Eric 0:00
Eric, welcome to episode 53 of the achieve workplace culture podcast, where we help you our listeners find actionable ways to strengthen your workplace culture. I'm Erik Stutzman, and I am joined with two of my co hosts, Chris Downey and Wendy Loewen, both leaders here with me at Achieve Center for Leadership. Today we're going to continue a discussion we started in our last episode called leader. Know thy impact, and today we're going to follow that with Who do you want to be as a leader? What impact do you want to have? So I thought I'd start by asking you both in a word, who do you want to be?

Wendy 0:39
I want to be a leader who is empowering. And I know that that is a loaded word and means different things to different people, but for me, that is a word that encapsulates the impact that I want to have.

Chris 0:54
I like that. Did you say in a

Eric 0:56
word? Yes, in a word? You know,

Wendy 0:58
sorry about that. I didn't say that to call you out. I was just trying to think, can I breathe? I breathe? I want to I want to be congruent.

Eric 1:04
I came up with what I think is a very boring word, but I really want it, which is to be really organized. Organized. Yeah, and I we could unpack each of those kinds of things. And in fact, maybe we should a little bit unpack those words, because what this episode is about is what last time we talked about, how do you know your impact on people, and the importance of knowing your impact. But what we didn't really get into, and which naturally follows, is, well, what impact do you want to have? What kind of leader do you want to be, and how do you get there? So I'm assuming you aspire to the words that you put out just now, right? Yeah, you use the word empowering, empowering and congruent, right? So what does that mean to you, and how would you go about getting there?

Wendy 1:58
Yeah, can I start you? Sure. Can the reason I share this and explain congruent wasn't always there. If you're to ask me that that were that, that question, number of years ago, I wouldn't have said congruent, because I assumed I was congruent. Oh yes. So for me, I'm really why I'm so pumped about this. This topic is, I just want to share a story with you. I moved into my first leadership role. I was just kind of voluntold. I think I've shared the story before that. I was working for a pharmaceutical company in the engineering department, a whole group of new engineers, and training started, and I asked the question, who's going to oversee these folks? And the director said, Well, I guess it's you. And all of a sudden, I was the supervisor, and I started my leadership career. That went on, but it wasn't until about 10 years in when someone asked me the question, what kind of leader do you want to be? Yeah, and I stopped. And I know that sounds basic, but no one had ever asked me that question before, and I started to really think about it, and I came up with a whole bunch of amazing things. Then I started to reflect on my practices over the last decade, and they were not congruent at all. And I realized I was basing how I led off of what I thought leading was, based off of the previous leaders I had had. I didn't spend any time. I jumped into the doing. I didn't really think about how I wanted to be as a leader, how I wanted to be experienced. So for me, that point of congruent wasn't always there. I was operating very incongruently, right, thinking I was one thing when I was one thing when I was completely something different. But it started I didn't make couldn't make that connection until I really reflected on, who do I want to be as a leader? How do I want to show up?

Speaker 1 3:50
Lovely, empowering for me, I've worked with a variety of leaders and seen and come to really recognize that if you're in a leadership position, you do have a certain amount of power, so to say and authority, but that also means that you can give that away, you can share that with others. And so for me, empowerment is about empowering myself to do good work, but also it's about enabling and empowering other people as well. And so for me, that's a very that's a compass for me. And I'll, you know, when I get stressed or upset or I'm worried about something, I will recognize that in myself by saying, you know, have I given the right power to in the right places. It's like, so on my team, it's like, do you feel Do you have the resources? Do you have the time? Do you have the energy? Do you have the skill set to do this? And I have to constantly be coming back to that. I'm empowering the people around me. And when I do that, I empower myself in my. As well, but I need to give that power away, Chris, you wrote a brilliant blog about that. That empowerment is not about saying you go figure this out on your own, but it's actually as a leader, releasing and giving your power to somebody else to utilize.

Eric 5:16
And I know for me, and probably for many, that when you feel stressed, you might be tempted to do yourself rather than empower others. And yet, the act of creating opportunities for other people to own and grow and take on actually should reduce your stress in the long run. So you're going for a long run, a long term play. There something like that. Yeah, for yourself, Eric, I use the word organized. It's not very inspiring, but for me, I feel like as a leader tasked with understanding the trajectory of the entire organization and helping the entire organization achieve its objectives. In order to do that, well, I need to be grounded in what has to happen, like, what are the what are all the pieces, and understand those so that I can empower, so that I can be congruent, so that I can be even inspiring if I can't talk about something with clarity and with vision. Well, in order to get that clarity and vision. I actually have to be organized, and sometimes I feel like I'm not as organized as I want to be. And actually, I'm not even sure that too many people have said to me, Eric, you're disorganized. It might be an internal feeling, right? So this is miss the word that came into my head today when I thought about that word. Who do I want to be?

