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Transform into the most powerful and effective leader in your life for explosive success.
Welcome to Brown AF, Brown, Ambitious, and Free. My name is Neha Wuneva, your host for the transformation of a lifetime. So the explosive success that you want is not only attainable, but it's much less stressful on you. I'm going to give you the tips, tools, and get you into CEO thinking so that women and people of color just like you work smarter and get way ahead. This is legacy leadership, and it's unlike anything you've been taught before.
Speaker 1:So tune in and listen up. Let's go.
Speaker 2:Welcome to this week's episode of Brown, Ambitious, and Free. Today, I wanna talk to you about a deeper level of creating a world class team, and I want to do this because this is really one of the most essential skills, and I don't think it's talked about enough. And when you are a highly ambitious, highly successful person, you, like most of us, have been taught to believe that you have to do things all on your own and not ask for help. And I see so many times that we get caught up in this myth, in this inaccuracy, and we don't create the kind of profitable, measurable success that we are capable of doing with our creativity, with our level of skill, and with our desire, and we miss out on so many opportunities. We miss out on career opportunities.
Speaker 2:We miss out on creating allyship within our organizations and within our industry. And we also miss out on investment opportunities, which creates less and less influence for us as leaders. So today, I wanna take this series that I'm talking about creating a world class team even farther and discuss the truth of the matter is oftentimes we, as the executive leader, as the CEO, can be the bottleneck to the success we are trying to create. And this is a hard question, but a really essential one. Are you the bottleneck?
Speaker 2:Because without knowing it, you could be showing up in a way with your micromanaging technique or with your ability and desire to jump in and take over things, you could be creating the bottleneck to your organization from getting where you are right now to where you want to be. So we are gonna break down in this episode a checklist that one of my clients used to completely revamp her organization and go from feeling lost and chaotic and overwhelmed with a lot of conflict to a streamlined operation, a streamlined long term strategy, clarity of the values of her team, and the excellence they were delivering. They were recognized throughout the organization and in the industry receiving multiple accolades, and you can do this too. I really want you to think about this as a seven day framework where you can put out excellent level of new ideas and contributions to the organization while also getting unstuck, creating alignment, and accelerating your growth. And this is all without overworking yourself, and this is absolutely not working fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty hours, which is a surefire recipe for burnout.
Speaker 2:So number one, I want you to really determine what your leadership values are and begin to model them every day in your daily actions. This is where it all starts. And this, my friends, is where people make a critical mistake. I want you to ask yourself if you are modeling the leadership values you wanna see in your team. This means every conversation, every meeting, every decision is a complete requirement for you to reflect those values.
Speaker 2:So for my client, she had determined that trust, transparency, and high quality excellence in delivery were the top characteristics and values that she wanted to use not only to lead herself, but her team and the organization. This was the palpable values that she wanted every client to feel from her organization, everybody that worked with them internally and externally. And here's the thing. Leadership is not about what you are saying and expecting others to do. It is about what you are doing every hour of every day.
Speaker 2:And I want you to ask yourself if you're showing up in a way that builds trust and accountability. Because even if you decide that transparency and delivery of excellence is important to you, no team or organization can thrive sustainably without trust among its people. And if you are not showing up in a way that keeps everything tightly in alignment, eventually things will leak through. So values are not inspirational. They are demonstrated.
Speaker 2:They're actual frameworks and behaviors of how you communicate, how you run meetings, how you hold people accountable and make decisions and execute. That's the first one. So that brings us to number two. If you have not done so, one of the things you must do is set a long term direction for where you are going. The purpose, the reason why you and your team and your company come together, the mission that is uniting and exciting everybody.
Speaker 2:This is how you get the best of the best, and you absorb their talents. You multiply their talents and get the kind of outcomes that you really seek to get. And then once you set the direction, you have to empower your leaders to act and move things forward. A common bottleneck I see in many organizations and in conversations that I have with CEOs and executives every single day is that the leaders try to hold on too tightly to every decision, fearing that things will somehow go wrong. Growth does not happen like this.
Speaker 2:It does not happen in a vacuum. And we wanna make sure that leaders are able to make a decision, take action, and course correct, and that you will be there as a team to help troubleshoot as necessary. Instead, we wanna make sure that organizations are not fearing failure, but instead understanding that success and setbacks and course corrections are the way that the organization runs even if things are not done perfectly right at the onset. So I really want you to ask yourself this powerful question. Are you creating an environment where your leaders feel trusted to make decisions and take action?
Speaker 2:And are they empowered to execute things, to be a force multiplier, not just to do things in the way that you have set forth for them to do and just get to one destination, but the entire pathway and the destination is made better because they added their talent and their ability to really flourish and and maybe do something that has never been done before. So number three is we wanna make sure that as a leader, we're making time to unblock your leader's biggest problems. All too often, teams don't flag the problems that they're having thinking that they too need to solve everything on their own. If you are the type of leader that shows that you wanna solve everything yourself, then expect that your leaders are going to also reflect that. They're gonna keep their ideas, their mistakes, and their problems to themselves until it's too late.
