Are You An Agency Manager or an Agency Leader?

Welcome back to another episode of the Agent Leader Podcast. My name is Brent Kelly. I'm honored that you are with me on today's episode. And like all of the Agent Leader podcast episode, it's designed to help you as an agency leader. And my mentor, John Maxwell always states, leadership is influence. If you have influence in your insurance agency, well, this is the place for you. And really to help you gain clarity to. To build consistency in your agency and ultimately to make a commitment to yourself and your team to become your best version possible. And on today's podcast episode, I've titled this, are you an agency manager or are you an agency leader? And you may be thinking about that title. Well, this podcast name is the Agent Leader Podcast. He's gonna side on the side of agency leader. And you're kind of right, but you're also not quite right. If that is your think your response is going to be for my question. You know, I think when it comes to agency management and agency leadership, and you can go and look at definitions of leadership and definitions of management out there, that doesn't have to be an either or, like, you know, you're either an agency manager or leader, but it should be more of a both and that we need to have both characteristics. Now, let me preface that by saying you may not be the right person to do both. Okay, maybe you are, or maybe you're a small enough agency. You've got to do some of that, and certainly there is some crossover. But ultimately, from an overall agency health perspective, you've got to have both management and leadership working together. You know, I just got back last week from a producer fit program. That's our sales training with the Sitkins Group. And it's always fun to go back and talk to sales producers. I've done a lot of private coaching over several weeks with our agency leaders, and I love that. And talking about leadership of the agency and strategy and things they need to be doing and accountability behind that. But to get back in just a true sales. And it, it takes me back to my experience as a commercial line sales producer. I worked 15 years as a producer in two different agencies. And like every agencies, they have strengths and weaknesses. But as I was beginning to think about, you know, my experiences and talking to sales producers and kind of some of the frustrations and challenges they face in working within an agency, it really all came together as I was reading through for the second time. One of my favorite books out right now is called Leadership by John Maxwell. Of course, John's written almost 100 books, I think, at this point, but leadership. And in one of the chapters of leadership, it's about talking about how we move from pleasing people to challenging people. That great leadership is really about both care and candor. That in one aspect, we have to make sure that we're truly valuing people, that we care for them, that we offer comfort, that we make the environment and the team pleasant. But we also need to have candor, where we're able to tell people the truth when we need to tell them the truth. That, you know, we bring out the strengths, that we offer challenges, that we look to make the team and the agency more productive. And he has a great analogy of this, and you just think about this is that, you know, care and candor are like two wings of an airplane. You can't just have one or the other. It doesn't work. You got to have both. And he states in the book that care without candor creates a dysfunctional relationship. Candor without care creates distant relationships. But when you put those two together, when it's balanced, it creates developing relationships. So I want to talk about today, in this episode, about care versus candor. But really, are you an agency manager or are you an agency leader? When we do our. It's called CRO fit Chief Revenue Officer, FIT Program for sales managers. This is part of our private client group. We do intense trainings and coaching with sales leaders. We bring up on the screen, and I know you don't. This is an audio podcast, but just imagine for a second two circles, two overlapping circles. And on the left circle, it's monitor and accountability. So monitoring and accountability. And in the right circle, it's about mentoring and coaching. And in the middle, these circles overlap. And as you can imagine, we want to be somewhere in the middle. We want these circles to overlap, that we have both monitoring accountability so that people are doing what they said they were going to do and that we're monitoring those things so that we know we are getting results. And on the other side, we need mentoring and coaching, that we're building up people, that we're providing them. Right. Guidance and tools and resources and helping them move faster than they could on their own. Right? That's great. Mentoring and coaching. And then somewhere in the middle is we have this magic. And, you know, when we talk with agencies about that, people typically side to one or the other go, yeah, I'm really good at mentoring and coaching, but not so good at monitoring accountability. And that probably, quite honestly, is about four out of five agency leaders we talk to come from that perspective, because they were probably a producer in their past life or still producing or they had that sales background. So they like to monitor, they like to mentor, they like to coach, but they don't want to hold people accountable and they don't want to be monitoring what's going on. But does that mean it's not important? Well, no. We still need to know our numbers. And we always say at SID that numbers are simply the outcome of behaviors and strategies. So we need to know our numbers. We got to have targets to go for. There's got to be some goal in mind. But we also need to not worry about just the numbers, but the strategies and the behaviors and the habits that get us to those numbers. And so I want to talk about both sides of these, I guess, of this equation of management and leadership, share some of my perspectives, some of the things that I've learned, and also what I hear from other agency leaders, because I have the opportunity to learn so much from agency leaders across the country. And then at the end, just talk a little bit about what's the next step for you as an agency leader? Where do you need to be aware what's most important or what are some things that you can do to try to find that place in the middle, those two circles to be most effective and help your agency to be profitable, to be productive, to build culture, get results, all the things that agency leaders are looking for. So we look at management and leadership. Again, I don't think this is a management versus leadership, although I will say this, and I think this is true, not every leader is a manager, which is true. And this is my perspective. I don't have a lot of manager skills in my blood, but every manager does have to show leadership, right? And I think we've got to have both. But it's important to note that. So let's start just at the top of management and leadership. I think management typically is more of a positional type of philosophy. And, you know, if you've heard my podcast before, I believe that leadership is influence. It's not about title. It's not about position. But we do have to have someone in position. We got to have somebody who's writing the check and someone who's looking at some of the numbers and data. We got to have someone who's identifying targets and achieving deadlines. And so management really is about a positional type of structure where leadership, again, is influence. And, you know, leaders are rarely appointed, but we know who they are. And I can tell you I've been In