Calm in the Chaos: The Reality of Leadership

In this episode I talk about what it means to be the calm voice in the room. How you speak, how you carry yourself, and how you guide others when they’re looking to you for reassurance. I share honest thoughts on leading a team through challenging moments and why your energy as a leader sets the tone for everyone around you.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Aligned and Unfiltered. This is the podcast where we speak honestly about what it really takes to build a life and a business that aligns with a future version of you, the one that you keep saying that you're going to be. Expect self-help hacks and tools to be able to help you bridge the gap from where you are now to where you want to be. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back to Aligned and Unfiltered. I am so glad to have you here. Whether or not you are watching or you are listening, I am just so grateful to have you here. I will be really, really honest. I tried to record this last week and I just couldn't. I really really couldn't. I was so impacted by my surroundings and what was going on around me that I just physically did not have the mental capacity to do it. And I'm not really somebody who gets affected as much about what is going on around them. I'm very good at protecting my peace and staying in my bubble and looking after myself. But I'll be really transparent that I tried to record this so many times last week and I just could not do it. Now I am recording this from the salon, and something that I want to make people aware of as well when you are trying to do things that maybe you're struggling with is that your environment is so important. And I know that the reason why I struggled so much last week is because I was recording this from the salon, and there are so many different people in this building, different energies. There is obviously so much going on right now in Dubai, and it has so much impact on my family, my life, my business, my team. So all of that combined was just really not good for me. But the reason why I'm telling you that is to be really transparent and to show you that I also have down days, and things do also impact me, and it reminds me as well that I am human, and sometimes you just have to take a time off, you know. So I took a week off, and here we are, I am back. But what I really wanted to talk about today, and this might be a bit of a shorter episode, but is how to be a leader in your life. Be the leader of your own life, be the leader that everyone in your team wants, needs. Be the leader of your house, be the leader of your household, and how to do that well. How to do it calmly, effectively, how to do it with confidence, and why it's so important. So if that sounds like something that you want to listen to, then keep going with this episode. Okay, so the reason why I think this is so important is for me right now, this has highlighted how important this is right now. Um, because obviously I have a team, so I have a team of 19 people, and I am having to really lead them right now in uncertain times. Uncertain times that I know nothing about. I am not qualified to start talking about politics, and that is not something I'm gonna do anyway. But I have a team that are looking to me for answers, they're looking to me for reassurance and calmness. And I also have obviously a family, I have children to look after, and I also have family at home and friends at home who are coming to me for answers and asking if everything's okay. And I think that a lot of you who are listening to this will be understanding of this and aware of the situation, and might be in a similar situation as well. And I think that it's so important to speak about why being a good leader is so important and actually how you can be the best leader to everyone around you and set such a good example as well. So, my first things first is try to protect your peace. As a leader of any situation, you need to feel good because you're gonna have people constantly coming to you asking you questions, or you know, trying to get in, for example, into your bubble, and you really do have to try and protect your peace as much as possible. Remain calm. So I always always say don't react to a permanent situation on a temporary emotion. And I think that that's really important because it just reminds us to not quick fire react to things. So if you're getting loads of messages on your phone and you're thinking, I need to react to this, you don't have to. Just give it a second, take a breather, step away, step back, look at things with a different lens, and then come back and reply. As a leader, your silence is so important because actually your silence can say a lot, but it can also give calmness. And when you are erratic and you are impulsive, those things aren't always helpful to your team or the people that you are around. So reacting calmly is so important. Protecting your peace, protect what you are absorbing every day, whether that be social media, whether that be news, whether that be the people that are speaking to you and how you react to that and how you get involved in certain conversations, protecting your peace is so important, and it's something that I have made a big conscious effort recently to make sure that my peace and my bubble and my mind is protected at this time. Remember to think for yourself. There are going to always be a lot of people's opinions, and you might ask for other people's opinions, and that is fine, but remember to have your own mind. Remember to think for