MBA858 Are You A Good Enough Leader?

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This is what we're going to get into in today's lesson. For me, I've been in leadership roles before. In the past, even before I was an entrepreneur, I've led large teams as a head of department when I was working for higher education. But we all know there's a lot less at stake personally when you're hired to do a job versus you're creating jobs as a business owner. And I've been learning this firsthand in the last three years as our business webinar Ninja has been growing. Growing from a team of two, me and my co founder Nicole, to a team of 17 people today. And we're going to be about a team of 20 in about a month as we're going to be making some new hires. And the more we grow as a business, as a company, the more important it is for me to be an effective leader of our team. And this is what I want to share with you today, how to be a more effective leader. Now, I have a different perspective about this. A leader is not a boss. I see it as an attitude. Leadership is really a set of personal characteristics. Now this is good news because you could develop personal characteristics. Some people think that great leaders are born. I believe that they're developed. Some of us are like type A. We're more inclined to kind of take a leadership role. But it doesn't mean those who don't have that inclination can't learn it. And even those that are natural, quote, unquote leaders. Wanting to be the leader is not enough to be a great leader. You have to cultivate these characteristics. So in today's lesson, you're going to learn how to cultivate the right personal characteristics to be a better leader today and for the future of your business. These are the characteristics I identified in my own growth as a leader. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Now we all want to be a great leader for our business because we know that the better we lead, the better our business will be. And I'm going to give you some great examples of how that really manifests in the real world with our own business. But you can't just wish for something and it just happens. You have to work on it. You have to build these personal characteristics I'm going to be talking about today. Now there are other characteristics of a great leader, but I believe that these are the most important ones. These are eight personal characteristics I really encourage you to work on and I'll show you why they're so important. Let's start with number one, self confidence. Self confidence is built by mastering significant skills and situations and by knowing that you can add real value by the work you do. One of the best ways to improve your self confidence is to be more aware about all the things you've already achieved to reflect on the wins you've had in the past. When we feel confident in a situation, it's because we've already seen it before. We know how to handle it, we know how to take care of it. If you're driving to a location you've been before a few times, you're pretty confident about how to get there. You probably don't even need the navigation on. That's because you have history, you feel confident, you know you've done it before. Now it's important to understand yourself better, to build self confidence, understanding who you are, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are. From there, you can begin to make the most out of your strengths and at least be aware of your weaknesses. I'm a big believer that you should really double down on your strengths. There are certain things that you're going to be strong at, and it's best for you to just focus on those and really make it your forte, to really make it your superpower. Now, there are weaknesses, but you can work on them if you like. You want to shore up your weaknesses, but they're never going to be as good as your strengths. So in my opinion, it's good to be aware of your weakness where you're not so great at. Why? So you can find other people to do those things, people that those are their strengths. Knowing where your weaknesses are allows you to get somebody to go in and take over in those areas. So personal characteristic number one is self confidence. Confidence is contagious. The rest of your team, your teammates, the people that you manage, people that you lead will notice the confidence and they sure will notice the lack of confidence. So be aware of that. All right? Personal characteristic number two, a positive attitude and outlook. A positive mindset is also associated with strong leadership. Why? Because your business can't afford not to have it. However, being positive is much more than just presenting, you know, a happy face, a smile on your face. You need to develop a strong sense of balance and recognize that setbacks in your business are gonna happen, problems will happen. It's how you deal with those problems, with those challenges that makes the difference. I mentioned this a lot on the podcast, but I'll mention it again. One of my favorite books is the Obstacles the Way by Ryan Holiday. It talks about how you have to have obstacles and challenges in your business in order for you to grow, to succeed, to take it to the next level. And the book is just a great reminder of how to do that and how to approach that, how to have that mindset. You see, positive people approach situations realistically and are prepared to make the changes necessary to overcome the problem. Negative people, on the other hand, often given to stress and the pressure of the