Extra Shot of Leadership

You are hiring a new supervisor…you posted the job, you found the perfect candidate and your pretty excited that they are starting next week. Now what? Does the standard onboarding checklist apply? Having a clear strategy for what information you share and a cadence for when you share it can accelerate a new leader’s learning curve for understanding the business, the work and their team. This week Kim and Pepper dive into supervisor onboarding. We’ll explore three key areas that will help ensure a smooth transition and set the stage for their success. Join us as we share insights, tips, and real-life examples to help you onboard your new leader with confidence and ensure they hit the ground running! Do you have an onboarding strategy? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Have you ever seen a leader totally lose it? And by lose it I mean expressing their frustration or disappointment with an outburst with voice raising, a battery of questions or a pounding on the desk. Was it you? Leaders typically have a high level of care and passion about the work of their department but when things go wrong their passion can turn into a display of anger. Though the outburst may be intended to drive actions that will fix the problem, it can often have the opposite effect where a team ends up focused managing the leader’s emotion rather than managing the problem. This week Kim and Pepper discuss the causes and effects of emotional outbursts at work. They provide a 3-step approach for leaders who want to gain a deeper understanding of their emotional triggers so they can communicate more effectively when their team has missed the mark. How are you good are you at managing your emotions at work? Share your story with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

How sharp are your coaching skills? Are you providing all the answers, or do you take the time to help your employees reach their own conclusions? Great coaching conversations are extremely valuable for employee growth and performance. The good news is coaching is a leadership skill that can be developed and sharpened. With a few tweaks, a little extra time, and the right questions, leaders can enhance their coaching conversations to add deeper meaning to an employee’s development. This week Kim and Pepper discuss the steps Pepper has taken to improve her coaching skills over the last year. Pepper shares the importance of having the right having the mindset as well as some tips on asking questions that can help leaders become a more powerful coach and build deeper relationships at work. How are you maximizing your coaching conversations? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Are your team members stressed, are they focused, are they ok? How do you know? With the workplace playing a central role in many people’s lives, it is important for team members to feel connected and supported by their leaders. So how do leaders balance building relationships with getting all the work done? Are they two separate things or do better relationships actually help get the work done? This week Kim and Pepper discuss their thoughts on building relationships at work and open up about their hunger for deeper conversations. They each provide a few tips on getting the conversations started then share how these conversations and strong relationships help them to manage and guide the work. Are your relationships with your team members helping or hurting your leadership? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Have you ever felt like your life and leadership compass needed recalibrating? Many leaders often contemplate a reset in January as they begin a new year while others may choose the fall when the school year begins again. Don’t worry if you missed those two opportunities, because the best time for a reset is when the time is right...for you! It may be when your daily schedule is packed full with meetings, projects, after school activities, dinners, vacations, hobbies, and everything else you have said “yes, sure, no problem” to, or possibly during a life altering event. What matters most isn’t the time of year, but the time spent reflecting on where you are spending your energy and what truly matters. This week Kim and Pepper get back to their love of podcasting and roll on with episode #101. They discuss their hiatus from the show as well as what they did with their time while the record button was on PAUSE. They each share some personal stories of why they needed a reset and how it has impacted their life, their focus, and their leadership. When was your last leadership reset and what were the outcomes from your time of reflection? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

What can you accomplish with a continuous learning mindset? The answers to this question are absolutely endless! Anyone with an ongoing and self-driven pursuit of knowledge can build, create, or attain just about anything they set their mind to. Apply this thinking to leadership and leaders can soar to a level of leadership where the sky is the limit for what they can accomplish both personally and with their teams. Cue the confetti cannons! This week Kim and Pepper celebrate their 100th episode of Extra Shot of Leadership. They reminisce about their early episodes and the things they have each learned over the past 3 years. They discuss their thoughts on lifelong learning and tie the conversation back to leaders that have their minds set on excellence. What’s your take on lifelong learning and what type of learning are you focused on now? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Great leaders rarely exist just by natural ability. Many great leaders have built their skills and reputation by way of feedback. Not the fluffy feedback but the tough stuff. The kind of feedback that can be painful to hear and can often leave a person feeling angry, confused, or frustrated. Just because they are a leader doesn’t mean they won’t struggle with the news or have to dig deep to listen, learn and take action. This week Kim and Pepper discuss the tough stuff. Pepper shares a personal story of tough feedback she received, how she got past the shock and into action, and how the feedback has helped her improve relationships, deliverables, and perceptions of others. What is the toughest feedback you have received and how has it helped you become a better leader? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Leaders with a continuous improvement mindset can drive their teams to accomplish great things. But what happens to leaders and teams when the leader is always striving for more? As they encourage their teams to do more and be more, what other message are they sending, and what are they giving up by chasing more? This week Kim and Pepper reflect on their definition of success and discuss their thoughts and challenges with a life focused on more, more, more. They each share some ’aha’ moments then tie the conversation to leadership and the potential issues leaders and teams with the same mindset could experience. How are you managing “the more”? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Excellence in leadership can be reached with time and a conscious effort spent on skill improvement. This improvement requires an understanding of leadership skills, identification of personal strengths and opportunities, and a willingness to continue to grow. Let’s just assume for a minute that you know or have googled top leadership skills, and you are willing to continuously grow. Now, what’s the best way to assess your strengths and opportunities? This week Kim and Pepper discuss the assessment tools that have helped them grow through their years of leadership. They share insight on the one tool they value the most and their personal stories of how the tool has helped them improve both personally and professionally. The best news is Pepper’s tool proves to be free and simple! Have you assessed your leadership skills lately? What is your favorite assessment tool? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Good employees make mistakes and great leaders allow them to. If this statement is true, then how do leaders allow these learning opportunities without putting their organization’s and personal reputation in jeopardy? This week Kim and Pepper discuss their thoughts on the value of failures. They share how they set boundaries around failures, manage them when they happen, use them as learning opportunities, and most importantly. recover from them quickly. What are your tips for managing failures? Share them with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

