Your Reputation Walks Into the Room First — Are You Ready for What It Says?

Before you even open your mouth, your reputation is already talking. For energy leaders, that first impression can make or break million-dollar deals and team dynamics. Here's how to audit what your reputation actually says versus what you think it says.

Transcript

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Welcome to Lee with Confidence. I'm JP Warren. Every episode we take a theme from our Monday morning leadership call and apply it to real life scenarios. So you can build your confidence, crush your imposter syndrome, and step into the leader you actually want to be. Short, real, straight to the point. Let's get into it. Welcome back to a new lead with confidence with your host, JP Warren. We are covering everything this week, this series, all about your reputation. I personally am in an industry where your reputation supersedes you. Your reputation lives with you throughout your entire career. So, what can we do to ensure our reputation aligns with who we truly are and it's not either ego-driven or it's not uh held back by our own insecurities? So let's dive into this. What this is, these are quick five to 10 minute uh podcasts where we're gonna provide you from some framework, some questions, some reflection questions and how you can approach uh these uh upcoming high-stressful events so you can actually lead better and show up better. Now, all I ask for you in return is if you take 15 seconds, go over, uh share, like, comment, do what you gotta do, to give me some feedback to help uh incentivize me to keep putting out this content, or maybe even share it with those uh that might need to hear this uh more than you do, that'd be a great help. All right. So today we're talking about your reputation, walking a room first. Are you ready for what it has to say? All right. A lot of times, before you even walk in the room, before you even sit down at the table, people have an understanding of who you are, your reputation. And let's talk about that. There's two things that I've seen leaders do in real life. The first thing I've seen is when leaders come in with their egos. They're known for their egos, they're known for their expertise, they're known uh for their track record, and they overcompensate this, right? And again, we talk about imposter syndrome. Eight out of 10 uh people experience imposter syndrome. So chances are these leaders are walking in with a lot of imposter syndrome, and what they do, they just kind of double down on their experience. They double down their ego and they come across as just someone that's very difficult to engage with because they know everything, right? And the second side of things I see is leaders coming in, good leaders, good strong leaders, good smart leaders, people that are very sharp in their field, they come in with a very high EQ and they come across extremely uh weak. They don't come across confident and they come across more insecure than those around them. Now, these are two different approaches, two polar opposite approaches, but at the same thing, the theme is it's hurting the company, it's hurting the individual based on their reputation. So, what can we do about entering the room or building a reputation so it serves us rather than hurts us? Okay. I remember one time I was having a roundtable event, and this um this one of the leaders of our of the industry came in and you know, he he's started a company, he built this company. It's very well known, but it's global, it's all this. And he came in to a room full of differ other, you know, decision makers uh in the industry. And rather than lead with a little humility or a little bit, you know, of this, he came in cocked up, very ego, very confident, a little bit too confident to the point where he actually pushed his target audience away. He pushed his customer base away because it was all pride, all ego. And at the end of it, I was just shaking my head. It's like, how do companies like this keep moving forward to keep growing when this is the person, the leadership position, leading with all this ego, leading kind of like uh alienate themselves from their target uh audience, which is their customer base. So let's kind of talk about uh some frameworks to kind of uh how we approach uh these the the boardrooms or these meetings we're about to walk into. All right. Number one, um, I would ask you to audit your entrance. So this is when you need that support group and you need those people around you that you can trust and lean on that will give you honest feedback, honest candor. And if you ask a question, they'll gonna give you something that the the the yes men around you may not. So before you walk in, or let's say after you walk in, pull a couple people aside in your close circles and ask them, hey, listen, how was that entrance? How was how was my behavior around at that table? Uh did I talk too much? Did I not talk enough? Uh was I too, you know, self-centered, focused, did I not ask enough for the team? So really just kind of get an overall uh recap of your presence at that table at that meeting, right? And the second thing we can do is bounce our projection, right? So what we can do, we can kind of bounce our experience and our knowledge and that whole ego side of us, but also balance that out with a little humility. And what that'll look like was coming in and maybe listing or bringing up some level of your credentials or your experience and really kind of asking the table or asking other people around the table on, hey, what do you think about this? If this was your direction or if this was your project, how would you best approach this? So, what you're doing, you're getting feedback from your team. And what that does, that just builds a better culture because you're getting buy-in. You're getting buy-in from those people around you, around the table. All right. And another thing you do is align the impact, okay? So make sure that your presence, you being in the room, actually helps the group, not just your ego. Okay. And again, that's done what we just talked about before. So you're aligning on things that benefit the group, the team, your team, the subordinates over your ego. Okay, because at the end of the day, as leaders, we are servant leaders. We want to help the people uh below us versus uh push them in directions, right? We want to serve them. That's servant leadership. That's how you build culture, that's how you build teams and how you build trust. All right. So it's okay to lead with a little bit of your experience, a little bit of your credentials, a little bit of what you know you're talking about because that's why you're there. But at the same time, it's very good to balance that with humility, asking feedback, asking for input, asking for, hey, how would you approach the situation if this was your project or if you had the budget that I have? How would you approach this differently than I'm doing right now? I think that just builds a great culture and you get better discussions. And plus, you also might find some little pieces of knowledge that you didn't know about, whether it's, you know, uh what's really going on on the culture side, you know, on the ground floor, or it's just getting new ideas, better ideas from around the team. All right. So the practical application is this to wrap it up. The first thing is next time you uh enter a high stakes meeting area, high-stakes meeting room, state one relevant credential and then ask a question. Ask a question of humility. So ask, what would you do in this situation? All right. So stop another thing you can do, stop leading with pure authority, pure title. We all know those people that once they get promoted, they expect to be treated differently or they expect to have a lot more respect. But again, respect is earned, okay? Don't expect respect unless you're giving respect, okay? So lead with some humility, all right? Lead with you not being the main person in the room. Actually, the team is there, the main person in the room. You were just there to kind of help guide, all right? So ask yourself this week what would my last three meetings say about my reputation? Uh, what would it say about my reputation if I wasn't there? What would people say about me being in that meeting if I wasn't there? And again, this is a good sound check. This is a good soundboard of find trying to find out where you're at, kind of in your reputation. Are you showing up the way you should be showing up as a leader, part of that meeting? All right. So thank you for tuning in to Lead with Confidence Podcast. If you're enjoying this, please share and comment, let me know. Let me know what topics that you want to cover because I love diving into this, and this stuff just keeps me motivated to keep putting out this type of content to help you out there. All right. So the question is with your reputation, are you managing it or is it managing you? All right. Thanks for tuning in for Lead with Confidence, and I will talk to y'all soon. This is JP Warren. That's your framework for the day. Go lead with it. I'm JP Warren, lead with confidence.