3 Things in The Toolkit For the Leader Who Cares

A few things to keep within reach as you are on your leadership journey. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

We need better leaders. We need more people who care about people. We need more people who genuinely intend to carry out the missions they have committed to. Missions that bring out the better side of our humanity. Missions that heal and missions that impact. Are you one of those better leaders? Or do you know someone who is? Or have you lost hope in us having better leaders? Or are you simply curious if it could still be possible? I'm here starting a conversation with you so we can go on a journey together to actually answer these questions. And whatever conclusion you come to, at least you will know what is and what isn't worth leading. Hey, it's Amanda Sophia, and we're here continuing the conversation about what's worth leading. This podcast is for people who are hesitant about being leaders, who've lost hope in leadership, who are curious about leadership, who um are former leaders, taking a look back, doing an assessment. Maybe you're like a jaded leader. Um and uh regardless of the reason you are here, feel free to join the conversation in conversation at any point in time. Uh, if you want any type of tools or resources or you want to keep up with what's going on with the podcast, uh feel free to visit worthleadingpodcast.com. And uh there I have a blog, um, and I post uh just the process of getting this podcast done and any updates that are happening with the worth leading podcast. So let's go ahead and get started for today. Today's episode, today's episode is episode six. Wow, that's crazy. Um, and the episode today is called Toolkit for the Leader Who Cares. I have my um cup. It was hot, now it's warm water, but I put some lemon in it. Um it's early in, it's not that early in the morning, guys. It's like for me, 8 48. I am an early riser. I usually wake up between, I would say nowadays, between 5 and 6 a.m. Uh if I really, really have stuff to do, 4 a.m. I'll push it and get those early morning things done. Uh, but I am a person who needs to get the things done before the sun comes up, and then everybody's awake and the day has started, and I felt like I was successful. That is my routine. So today is a little later. Um, but I am excited about having this conversation today. So ready with the mug. And uh today is gonna be a shorter episode. I usually shoot to record for like maybe like 20 minutes, 20, 30 minutes. Last time we talked about more of a capacity to lead, and I introduced um frame a framework that I created, and I shared it with you was matched pen C. We went over that, and the letters, by the way, for that anagram that was created was M-A-T-C-H-E-D, then P-E-N, and then the letter C. And that was um having the capacity to lead with being mission-oriented, being able to assess your environment, being trainable and adaptable, having conflict resolution skills, being helpful, having emotional intelligence, being disciplined, being patient, ego checking, negotiation skills, and communication. I said it all. If you didn't see or if you didn't hear last the last episode, please, please make sure you go back to reflect on the explanations and just reflect on your own practice. So moving on from that, this whole concept of having a toolkit for leadership, what is a toolkit? When we think about a toolkit, I think about go-to items where if I need to fix something or if I need to build something, I go to that thing. So if I already have the capacity and or going through this process and framing this process of having the capacity to lead, and then I have this toolkit that I reference. What is it? The first thing that I would say is a necessary tool for someone who is leading is a place for documenting things. So one person may use a notebook, another person may use a notes app or some type of software they like using. Whatever your preference is, it does not matter. There needs to be some way you can kind of have a place for documenting and reflecting on your own practice. And when I say this, I don't mean the thing that you're using to as you know, to see what Barbara has been doing for the past 15 days. I don't mean it in that way. Documentation as a tool that will be used to um as evidence for something like that has this a human resource issue. Yes, that is work, that is a totally separate thing. If you need to document interactions with people at work, but this is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about documenting your practice as a leader so that you can start reflecting on what is working, what's not working, how you felt during a certain time, certain interaction, uh, what type of interactions are working for you, uh, what you could do better, maybe what approach you use with a certain person. There's a lot of different things you can put in that uh that space, that notebook, that notes app, or that software, but there needs to be a place for you to reference it and reflect on it. It's really important. Why? Because if you're going to evolve or if you're going to adjust or sculpt your leadership practice, you need to make sure that you can frame it and say, and and really know where you are, the direction you're moving into and what you've done and what you've accomplished. It's really important for you to be able to reflect on that. So, a place to document your progress and the things that you do as a leader. I would say they're the first thing in your toolkit. Second thing in your toolkit, um, your, I would say, your best practices. So when we talked last time we talked about this capacity to lead the match pency, if you don't have anything in place, I really, really