When do you begin the discussion of leadership with your kids? Is there a specific age that you begin discussing topics like influence, leadership presence, and decision making? Kids of all ages have many opportunities through school, extracurricular activities, and sports to begin thinking about the type of leader they want to be. If you don’t engage them in a leadership discussion, who will? This week Kim and Pepper share their thoughts on leadership and kids, when to start engaging your kids on being a leader and discussing what type of leader do they want to be. They also discuss how decision making and leadership connect and share practical ways to getting the topic of leadership introduced to kids. Are you discussing leadership with your kids? How do you engage your kids? Share your approach with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Learning new words is good for the brain and a larger vocabulary. They can enhance a conversation or a book, or even a great podcast, but do we really need to create new words for leadership terms that already exist? What’s the added value of the new word if it has the same meaning as a leadership term that already exists? This week Kim and Pepper discuss the term inclusive leadership. They break down the definition, the meaning, and their thoughts on the value of this leadership style. Are their new words that are adding value to your leadership growth? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Are your shoes right for this meeting? Should you even be in this meeting? How much thought have you put into why you are showing up and how you are showing up? These are some things to consider if you want your leadership presence to work for you rather than against you. As busy leaders, it is important to maximize the opportunities we have with our teams to ensure our message is what is needed and is well received. This week Kim and Pepper discuss their different points of view on leadership presence. They each provide a few things to consider ensuring your leadership presence is primed, aligned, and appropriate for your moment of influence. Has your leadership presence been working for you or against you? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Quick, tell us 5 things you are really good at. What is taking so long? Many of us can be quick to point out our list of personal flaws, but then stutter a bit when it comes to verbalizing the things we do really well. If this sounds like you, tune in to this episode! This week Kim and Pepper discuss a skills inventory and who they may have allowed to identify their unique personal strengths. They each share their thoughts on the benefits of creating a skills inventory for yourself and the value this could bring to an organization if leaders could teach their team members to do the same. Who have you let identify the strengths and the skills you bring to the table? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Health and leadership go hand in hand. Would you agree with this statement? While good health may or may not make (or break) a good leader, it does contribute to their ability to think clearly, make sound decisions, multitask, and connect with others for a sustained period of time. While these are critical attributes for leaders, the more personal behaviors that enhance these qualities are often ignored. This week Kim and Pepper take on a new topic of leadership heath. They each share their current experiences with health and nutrition and how this is impacting their work and personal lives. Their discussion about protein, muscle strength, quality sleep and fitness apps may have you thinking you found a fitness podcast, but don’t worry…they tie it back to leadership at the end of the show. What are you doing to stay fit for leadership? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com Products mentioned in this episode: - Lose It! - app to track your protein intake. https://www.losit.com/ - Orgain Protein - to enhance your protein intake. https://orgain.com/collections/protein-powder

Are your team members scrambling to get their work done at the last minute? Are they unable to complete their assignments on time? If your answer is yes, it may be time to do a temperature check on priorities and alignment. Without clear priorities, a team can struggle to spend their time effectively because everything seems equally important. This week Kim and Pepper share their strategies for determining priority work as well as the key communications that get their leadership, teams, and customers aligned. They also discuss the nuances of negotiating with customers and the added benefits of organizational alignment. Is your organization completely aligned on the priorities this year? Share your story with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Hey Leaders, it’s 2023! How you doing? Are you up for it? Feeling good about it? If you are not feeling it, how can you get yourself in a better place to engage in areas that really matter? This week Pepper and Kim have an open conversation about how they are feeling about 2023 and what they are doing to get their priorities straight, gain clarity and motivation, and get their brains engaged at work. Get ready to get pumped! What is motivating you this year? Share your story with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com Five Minute Journal discussed in episode.

Much like the ripples created by tossing a pebble into a pond, influence energizes an organization. The good news is you don’t need a C-suite office to get the job done. With a certain level of understanding and skill, influence that inspires others to change their thoughts, behaviors and actions can come from any level of an organization. This week Kim and Pepper start a discussion on influence. They each provide their thoughts on the elements of influence that can positively impact change as well as problems that can arise when specific elements are disconnected from the people they are trying to engage. What has been your best experience with influencing others? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Do we really need an extravagant experience like a ropes course to build cohesion and the comradery within a team? The purpose of a team building event is to get team members away from their work and provide an opportunity to foster personal relationships. Leaders with heavy workloads, tight budgets, and demands for work-life balance may find themselves searching for ways to accomplish the same goal but keep it fast, cheap, and easy. This week Kim and Pepper break down the mechanics of a recent team event that was super simple but big on impact. They each share their thoughts on things to consider for team events, why it is important, and how they judge their success. What’s your favorite event for building team comradery? Share with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com

Trust. It’s a big deal. And it why we just can’t let this topic go without one last trustbuster that can get a leader and their team in the ditch. Taking credit for the work of others may seem like a no-brainer buster but there is an art to helping your team members to stand in the spotlight. This week Kim and Pepper share their thoughts on how to let others take center stage as well as some things to consider to increase trust with individual team members. Tune in for an extra shot on trust and our shortest episode to date. Share your trust busting and trust building ideas with us at HeyThere@ExtraShotOfLeadership.com