom and flexibility and they've not learned how to self-regulate. Right.
Speaker 1:And or they've not brought people into their world that can help them learn how to do that in a new space in their life. Yes, right, absolutely, uh, kind of. The last thing that I'm thinking about around this is um, is really what maybe you can't afford anymore as a mindset, and it comes, it comes down in my mind to issues of identity. All right, if I just say I'm not a goal oriented person, I'm not a blank, I'm not a blank. Um, okay, but you just turned a lack of skillset into an identity which makes it more concrete, harder to break down and and much more risky to to your future. Yeah, right, so if you're a leader and you hear yourself saying, uh, saying things like like, I'm not this way and I'm not this way and I'm not this way, there's an element of that that may be tiptoes around this, uh, this idea of self-awareness. But, man, it becomes identity really quick and if you start identifying with things that are not effective, you will ultimately become ineffective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we see this a lot with small business owners. Right, they're that, someone who's like a founder type who founded a small business. They're really effective, maybe at sales or acquiring customers and taking great care of them, and then ultimately they bring other people into their world, should they choose to lead through being successful in sales, and again they start climbing the ladder of leadership. But they'll say things like this I'm not really a numbers person, so I don't look at my P and L or right Like. Like that's just confusing to me and and ultimately that's going to be problematic for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 2:One is, if you're not a numbers person and you don't manage the financials in your business, you're going to have real problems, that that, that you don't want Right, right, and so, even if you're not comfortable with those skills, you can learn them. You can read a book about them, you can hire a coach to guide you through them. You can do both Right so you can become that person. That's a growth mindset. The other way it becomes problematic is if you're saying or thinking I'm not a numbers person and now you're leading salespeople in your organization that say I'm not really a salesperson or they have that fixed mindset I don't like tracking my sales stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. I don't really do follow up, right, then then that's going to be a problem on both sides for you, right. And again, if you want to demonstrate this idea of individual performance and results and change your mindset around it, you you'll be surprised at how it helps you get someone else, or help someone else, out of maybe their fixed mindset, cause we're all subject to it, we all slip into it on occasion. Absolutely, that awareness and then those skills of moving out of that quicker and quicker and quicker, is a real tool in terms of the leadership journey.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I just love this and I think that this idea of really wrapping your head around being somebody who can get individual performance and results, not get stuck there and not have the wrong mindset around what leadership is is a great foundation for us to launch into all of these other elements of what we think it looks like to be a great organizational leader.
Speaker 2:Couldn't agree more. It truly is the foundation of your leadership journey. Love it.
Speaker 1:All right guys. Thanks for joining us for episode one. We have a fantastic episode two with our good friend, mike Monroe, who's a high-level leader, does an incredible job, producing individual results and performance, and he's going to go over the six different steps of delegation, along with incredible stories and a lot of different stuff that's going to help you in your leadership journey.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to the Sherpa Leadership Podcast. If today's episode inspired you, please, please, please subscribe, leave a review, share it with another leader that you know. There's additional tools and resources available at sherpaconsultinggroupcom. Remember, leadership is a journey and every step you take matters. Keep climbing. We'll see you next time.