Claim OwnershipUnlocking Leadership Through Authentic Communication
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© Kristen Lena
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Unlocking Leadership Through Authentic Communication
75 Episodes
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If you go into a conversation with someone thinking it’s going to be confrontational, you’ve already lost the mindset game. Even though you’re a leader, you’re still a partner with your team. The moment you have a conversation that is anything less than acting like a partner, nothing will get better. In fact, you’ll probably get further from your goal, or at the very least it will take you longer to achieve it and it probably won’t turn out as great as it could have been. In this episode, I help you have successful conversations regardless of how your teammate shows up.
With good intentions, many leaders are so concerned about getting buy-in from the employee they are giving feedback to, that the conversation ends without discussing the real work to be done. Yes…we want the employee to understand there is a performance concern. BUT…that’s not the point of the meeting. The point of the meeting is to work together to solve the concern. In this episode, I show you how your mindset is the catalyst to getting “buy-in” and set you up to conduct a meeting with genuine interest to understand and collaborate with your team members to breed success.
Sometimes people put us in crappy positions. They don’t mean to but more likely than not, they’re afraid of making a decision and then saddle you with it. Is it fair? No. Does it happen? More than we realize. Does it have to cause emotional turmoil? No. Not if you follow these simple six steps. You can preserve a relationship, solve a problem and uphold all your standards at the same time.
Have you ever wondered how some people who are still pleasant to be around are respected all the time? They create standards throughout each area of their life. I’m going to give you some examples of standards/boundaries/expectations in some areas of my life and even share with you the foundation of standards I require in all my relationships. It comes in handy because once you figure out what your standards are, communicate them and hold people accountable, the “right” people seem to stay in your life and the wrong people exit stage left. 🙂
What do you do when two employees have a falling out and you don’t want to lose the talent? Hopefully you’re comfortable with conflict because in this episode, I’m going to show you how I recommend leaders steer employees who are allergic to conflict through situations where they actually have to talk with each other and resolve their differences.
In this episode, I give you the scariest piece of advice that I give to every leader I coach. This piece of advice allows you to help those on your team and those you partner with to be the most successful. When you do this well you also develop great relationships with those you practice it with. And finally, there is a sense of total freedom to you as a leader. Here, I give you an example of how to do this scary thing well. If your intentions are good, you can’t go wrong and even if it doesn’t go how you’d like it to, congratulations, there’s always tomorrow to try it again. I have faith in you. You’ve got this.
If you’re communicating, you’re giving and receiving feedback. You can’t avoid it. It doesn’t matter if you’re emailing, talking on the phone, or standing in front of someone, messages are being sent and received constantly. But how do you avoid giving crappy feedback and what’s the formula for good feedback? Listen in as I share tips on how to give feedback so we’re not out there crushing souls. Instead, we’re out there partnering with people and inspiring them to accomplish things they may have never thought were possible.
I recently had a conversation with a leader who was spiraling. They were worried about what the future held for them based on a situation that didn’t have a clear answer. I’m going to share with you what I told this leader and what I often say just in different words, to people I care about so they know I’m on their side. You don’t want to miss this. These big words carry big responsibilities and rewards.
I share with you one of the meanest (unintentionally of course) things a leader can do to their team members. It’s all about feedback or lack there of. In this episode I give you examples of what happens when we don’t give the feedback that we should. Then, I help you shift your mindset to give feedback in a way that breeds trust and sets the employee up for success.
Leadership is only as hard as you make it. In this episode, I’m going to help you shift your mindset so you can identify how some of your most “challenging” employees operate, what they’re really communicating when they behave how they do and how you can work with them to leverage their talent, educate them, and organically create the type of team that accomplishes goals and works seamlessly.
Stop trying to force yourself into positions, teams and organizations who are too small for you. What do I mean by that? Well I can right away when I’m working with a team whether or not they are operating under antiquated principals that don’t serve them, on pace with the world or looking forward to what’s next. I can also tell whether I’m going to have to drag a team along, be able to collaborate with like minds or be floored by the innovation that far exceeds my own. The question is, what table do I want to sit at? You have a choice. I’m going to help you set yourself up so you can quickly tell if the choices in front of you are a great fit or if you need to keep looking…and it’s remarkably simple.
This episode is the reason I started this podcast. It’s all about communication being genuine. And the genuine communication, coupled with the interest in the person being successful helps with collaboration. And guess what? Collaboration under these circumstances truly solves problems AND develops strong relationships between you and your team members. Check this episode out and make having conversations like I demonstrate here your new standard practice.
How do high performing teams spend less time on emotions and more time on performing? I believe it has to do with the leader clearly communicating what the team can expect from their leader and what the leader in turn expects from their team. The leader’s job is to model what they commit to and hold the team accountable for reciprocating. This shifts the team from being emotional to taking action and feeling supported. In this episode, I show you how to get there.
It’s not rocket science. You need to do the thing to get the results. Nothing else will get you the results. In this episode, I give you three practical recommendations you can start using today to gain credibility and get results. And the best part? They’re not even hard.
Don’t let employees waste your time by asking you to have their conversations for them. In this episode, I’m empowering you as a leader to push back and have your employees resolve their own issues instead of putting you in the middle of them. After all, they have the grown-up title, the grown-up pay and the grown-up responsibilities. Now they get to use their grown-up words to maintain their own professional relationships on the job.
You can still say “no” to an employee and walk away with your relationship intact. But in order for this to happen, you, as a leader, must come to the table prepared to talk…not defend…but truly talk and problem solve. I’m going to show you how to overcome two of the biggest objections leaders give when it comes to approving requests. Make these simple adjustments and whether you can help your employee or not, they’ll see you as an advocate and not just the decision maker.
One of the worst situations a leader can be in is having to choose between losing an employee if they aren’t promoted or promoting an underprepared employee into a role they’ll likely fail in. Here, I go over why I NEVER recommend promoting people before they’re ready. I give you the steps and solid verbiage for how you can convey to the employee that they won’t be offered the job and I also tell you what you can do to keep them before they’re ready to be promoted. Now that’s a win win!
When I ask leaders if they have considered conducting “stay interviews” to help them understand how they can retain their top performers, many times I hear that they already do this. But what the leader describes to me is far from a stay interview. Let me help you with three keys to a successful stay interview. I’ll give you the best questions to ask during your first interview…there are only 3…and share some common pitfalls that leads can find themselves in and how to avoid them. Hope this helps!
I often hear from leaders that they’re worried about getting sued when it comes to addressing concerns with employees. Oftentimes, these worries aren’t things that will really come true. However, here, I talk about situations leaders unknowingly get themselves into that could put them at more risk than anything they came to me about in the first place. In this episode, I help you so you aren’t writing someone’s legal claim for them.
What is the threshold for making a performance conversation more formal? How many times do I need to address a performance issue before moving the discussion to the next disciplinary level? Well I hate to say this but the answer is…it depends. In this episode, I talk you through the rationale I use when making recommendations to leaders in terms of performance documentation and when to address at the next level.
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