Speaker 2:And so much opportunity to fix things and collaborate and come up with a better idea are lost at that point. So you don't want to have a calendar where you are so jam packed and busy and preoccupied and stressed out that your team doesn't feel like they can flag things and get your attention to help you at the best time because there is a really good time to get your input on things to make things smoother and better. One of the most transformational challenges my client made was restructuring their workday to actually remove nonessentials and to remove fires and emergencies. And once you are no longer available for fires and emergencies, you will watch them go away because now you are unblocking things earlier, you're being much more clear and direct about expectations, and you are so far above the weeds. You're working strategically on the long term goals.
Speaker 2:And my client also was sure to shift their mindset away from I need to be available twenty four seven to I need to be available strategically to help my executives and their team make better decisions. So this means that you have to prioritize time to understand, meet with your team, and ask them what their biggest challenges are and help and assist proactively and preventatively. This isn't to play it small or to play it safe, but it's to really do things that are a stretch and that go beyond your comfort zone, but that you also are putting ample time to fix and address challenges as they arise. And then you also wanna make sure that you're available to unblock problems that get in the way of profitability because the better the leadership, the better the support structure in the team, the better the profitability. Profitability is about great leadership.
Speaker 2:And these tips will absolutely transform the way that you're operating and get you better results. So that brings us to number four. And this is so, so important. We never want to allow toxic behaviors, disrespectful behaviors to be allowed to occur no matter how talented the contributor. And sometimes we have this tendency of thinking, well, the person's really smart.
Speaker 2:So therefore, sometimes they can be really disrespectful or we're gonna permit this negative behavior. And I want organizations to understand how disastrous it is when you allow, quote, unquote, talented, smart people to behave badly. You are setting a low bar and a low standard for your entire organization, and it is like you're allowing a virus to come into your organization. This is gonna demotivate your teams. Your best people will leave, and it'll stall progress.
Speaker 2:So as a leader, it's your responsibility to address toxic behavior immediately. You wanna have those tough conversations that get to the root cause of the problem. You want to address the problem and hold people accountable. If they rise to the occasion, that's fantastic. If they demonstrate that they can't handle it here, then it's time for them to find a different opportunity.
Speaker 2:You have to be really clear where you are today, where you are headed, and what's expected, and have the clear conversations and boundaries about behavior. I like to call this the code of conduct. Every organization and executive leadership team should have their values and their code of conduct, and people should understand the consequences, the swift and clear consequences for being inbounds and out of bounds. And if necessary, you wanna make sure that you're reviewing this individually with people so that they understand when they're on thin ice and when they may be heading on their way out. Of course, you always wanna check all of this with your HR for the proper policies and expectations legally, but you wanna set this up in a way where your entire team will thrive and support one another.
Speaker 2:Your team should be a place where people can come and be respected and know that this is a safe place to work and operate. So here are some closing thoughts. When you lead from a place of values like we talked about today and you are very clear and intentional, you create a very profitable culture and condition for your team to grow. Bottlenecks are often generated by us as the leader, not having enough white space, not making a decision, not empowering our team. So we really wanna think about the questions that we pose today and make sure that you're holding yourself accountable and demonstrating the values and the expectations.
Speaker 2:When you take the steps we talked about today to align these values to action and hold people accountable while removing toxicity, you'll get things moving in a streamlined and high quality enjoyable way. You'll feel better as a leader. The results will be better, and you will really create that stellar world class organization. So take a moment today to reflect on these questions. One, are your daily actions reflecting the values you want in your organization?
Speaker 2:Two, are you creating space on your calendar, or are you too busy to really unblock your team's biggest challenges when they need you most? And number three, are you fostering a culture of growth and accountability by how people behave, what's permissible, and what is not, and addressing things and rooting out toxic behavior before it has a chance to infect the entire company. If you can confidently say yes to these, you are on the way to a very successful and profitable organization. And if you need any support in doing this, that is exactly what we are here for. So be sure to reach out to us.
Speaker 2:And until next time, keep leading with clarity, with your values, and with setting long strategic direction and showing up every day to support your team to make it happen. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a fellow executive or leader who would also find it beneficial. And don't forget to subscribe for more strategies to elevate your leadership and your life. We look forward to hearing from you. If you would like support to learn more about working together to make this happen, reach out to us, and it'll be a pleasure to facilitate that.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, and have a wonderful, wonderful rest of the week. And I will be here for you next time.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us and listening to our podcast. We invite everybody who believes in inclusive success to join the mission here at Brown, Ambitious, and Free. This is for you to be more of who you are and succeed with simple tools and unlearn things that don't support your success. Please subscribe and share this podcast with other supporters and ambitious change makers and visionaries who wanna be a part of this important movement to change the face of leadership and wild success. Check out our web site to learn all the different ways to connect with me and work with me.
Speaker 1:You can work with me as a private coaching client one on one by booking a consultation call at w w w dot nehacoaching dot com. That's nlikenancy, I India, hharry,aapple,coaching.com. I also work with leadership teams and organizations to supercharge the leadership and execution and build a culture of success. Send us a message and book a call. Finally, would you like me to speak at your organization or association?
Speaker 1:That's easy to do. Reach out to us and schedule a master class or workshop. Come back every week for important discussions that will revolutionize the way you think, create, and perform to get greater and greater success. I will show you how to use a proven methodology that takes out the guess work and adds to your success. Join us here each week and spread the message.
Speaker 1:We will see you soon.