situation. Now, this can lead to fear, worry, distress, anger, and ultimately failure, not only for yourself, but for your whole team. They're all going to experience these things. Fear and worry and distress. You see your team that you're leading, they look to you to gauge the Mood or the climate of the organization. If you remain cool and collected, so will they. If you're panicked, the stress levels of your business will spread like wildfire. And this is applicable even if you have a remote team like ours where you may not be working in the same office, but everything you do and say and communicate will have that tinch to it. But everything you say and do and communicate will either have that stress in it or not. So be very aware of that. All right, number three, the third personal characteristic of a great leader, emotional intelligence. This is often known as eq, some people call soft skills or character or even communication skills. But the bottom line is that EQ is the ability to recognize feelings, your own feelings and the others around you, and how to manage those emotions to create strong relationships. It's also the idea that not everybody is the same. Some people respond to different ways, to different things, and that's great. That means you have diversity in your team. Part of being a great leader is being a great listener, being an empathetic listener. This really helps you understand the people on your team and their perspectives. Also helps you understand their strengths and where you can apply their skills, where it works best for your business. This is kind of like a coach. They know which players do what well and puts them in those positions so they could succeed, so the whole team can succeed. Now, EQ is one of those things that takes time to develop. This is something that I've been working on for a long time. I'm a very driven person, a very competitive person. I want to win, and sometimes I got to hit the brakes and just evaluate how everybody's feeling and their perspectives on what's going on before we just move forward. I got to make sure that my thoughts, my leadership is being communicated properly and is delivered properly in the right way to everybody who's on the team. All right, number four, fourth characteristic. You need to be able to offer a compelling vision of the future of your business. This is your ability as the leader of your business to create a robust and compelling vision of the future and to present this vision in a way that inspires the people you lead. So you gotta give them the vision, but you gotta inspire them and make them understand the vision very well. So in order to do this, you have to have a thorough knowledge of the area that you're operating in. This includes your market, the clients you serve, the customers you serve, and your team, the people that you're working with. And then finally, to sell your vision, you need to be able to craft a Compelling and interesting story. You might be thinking. Story. Yeah, a story. The story of what world you want you and your team to be striving to build together. What are you working towards? What is a team building together? What's the common goal? This needs to be crystal clear and communicated regularly. Nicole, my co founder at Webinar Ninja, she is in charge. She's the leader when it comes to customer satisfaction. She leads the customer service team along with the customer service manager. And that vision of what kind of experience we want our customers to have is always being communicated. We want to wow our customers every single time they contact us, every single time they have any kind of interaction or experience with us. So it's not a once and done thing. You have to constantly communicate it. Now, the fifth characteristic goes along with this. You have to have a clear vision and communicate it. But you got to motivate people to deliver the vision. It's not enough for you just to communicate it vividly. You got to motivate the people around you to make sure they actually deliver. It's your job. It's your job as the leader to be able to convince others to accept the objectives you've set. They have to buy in. They have to say, yes, I'm in for this task, I'm in for this journey. It's a good idea to emphasize teamwork. It's not one person's job, it's everybody's job. And recognize that when people work together, they can achieve great things. Ultimately, your job as the leader of your business is to motivate people to deliver your vision. That's what entrepreneurs do. They have a vision. They want to create something in the world, and they need a team to do it to help them make it happen. It's not just something we talk about once. It's something that we reiterate. We motivate people and get them on board. They got to feel a part of it. They got to feel that they have a stake in this business. And I'm not talking about monetarily. I'm talking about in terms of achieving the goal, taking pride and ownership over what's happening. All right, now, the sixth characteristic I want to share with you about being a great leader is being a good role model. Good leaders lead by example. A leader goes first. They do what they say and they say what they do. These type of leaders are trustworthy. They show integrity. They get involved in daily work, and they stay in touch with what's happening throughout the organization. Great leaders don't just sit around in the office and give orders. They demonstrate the actions and the values they expect from the team. And this doesn't mean that you're not empowering your