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Is your team not quite clicking and you can't put your finger on why? Are you carrying the weight of holding everyone together while the business keeps moving? Do you wish you had a way to actually understand what's going on around your people and fix it?
You're in the right place.
This podcast helps leaders understand the signs around their team and change them intentionally; so performance, engagement and trust follow naturally.
I'm Josey. I was part of a fractured team and chose to do things differently. What we built together turned out to be what the world's top 30% of organisations do consistently. I spent two years sitting on it before deciding to share it. Now I can’t wait to share it.
If you're ready to lead differently people-first leadership is the better way to have a better day.
Ciao.
Next steps:
Step 1: Take the Leadership Self-Assessment - www.theolivetreemethod.com/leadership-self-assessment
Step 4: Listen to the episodes - we start with aligning to the Leadership Self-Assessment - 26 core areas to make the difference
Step 2: Sign up and make the The Olive Tree Method yours - www.theolivetreemethod.com
Step 3: Reach out if you have queries - josey@theolivetreemethod.com
Welcome back. From the previous episode, what is the one thing that nobody tells you when you are promoted? The moment you become a leader, you become someone else's conditions. For this episode, hang in through the intro and I'll reveal why it's important to be aware of the beautiful balance between focus in and focus out. This episode is all about you.
The moment you become a leader, you become someone else's conditions. Most of us are promoted because we're good at our jobs. Nobody hands us a manual for the people part. From a people first point of view, I'm passing on what I felt in hindsight helped me lead the biggest team transformation I've been involved in.
Two things were the foundation of those and more, self-awareness and knowing what myself and the team were dealing with, the conditions that surrounded us all.
People First allows you to make mistakes and recover, to have a negative impact but recover. People First leadership and techniques allow change in ways that develop you and your team to evolve naturally.
It's a secret to developing people that look after themselves, you and the business. It works because it allows everyone, including the leader, to be human and held accountable. Bad days, bad moments, without those things becoming who you are. The conditions you create as a leader model what's acceptable and when the conditions are right, people can have a rough day without it costing the whole team. Self-control.
goes hand in hand with self awareness and there became a point where I lost perspective on myself because of a lack of self awareness. This is when I became aware that I was a condition for the team and that they had to deal with me. Conditions need to be known and stable.
The traditional servant leadership model can actually fail both the leader and the team when the balance tips too far and you haven't managed yourself.
Leaders who completely ignore themselves in favour of others burn out and a burnt out leader can't serve anyone. Simon Sinek addresses this in his book Leaders Eat Last. Some believe we should always put others first. Others believe we should always put ourselves first. The fact is both are true.
By encouraging a people-first environment, you gain perspective to be human yourself, to be able to gather up after mistakes, to openly learn and to add your experience and gain more self-awareness and self-control individually and as a group. As a quick example,
In one of the teams I was in, all of us would tiptoe around one particular person when we needed something from them. If someone said, go to Tarsh, not her real name, people would actually look at each other Men with wives and children would come and see me to double check if they truly did need to get her involved. She had some key responsibilities, at times completely irreplaceable.
So there were things like her attitude and how she spoke to people that just weren't addressed. A perception she felt, she held the upper hand and when I met her, she'd become indignant of the impact her behaviour was having on people. People thought she was a grumpy person, but in the end she'd been mismanaged. When we dug in to understand what was going on, the pressure she was under was intense and pressure I would have personally resigned for because she had asked many times for support.
Eventually Tash was literally one of my go-to people. If I said to her, Tarsh, when need to do this, we need to do it now, she would drop what she was doing and she was there supporting me. We didn't take the Tarsh out of the girl, but she switched from being overwhelmed, frustrated, overworked, to knowing she was appreciated. She knew her value to me and the team and she knew that when I asked her like that, it was because it was important. She was ready to go, smash it out, whatever it was, and get back to her day.
She knew we'd check in about what was going on when we could. At the time, we just needed to hustle. That is a learned behavior and reaction that is built intentionally between people that have no history together. It can be commanded, but there will be no loyalty beneath it. With out deep respect and understanding, if I didn't have a human connection with Tarsh and a do-as-I-say leadership style, Tarsh could help me out.
but not point out on the way that whatever we were doing was gonna crash. She could help me, but decide once it did crash not to bring it to my attention until she'd finished her work. She could help me, but get resentful and at smoke-o she could vent and bring bad energy to someone who having a great day. Like us all, Tarsh had days when she was fiery or a bit off, but she owned it, she checked herself, and nine times out of ten there was something legitimate that had set her off.
That's self-awareness and that's also strength in the team dynamic to be able to be called out, readjust and refocus your energy. Without a doubt, a shift in self-awareness and a better team understanding spilled into her personal life. Imagine being stressed for so long, then the bubbles popped and you start to enjoy your day. Most of us must leave a position and start somewhere else to have that feeling.
As the leader, the one who holds the vision, you can't put others first all the time, but knowing what you bring to the room, good or bad, is so important. I didn't put that oxygen mask on myself first when the conditions around me changed and it hurt for a while. One of my more jarring examples, I'd tell my team to protect their time and have balance while my eyes were hanging out of my head from staying too late, or I'd consistently bump our one-on-ones because something operationally needed fixing.
I thought I was solving problems. What I was actually doing was signaling that they weren't the priority. That's the self-awareness gap right there.
Gaining awareness about how you work, what you need, what your triggers are, then putting something in place for you all to understand each other's needs is the most functional and sustained way to build you all Self-awareness means you know how to shake off a bad mood, a bad meeting, get back to a good state or recognize, hey, I need help, I've burnt the candle.
And lastly.
You can be the most emotionally intelligent, respected, inspiring leader in the building and still have a team that's struggling. Why? Because if the conditions around you or your team are broken, performance will follow every time. The environment will always win if you don't tend to it intentionally. In one meeting, I became aware that I was no longer supported with leading in a way our team had had immense success.
I didn't have the self-awareness or perspective to deal with the situation at the time and I struggled to recover. I also didn't have all the information about what was going on and a change in dynamic for us felt epic at the time. I lost focus, I lost heart. If I'd had more self-awareness I could have gained better perspective and potentially walked the team through conditions that had changed. Easy, that's the job.
I allowed myself to drift, the team drifted. It's important to be strong and clear to make sure you don't disengage yourself when you're not happy. cracks in your foundation will reflect in the teams. I heard a saying recently, get curious, which for me would have been the safest way for me to start looking at myself under pressure or under change I don't understand without freaking out.
I encourage you to be honest with yourself about how self-aware you are.
It's critical for good leadership and showing the way. No matter what you do, you are a condition for your team.
Do you have good foundations in place when things get wobbly for you?
An awesome resource is a YouTube clip that's been around for years for self-awareness and team dynamic. I haven't found anything as good, it's just so clean. It's called Above the Line, Below the Line, a video by Conscious Leadership Group. If you haven't watched it, it's really quick, like seven minutes or something, I highly recommend it. It's a great place to start reviewing how you and your team function. I recommend passing it to your team. It's an easy watch, but really powerful.
If I can, I'll put it in the show notes. My invitation for you today is to become aware of the conditions you have in place for your team
What are you passing on?
You are what matters, what matters to you.
Get curious and see what comes up. Next episode, I'm jumping into the first topic of the leadership self-assessment, safety and trust. I think you're out with the bathwater if any team or person doesn't have this. It is a human need and it's our responsibility as leaders to make sure that safety and trust is present. never know what someone goes home to. Work could be the place they call home. I can't wait to tell you how I learned that and pass on the simple thing I initiated.
Everyone thought I was nuts but another game changer. Be blessed and I wish you the best work day. Ciao.