Speaker 1 6:36
Well, in the way you're describing it, you're not talking about organizing your calendar or your desk. You're talking about having an organized mind that understands the systems, the way that our organization runs, and what we need to propel us forward. That's a different kind of organization.

Eric 6:52
That's true. Imagine our listeners out there. You want to become something more than what you are now. You want to grow in some way. You want to increase the positive impact of your leadership, right? So if we have some sense of our impact, last time, we talked about how we need to be paying attention to what's happening in the moment, understanding the cues people are sending and getting curious about those and focusing on the impact we create. Now we want to be more than that, or we want to grow, right? How do we get from where we are now to where we want to be in the future? What? What's mechanism? Well, I think

Wendy 7:31
this is, this is really important that I think that's it. We talked, we talked last cast, about the impact that we have, and what do we want to do to make sure we're having that impact. I think this that actually in therein lies a bit of the challenge. We're so quick to jump into the things to do right. Like when I took my first leadership role, I just started doing the things right. What we need to do is, and we actually have just finished writing this, writing about this. Dan Dirksen and I around when we're really setting out on our leadership journey, or wherever at we want to look at growing in two ways. We want to grow vertically and horizontally. And growing vertically means who do I want to be as a leader, and how do I want to show up and make sure we're really clear about that, so that the things that we do horizontally. We do with intention. So they're so they're aligned with the leader that we want to be and how we want to show up. So we want to make sure we're clear first on what kind of leader we want to be. How do I want to empower? Do I want to impact people? Right? Right? And then also, what are the mindsets that maybe I need to go into with that. So I'd say it starts with us growing up and then growing out. And I think the growing up step is often missed, and it really pays huge dividends down the back

Eric 8:54
end for our listeners. And for me, what's, what's the growing out,

Wendy 8:58
growing out is the horizontal piece of leadership. That's the things you do. Well, that's the thing you do, right? So you're who you become, yeah, so it's like you just mentioned Eric being organized to prevent clarity around goals, or maybe that's your meeting rhythms. These are all the things that are very important that we do. Yes, we want to do those in a way that's aligned with who we want to be, who we want to be as a leader. Does that make sense? So we want to spend time growing up,

Speaker 1 9:24
growing up, growing Yes, in our leadership role, which is a continuous journey, yeah, yeah. That's a great framework to keep in mind for me when I think about empowering, mine is going to be a little simpler than yours, Chris, but I think it, it very much aligns with your framework. I think about that word every day, like when I walk into the office, when I'm jumping onto a teams call. How am I going to empower people? But I don't that's not what I'm not using that framework. I think about what am I giving away today? Am I giving away resources, time, ideas, inspiration? Motivation, vision, clarity. But so for me, my statement is, you know, in my back pocket, so to speak, is, what are you giving

Wendy 10:07
away today? I love I love that Wendy. And so I don't think that's actually all that dissimilar. I think the reason it's so important for us to think about who we want to be and how we want to be is that's, it's actually kind of easy to do on your way to work or sitting on a podcast. It's harder to do in the moment. Yes, that's true. So once you're clear on on your wanting to empower What am I giving away, you can access that when you're going into a difficult conversation. So it's one thing to think about on the way into work, but now you know you're gonna go have that. Going to go have that conversation where you know what, some performance challenges. How can I go into that in the right mindset? So if we're clear about who we want to be and how we want to be, it's actually when we're about to enter a space. I use this as an example. I've thought about this in parenting when my daughter was born, what kind of What kind of father do I want to be? Right? And I had my reasons for where I put this thought into it, and how this works for me is so I'll tell her one of the things that's really important, because I want to scare my daughter. I'm six foot eight, right? Deep voice, and I had a short fuse 14 years ago. That could be scary. So when I'm when she frustrates me because she does sometimes, as I'm heading towards her room or her space, I think, what kind of what do I want for her? Right? And that helps get me in the right mindset, right? So you saying, What am I giving away? Gets you in the right frame of mind, the might mindset to enter that space. And what I would suggest to our listeners is that's important always, but particularly in those stressful times. Yes. What do I want? Yes. And connecting these two pieces, we talked about our impact last podcast. So what do I want? What's my impact? All of us have a bit of a gap. Yes, let's just do what we can to close the gap the best as possible. And there's gonna be times when we don't and when we don't, let's own it

Eric 12:00
own, it, right, grow from it. For me, I think about closing the gap. I It's very nice to say I want to empower more. I want to, you know, I want to be, for me, more organized. You want to be congruent, yep, for me to get there, I actually have to be much more specific. The word organized sounds wonderful, but it's not specific. You know, it calls to mind the frame, the SMART framework, SMART goals, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound, right, right, specific, measurable. And I would add I need accountability in there somewhere. Somebody else needs to know that I'm doing this. I want to do this thing, that I have these specific goals, and they need to ask me about it, because when I see on my calendar that I'm having a meeting with that person who's going to ask me that, guess what I do? I prepare. I work at that thing. So I've set myself some leadership goals for the next five years. I have a coach that I meet with every three to four weeks, and she asks me about those things, and I have to make a plan, and she has no real power over my life other than to ask me a question. But when it's specific, it's something that I can actually do to say I want to be organized. I can't do organized but what I can do is I can work with other people in the organization to help create this system and that system, and I can get very specific about what I need to do. And that specificity helps me close the gap between where I am now and where I want to be in the future.