believe that you should just use this as your framework. You know, being mission-oriented, being uh able to assess your environment, being trainable and adaptable, using conflict resolution skills. Did I use that today? Am I being helpful? Am I, you know, practicing emotional intelligence? What's going on with me? Am I am I really doing what I say I'm gonna do? Am I being patient? Is this my ego? Am I being extra? Let me need, uh maybe I need to negotiate with this person. Am I communicating clearly and am I communicating effectively? I mean, seriously, guys, this match pencil is this needs to be in your toolkit. And I'm not just saying it because I created it, but it is, it needs to be. So I am saying that match pencils needs to be in your toolkit. I also uh believe that in your toolkit as a leader, um, it needs to be something that reminds you of your why. Now, this is this could be anything. And so I can't really put my a word or a definitive like object of what this needs to be, or is it an object? But there needs to be something that reminds you of your why, of why you want to lead people towards anything. Why it gets lonely. Being a leader can be very lonely, and if you are pulling people or guiding people out of a I would say ineffective or potentially toxic or inefficient environment, then if you're going through that process, it's heavy. And you're dealing with human psychology, you're dealing with people who are dealing with change. And when people are going through the process of dealing with change, there's gonna be pushback. You're gonna have pushback, people who don't necessarily communicate effectively, they may get pushbone on you in a weird way. Maybe it's a disrespectful way in your eyes. Um you know, it could be a lot of stuff, but when you get home, or in the moment, you need to be able to remind yourself that you're a leader. No, I'm a leader, I'm doing this, and it's not in a sense of forcing a person to do do something they don't want to do or being controlling, but r reminding yourself of who you are and your why. You need to be deeply grounded, deeply rooted in it. It it is a kind of stand your ground type thing. I know that has a negative connotation, but people will question your capacity to lead. I actually just witnessed that recently, and this is kind of a bit of a side note, but ooh. What do you do to remind yourself of your why when someone does not accept you as a leader? That's rough. I've been there before, and I have witnessed people in that stage even recently, and especially if you're dealing with teams, people definitely move towards groupthink mode. You have that a one person who has a very strong personality, and they don't think you can lead, and so they convince everybody else that they shouldn't be listening to you or following you as a leader, they're creating chaos, they're creating psychological chaos in that space that you're supposed to be leading, and now you're having to go through each person to try to potentially convince them to follow you or listen to you as a leader. I think this is a real very, very relevant situation, and I really wasn't going to talk about like a case, but this scenario is very important, and I think it's one of the most potentially painful for especially for new leaders to go through when you really genuinely have a heart to lead, when you have a heart to lead, and people are not respecting the process of you learning how to be a better leader, because you have to start somewhere, and that's that's the hard part about this is this is a div a skill set that has to be developed. We're not going off old philosophies or uh eras of leadership where the great man era and this some type of you know trait, hereditary trait for leadership or anything like that. No, this is something that you you think about, you choose to do, you own. It's a skill set that can be developed. There may be certain personality traits or things in your personality that may be helpful, but it is not does not necessarily make you a better leader. So working with or having to lead a team and having people who are not aligned is a very painful process to the point where it may be triggering, it may be traumatic, depending on how much pushback they give you. Are they not just getting coworkers involved? Are they getting HR involved? Oh, goodness gracious, horrendous, horrible, how stressful. What a bad work environment, if that is work. Uh I don't recommend going through that for anybody, but I tell you, once you go through that just one time, you come out crystallized. I'm telling you, once you've gone through pushback and you have held on to your why, there is another side, there's a better side, there is a assured side to your leadership. Oh yeah, I can lead. You will know it once you go through that process. Now you may need to recover, you may go through all that, and and you may need to have, you may need to take a vacation, you may need to need to take a role that is not necessarily requiring you to lead in the same way, or maybe not requiring you to lead at all, but I will I tell you this right now. Keep your why. That why going through the process, if you need to pause, if you need to reflect, if you need to take a year or so, or whatever you need to do to really process the lessons from the experience, do it, but please, please continue to lead after that. Because when you do, you will be able to see so much clearly about the things that you need to do. Uh, and then it's like, oh wow, oh I can lead. So I truly believe everybody needs to go through the growing pains in leadership and um get to the other side of it. So don't quit if you're in that growth state. Some of you all, you know, I've talked about at every episode, we're