teammates. They need to do their job. They need to do what they're hired to do. And you're not supposed to be micromanaging here, but you have a job as a leader. And. And when you do your job, you're leading by example. For example, if you're building a software like we've built with Webinar Ninja, it's my job as the leader to shape what this is supposed to do, what's the goal of the software, what we're trying to accomplish, even some of the major features we need to have. I need to communicate that I got to come up with that. And I got a model behavior I want from my team. I got to go first. I got to show this is exactly the way I expect everybody else to be in my team. I gotta deliver. I gotta be on time. I gotta communicate. I gotta be professional about it. Can't ask people to do things that I don't do myself. You see, a leader just can't rely on a position alone. By keeping current, by staying relevant within your organization, within your team, you'll inspire people because you're worthy of the power and the authority that you have. Not just because you're their boss and you pay their bills, but because you inspire them, because they want to be led by you. Because you know what? They haven't seen leadership like that before, or they really just appreciate the fact that. That you are leading. I know in the past, when I was working in education, I had some leaders that I really didn't respect. Now I really wasn't motivated in my job because I wasn't learning. And I couldn't respect the people that are supposed to be my leaders because there weren't great leaders. But when you do have somebody that is willing to lead, you're happy to work for them, you're happy to deliver because they inspire you to take your job seriously. Because they take their job seriously. And that's why it's so important to be a good role model as a leader. Okay? Does this happen to anybody else? You sit down with a juicy QPC, some McNuggets, and those gold golden fries from McDonald's. Then you take a long sip of your Sprite because you can still hear your mama saying, don't fill up on that drink before you eat your food. But you're grown now, so you do what you want. Share and share alike with the 20 piece McNuggets from McDonald's for just $6. Limited time only. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer. If your team isn't using ClickUp, you're wasting time and data proves it 61% of knowledge workers manage work more than doing it. Switching apps a times a day, that's work sprawl and costs millions. ClickUp replaces 20 apps with convergence, uniting projects, docs and chats while AI super agents handle the busy work. Join 4 million teams using ClickUp to finish work 30% faster, try it free and get 15% off AI upgrades@ClickUp.com podcast that's C-L-C-K-U P.com podcast We have two more personal characteristics of a great leader that I want to share with you and then I'm going to give you a great example of how I'm trying to use these characteristics in my own business. Number seven Managing performance effectively. Effective leaders manage performance by setting their expectations clearly and concisely. People need to know what it takes to win. What do they have to do to win? It's much easier to get high performance when people know what is expected of them. Kind of makes sense, right? When things are clearly laid out, when they know what to do, what a great job looks like, there's very little uncertainty. Therefore, you can deal with performance issues quickly. As you create rules and procedures, you help your team understand why the procedures are there. Involve them in the procedure making process. Make sure they know that your expectations align with the resources and support that you make available. You got to give them the tools so they can win. You got to give them the tools so they can actually meet your expectations. But it's really important for you to make it crystal clear what winning looks like in your business, what they need to do to be an exceptional team member. All right, last but not least, number eight. The eighth characteristic that makes a great leader is providing support and what I call stimulation. To be highly motivated at work, people need more than just a list of tasks to be completed each day. They need more than just a to do list. They need challenges. They need interesting work. They need to develop their skills. They need to feel like they're being pushed a little, but they need to feel like they're being supported in their efforts so they can do a good job. Think about your approach to task allocation. Look at the opportunities that match people with jobs and responsibilities that will help them grow and develop. Remember that emotional support is also important. We're human beings. We need to feel valued, we need to feel significant. Don't forget to praise your team generously. Don't let anyone tell you that you can over praise. That's baloney. Praise is balanced with direction and feedback. We'll make some mistakes along the way and that's okay. That's where you give feedback. We gotta praise them for going for it, for trying, for taking a little bit of a risk. I often have these conversations with our designer Arina who designs our UX and UI for weaponry Ninja. She does a fantastic job. I have to praise her because it's just really good work. But I have to give her feedback. I got to tell her, you know, this is what the users are looking for. In my experience, this is what's going to work. We need to make a change here, a tweak here. Sometimes I push her, I say, you know