Wendy 13:37
That's so powerful. And how do you work accountability into that, which is key. Because I think going through that reflection of who you want to be and how you want to show up is really powerful. And I will say there's two simple questions, by the way, that people would ask to get clear on this. First is, think about the people you're responsible for and say, What do I want for them? What do I want for them? What do I want for them? As people, your answer are going to be unique. They're gonna be your own piece. But be clear on that. And also, the next question becomes, how do I want to be experienced by them, or what would I want their experience of me to be like? And get really, really clear on those two pieces. Okay, okay. Now this is important. So you could sharing with your coach. Is great. What if you shared your leadership goals with the people you're leading? Yes, right? So I just use the example of being scared. I use that as I'll just use that example if I talk to my daughter and say, my intention is not to scare you all, she needs to say to me in a moment, is, you're scaring me. Brings us right back. So if you have a goal around being organized, and I know this as one of your direct reports, and the moment you're giving me something that's not clear, like Eric, this doesn't feel very organized to me, right, that would be a cue to you to just slow right down, right? You know I'm getting because you would hear it because it's meaningful for you. So if we can make those answer those questions, those answers. Come from you. Be honest with yourself. Don't, don't, don't write the leader you wish you were. You think a book should tell you, what do you really want for them, and how do you really want to be experienced, and then share it. And then, if you build on your word, truly empower people to actually speak up when they aren't experiencing that, that's pure gold at that point?

Speaker 1 15:21
Yeah, I think that sharing piece is often overlooked and missed. I'm thinking about someone who is new to our team, and he's in the process of being onboarded, and when we met for the very first time, when he was in his official capacity, we shared what our aspirations were for our roles and also our preferred work styles and what our values were, and I shared. My role is to empower you to do this job. This is what it looks like for a year. These are all the things that we're going to work through. I want to empower you to be able to do all of these things. So you need to be asking me, and I need to be asking you, How can we move through this? And so that conversation, that accountability piece, can look how are my experience? But also, am I meeting up to your expectations that I've told you I want to live out right?

Eric 16:18
Nice, yeah, yeah. And what you're talking about again, Wendy, then to build on what Chris is saying, you then got specific and measurable over a year. These are the thing I want to empower you. You use that word, and these are the things that I want to do with you over the next year, how we're going to go about them. And you can ask me about this. Please do right? So we've taken the Who do you want, how do you want? What do you want for your people? What's your question? How do you want to be experienced? That's right, okay. And then you can ask me about it. Please. Ask me about it. Here's the plan, Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, time, bound and accountable, yeah.

Wendy 16:58
And going back to what we're talking about sharing it with the people that are you're leading is, is one key for accountability. And have someone like a coach or someone where there isn't a power differential, yeah, that will give you the straight goods as well, because there might be the moments like, hey, got everything needed, Yep, yeah. Really, yeah, yep, yeah. There's different. So it's a bit of both. And then you're you stick to the word congruent. If what you're hearing from your coach, what you're hearing from your employees, aligns, that's congruent, if you're hearing something from your coach, that's different, okay, maybe I need to check it out. Okay, and we're trying to close that gap. Excellent. Very intent to Becca, so

Eric 17:36
we need to wrap up today's episode on how do you get from where you are to where you want to be. I'm wondering, Wendy, you summarized last time. Chris, could you give us a quick summary for our listeners, one, two or three things that they can think about as they go out to their work.

Wendy 17:52
Sure, the first is, let's get really clear on who we want to be as leader and how we want to show up. So what do I want for the people I'm responsible for, and how do I want to be experienced? The next is to be make sure we are doing the things we can do to bring that about, right? So what are the actual actions that we can do to be the leader that we want to be? And that includes holding ourselves accountable by sharing the leader we want to be with those in our circle, whether that's direct reports, coaches or peers, and then the third and this links back to we talked about last pay attention to the impact. What are the cues that are going on there that give you insight to whether what you intend and how you're being impacted, if those are aligned or concurrent, and if there's a gap, and all of us have one, what are the things that we can do to close that gap, to minimize it so it's more of a little fracture, as opposed to a chasm?

Eric 18:47
Nice, very nice. Thanks for that, and that takes us to the end of our show today. If you like what you heard, please give us some feedback, like share do all those things with social media and send us your questions. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for the show, and we'll see you next time. Awesome. You.

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