like, okay, who is this podcast for? If you're hesitant about leadership, if you've lost hope, um, if you're jaded as a leader, okay, former leaders. If you, in your last experience of leadership, was a situation where people were being disrespectful, or people were not wanting you as their leader for whatever reason, and you said, you know what, I'm tired of this, I'm not gonna do this, you're not going to accept me as a leader. I'm I'm I can't be a leader anymore, or this was a bad environment. I'm asking you, if you truly do have a desire to lead, and you there's some missions that you want to move towards, or you you want to be helpful, and it is your heart to lead, please do it one more time. Just just try it. I I want you to to, you know, after listening to this podcast and reflecting on the things that happened, try it one more time. And if you try it one more time and it's still not for you, or if or if it's not easier at all, then okay. But I think that sometimes the experiences that we have in leadership can be so traumatic that we don't return to use what we've learned from the lessons learned of those bad experiences. I tell you for myself, you know, I had my big learning experience some years ago. And man, I tell you, I did not want to lead it anymore at all. I'm done. Leave me alone. I didn't want to go back to that. Why would you want to go back to a space where you feel disrespected? As a human being, even. Goodness, wow. Like, why would you want to go back to that? And if that is kind of like your first experience, it wasn't my first experience with leadership. I had led before. And I'm grateful for that. But if it was your first experience with leadership, man, I would tell you that I understand why you wouldn't want to lead again. Yeah. Why go back to that? It's almost kind of like the thoughts is like, why how can people be so horrible sometimes? You know? Why do they want to do me harm? Why do they want me to do badly? Why do they why were they wishing me the worst? Yuck, disgusting. It is yuck, it is disgusting, it is icky, it is a display of the worst parts of humanity. Why? So, anyway, that being said, I can totally empathize with you if you lost hope or if you have become jaded or don't want to step back into leadership because of a negative experience. But I will tell you that if you learn the lessons from it, if you really equip yourself with the capacity to lead, it's gonna get better. The one thing that I will say as a note to mention that needs to be come up in future conversations, and I'll probably bring this up in the next episode, is you can do all these things for leadership. You can you can have this capacity for change with with minutes in motion, you can have this capacity to lead um with the match pen C. And then, you know, we haven't talked about, you know, becoming a better leader, and that's you know, would be for another point in time in the just kind of like A Sophia method of of becoming a better leader, but we haven't talked about systems, you as a unique human being plugging yourself into some type of system or some type of environment. This is a thing that we really everything has to be managed, but this is a thing that we have to be aware of, and this is when we start becoming selective of or recognizing how long we're gonna uh stay in certain environments and what systems we will and will not attach ourselves to. And that's when we start making choices. Can I, you know, lead at this company? Is it aligned with who I am as a human being, as a leader? Can I do this? There are times, and realistically speaking, you know, when if we're talking about leading in a nonprofit space, maybe it's just volunteer, then that's hey, you know, because you believe in that, or leading for a community effort or something at home or something with your family, that's that is one thing. But when you're doing in a work sense, the first thing for work is we're working because we need to work. You know, we live in a capitalistic society, and you need money, you need to exchange money for goods, and and so getting wages and being paid is important. And so we get into these roles, and some of the roles require us to lead. That is just kind of like a you know basic practice, and it's like, okay, sometimes people do get into leadership positions just because it's more money. My assumption is that if you are listening to this podcast or following this, you want to do a little bit more than just make money in those positions when you get in those positions. Now, why am I bringing this up? Once again, system and environment, whatever business or whatever organization that you are working for, it has its own culture, it has its own environment, it has its own way of doing things, and then you have to decide can I truly lead here? Can I truly lead here? You have to be able to determine that, and I'm not gonna get into it. I'm leaving this as a cliffhanger because I just paused for myself and I was like, my mind opened up like, oh man, this is a big conversation. So I'm gonna stop. And I'm gonna leave you with a cliffhanger and tell you, you know, what are the next steps for you if you care about actually leading well, regardless of the system or this environment, and how you make how you navigate the choice of how long you stay in that or what you do with it. Okay. Bam. So that is it for today. And uh until next time. You are healing your own humanity, you are a whole human being, and in this, your courage is activated. And with this courage, you can choose to lead. Choose to lead something worth leading, choose to lead something worth doing, choose to lead something worth giving your best in rest with your humanity. You can. Till next time. It's worth leading.