agencies. And I've been part of agencies to where maybe the president or the CEO or the agency principal or the sales manager, I don't care whatever title that someone was given or gave themselves. But when people are seeking out mentors and help and coaching and solutions, they go to somebody else because that's the person who has influence. And so leadership is influence. And the question is, is that where you're at or is it more of a positional management type of philosophy? I think managers are really good at measuring things. They're good at getting things done by people. People become a conduit of how to measure and monitor some of these results. And we got to make sure we keep everything on track. Where leadership is about moving people, again, you've got to have both, right? We got to measure what's going on in the agency. But I also believe we need people in the agency that are leaders who get things done through people that understand the team's strengths and the weaknesses and maximize those strengths and ask people the tough questions and empower them and equip them and motivate them and mentor them in ways that help them get further than what they would on their own. That's development and that's leadership. We look at management, it's a lot about plans, right? Planning. We have agreed upon plans and we have to look at progress and the expectations in any given point of time of where we're at. It's about having a plan. And I think all agencies need a plan. In fact, we work with agencies specifically on a one page business plan. The leadership side of things is about performance, not just the plan. It's about performance. It's helping people be more focused on these specific objectives day to day. They need to do. Again, habits and behaviors lead to the outcome. So it's about performance. Management is much about efficiency. It's about how do I maximize what we have? That's a good thing. It's about maybe looking at ways to cut costs and maybe looking at ways to add things that make us better. It's about things being on time, on budget, high quality efficiency. Whereas the leadership side of things is not as much about efficiency, but it's about people, right? That where are people at? How can I work with people? What are their specific challenges, what are their difficulties, what are their obstacles? And understanding that we can need to work through people. And last thing I want to share on this is that I think managers are by nature very tactical. It's about the task and the schedule and we got to check the boxes. I am not naturally a check the box person. That's not my nature. But guess what? The boxes need to be checked. So I've made sure that I surround myself in my awareness and my own personal example and the fact that who can I surround myself with that'll make sure the boxes are checked? Leaders are more strategic, right? We want to understand that we're moving in the right direction. That do we really. Are we really clear on the vision and the mission of the agency? And are we doing the things strategically to get us to where we need to go? At the end of the day, I really believe that management is about completion. It's about completion and leadership is about vision. And again, you're going to have qualities that are going to overlap. You're not all or none. You're not 100% leader and no manager or 100% manager, no leader. You're going to have some crossover, just like in personalities. But I would ask you the question, are you better at the art or science of leadership? If you're better at the science of leadership, meaning it's looking at numbers and making sure things are efficient and measuring things, you've got to manage your tendency. If you're better at the art of leadership, inspiring people, motivating people, leading people to become better versions of themselves, well then you've got a leadership nature, leadership mindset. And it's not right or wrong. We're all wired differently. But what does all this mean to you as an agency leader? Well, hopefully first of all, you got you just thinking about, maybe you haven't thought about that before. I don't know what I am. Let me think about that. Because what will happen is when you have greater self awareness, you may realize, why are we bottlenecked in certain areas? Why are we stuck in certain areas? Well, probably because of me. Right. And that's a big challenge to lay down. But it's also an opportunity because when you realize that, you can open up some doors. So are you better at the science or art of leadership? And the question that I would ask you, it's not always the question of what and how. We see this happen often with agencies that get stuck is that they get to a point and they can't figure out why they can't grow, why they can't accelerate the results that they've been getting. Well, it's often because they get to a point where they're asking the question of what do we need to do? How do we need to do it? And the question they really should be asking is who? Who is the right person for this in any kind of role? And I can tell you, we've had some agencies that have figured this out that got to a point and the agency leader goes, wait a second, I don't like all this management stuff. I'm not good at it. It doesn't bring me energy, it doesn't bring me joy. It's not helping the team. I need to find someone who's really good at it. I'm really good at strategy or vision. I'm really good at helping people see things in themselves and challenging people in different ways but not the other. Or vice versa. You go, you know what? I don't like all the people stuff, but I love behind the scenes looking at numbers and doing that. But I've got to find someone in my agency that's going to inspire and lead our team. Because without vision, the people will perish. I'm sure you've heard before. So just take this and think about it and where you're at. Again, are you an agency manager or are you an agency leader? And maybe you're some hybrid in the middle. Only you can answer that question, but it goes back to what I said at the beginning. It's balancing care and candor. Care and candor both need to be part of your agency leadership. Thanks so much for listening to this episode. I appreciate having you on and if this podcast and other podcasts that I've delivered have given value to you and helped you in any way. I love a review and a rating on itunes or wherever you're listening to this podcast and also share it with somebody if you know other agency leaders out there. Again, I have a passion and our group at Sitkins has a passion to help agencies and agency leaders gain greater clarity and build consistent habits that help them win and ultimately make a commitment to themselves and to others to become their best version possible. Also, lastly, if you're interested in learning more about what we do and what I do at Sitkins and helping agencies, go to sitkins.com, love a chance to talk with you at some point and we have a private client group that continues to fill. It's exciting to watch more and more agencies hop on board and and be able to work with them and talk about their planning and talk about specific strategies they need to use and of course be able to network with their peers across the country. So I appreciate your listenership. I appreciate your support. Excited too to know that. Let you know coming up here pretty quickly in the next I would say couple months, we'll get them recorded and released. Gonna be having interviews with many of our private client group and just talk about their experience and share their perspective on leadership, what's working, what's not working, and some things that they can share with the audience. So looking forward to that as well. Until next time, all the best. And your success.