yourself, listen to your gut, take yourself to a calm space, whether that be on a walk with no headphones in or just lying in bed meditating. If you can meditate and listen to your mind, listen to what your gut is telling you. Because as a leader of any situation, you have to know your own mind because other people are looking at you for the answers. So you need to be able to know what the answers are in your head and in your heart, and not just from what other people are saying to you. When you are a great leader, I genuinely believe that showing up every day is so important, and what I mean by that is how you show up. You show up calmly, like I just said, with confidence, even in the way you dress, the way you carry yourself, the way you walk is so important because I know that right now I am showing up daily to the salon to show my presence, my confidence, my calmness, my resilience at the moment. And I'm showing up every day with my hair and makeup done. I am dressed well, I have a smile on my face, and I am bringing the positive vibes into this space because that is what this team needs right now, and that is what is gonna help this situation. And it might seem so superficial to have your hair and makeup every day and done every day in a nice outfit, but honestly, those things do matter. If I turned up in here and I had my hair shoved up on top of my head, no makeup on, and you know, my sweats on or whatever, my team are gonna be like, is she okay? Is something going on that we don't know about? Like, should we be worried? Whereas actually, I'm turning up every day for success, I'm turning up every day for a productive day, a happy day, and that then trickles down across everybody and it makes them feel reassured, it makes them feel better, it makes them feel calmer and happier as well. So the way you show up every day is so important. The language that you use as a leader is so important, and making sure that again you are I keep using the word calm, but it's so important that you're precise with the way that you speak, that you aren't acting from that emotion, that rage or anger or those low vibe things, you're you're acting and reacting from a higher frequency, and your messages are always direct, but they can still have empathy to them. I think something that is so important when you are a leader is showing kindness and empathy. There is nothing wrong with showing your more vulnerable side because it just reminds people that you're human. No matter what position you are in, in a business, in life, wherever, show empathy and show kindness and it will get you a long way. Show gratitude for what you have. Because people who are, let's say, working for you or part of your team, they want to know that you can still understand how they feel. You can still empathize with them, you can still relate to them. That is so important in a team, and I genuinely believe that for me that's what has got me to where I am today is because I take the time to really listen to my team members if they need to talk to me. I take the time to try and understand their situation. I might not always be able to, but I will try my hardest and I will always show kindness and empathy towards them. Doing those things really, really helps in any situation. I also really believe that I mean, going off on a little bit of a tangent here, but as a leader, if you can express gratitude all the time, then you will only attract good things back. And what I mean by that is to your team, thank you for showing up today. Thank you for putting so much effort into today today. Thank you for putting a smile on your face today. I actually just had a conversation before I came in here with one of my hairdressers who was so amped up and happy and positive, and I said to her, Go and radiate that positive vibe throughout the salon. Thank you so much for coming in today with that positive vibe because it's a really hard time right now for people to have that, but seeing her have that, I wanted to let her know that I appreciated it. And by me saying that to her, that's gonna radiate that even more from her, and she's gonna feel even better and want to express that everywhere throughout the business. So showing your gratitude, showing your empathy, showing that you are human is a beautiful way to be a leader, in my opinion. So I know that that has been a short episode, but I really, really hope that you have got something great from that. And the main things that I just want you to take away from it is to react slowly to things, take your time, show up really, really well every day, and have empathy and kindness and of course gratitude for those around you. Thank you so much to listen for listening and for watching this episode. Please um follow me on Instagram. I am at semanthagreen.tgh and the podcast is at aligned and unfiltered pod. I have actually just started a Substack as well. And if you don't know what Substack is, then don't worry because I didn't either not that long ago. But it's an amazing place for written content, and I genuinely believe that written content is gonna become the next big thing. And I love writing, like I used to write blogs all the time, way back when they're probably still out there somewhere. I'm not gonna tell you the web address for that. And Substack is great, so I am writing out all my thoughts and feelings. Think about it as a voice note that I would send to my mate, but instead, I am writing it down for you to read. So find the link to my Substack down below, and please go and subscribe. I will see you next week. Thank you so much. Bye.