what, that's a great design, but I think you could do better. Let's try that again. And she goes at it again and she thanks me that I pushed her because she feels like she's growing. So there you have it. Those are the eight characteristics. Self confidence, a positive attitude and outlook. Emotional intelligence, offering a compelling vision of the future. Motivating people to deliver the vision. Being a good role model. Managing performance effectively and providing support and stimulation. Now, full disclosure here. I'm not a perfect leader, but I know what kind of leader I am. I'm self aware of what my strengths are and what I'm capable of. And that's the goal here. That's the goal for you to know what you're capable of and to know what characteristics you need to take on. Let me give you an example. We are currently working on our next major update for webinar Ninja, our webinar platform. This is a huge project. This is something we've been working on for over a year. We have re engineered the platform from the ground up. And one of our biggest challenges is working towards a launch deadline. It's my job as a leader to follow all these characteristics, to take them on so all the team members are on track and no time is wasted. I have to be confident, I have to believe. I have to believe we can do the things that I've set out to do with this new platform. You see, this is where confidence comes in. If you as a leader don't really believe you can accomplish the task at hand, the team will pick up on that. You have to have no doubt. They will look to you to know what's possible along the way. As we're building this update, I have to share the vision with our designers and developers. I have to motivate and support them with timely feedback, give them feedback on how they're doing than on the actual production of the job, the production or the creation of the software. I have to have a plan in place so they know exactly what's next always. And follow up and make sure they don't have any questions along the way. Again, we got to launch on time. There's no time to waste. There's no time for me to be expecting people to understand and to under communicate. As a leader, your job is to have a clear vision. The work we all have to do as a team, as a business is a whole lot easier if the team knows what the end result is supposed to look like. Just like a puzzle, you need to know what the image actually is that you're trying to put together. My job and your job is to paint that image every day. And that's a lot of work. But that's the point. Now, what I've learned in the past three years growing this business, Webinar Ninja, is your job as the leader of your business has less to do with doing actual tasks and a whole lot more to do with leading the team of people that you've empowered to do what they're best at. Your job is to lead. Are you actively leading every day? That wraps up today's lesson. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you found it useful. Guys, I'm really trying, as you could see, to go really deep with these lessons to give you everything you need to do well. And because the show's a little bit longer now, I'm able to do that. Now I mentioned in today's lesson that we're launching a whole new platform with Webinar Ninja re engineered from the ground up. It's so exciting. It's so incredible. I can barely keep my excitement contained. You know, it's really amazing what we're going to be releasing and I want to talk about it in next week's episode. I'm going to talk about how do you relaunch a product? You know, we've had this product for three years now and we reinvented it and we're relaunching it. It's really a new product now. How do you do that? How do you re educate your users? How do you re educate the public? How do you create that buzz and excitement again? What are some of the things you need to consider like price or branding or your messaging on your sales copy? What about timing? What about your launch goals? What about grandfathering? Your current users? What does it mean for your current users? How are they affected? How do you communicate all of that to the public and to your current users? All of that in next week's episode, make sure you tune in. Make sure you subscribe so you get it automatically. Thanks again for tuning in. Thanks again for subscribing and leaving the ratings and reviews on itunes. I'm really loving this new format. I'm really loving the ability, really, to go deep in these lessons. All right, I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. But before that, I want to leave you with this. There's one thing I want to remind you of when it comes to leadership, and it's really a reminder for myself, first and foremost, being leader doesn't mean you always have to be right. It just means that you're driven to get the right answer. Even if that answer comes from somebody else on your team. Somebody comes up with a better idea than yours, or a better approach or a better solution, that's fine. That's a win for everybody. Your job is not to be right every time. Your job is to make sure you come up with the right solution with all the resources you have, and your team will respect you for that. When you say, hey, you know what? That's a better idea, or I'm wrong and you're right, or let's take that feedback on because it's really useful. Alright, I'll check you in next week's episode. Can't wait. See you then. Take care. Of. Hi, I'm Katie Duke and I've been a nurse for over 20 years. 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