It's Not Personal

In this episode, Ken and Seth dive deeply into the process of protecting culture by thinking not only of the people you're working with, but also about the various people who will be coming after. How are we making changes that will positively impact those who come next? What does it take to protect the culture and build honest and open connections in your organization? You need to deal with the problems that are happening in this moment with an eye to what kind of organization you want moving forward. What does it take to look at a hard problem or a behavior that you don't like, and have the courage to face it head on?

In this episode, Ken and Seth talk about how being in a leadership role can feel isolating and lonely. It's important for leaders to understand how isolating leadership can feel at times. In many ways, nobody else in the organization can understand what it feels like to be in your shoes. All the ways that you might have connected with others before become limited when you are in charge. In this podcast, Ken and Seth share their own experiences and thoughts on how leaders can deal with this loneliness and their feelings of disconnection in organizations. What do we do when we feel thwarted by others in the org? What do we do with the anger or the feelings of disappointment? How do we take risks and invite others to follow along? All of this takes a willingness to be with your own feelings and to know that being a leader requires you to be on your own sometimes.

In this episode Ken and Seth talk about the tension between self-doubt and self-confidence in leadership. How do we work with that interplay of self-doubt and imposter syndrome and maintain the presence of a leader. We have to learn to trust ourselves and have confidence that we belong in this role and earned our right to be here. It's unhelpful to doubt ourselves as leaders because all it does is create a corrosive environment for others. Doubt about our abilities is good, but doubt about our right to be here is not. Trust yourself, know yourself, and be willing to grow.

In this episode Ken and Seth talk about the ways that work has developed over time and what it is that we are all being asked to do each day. What is it that we are being asked to do most of the days and how is that time that we are spending helping the company move forward? How do we get better at working with a distributed organization? How do we get better at coordinating and motivating people towards a shared goal? In what ways do we need to be more disciplined and direct in our communication so that people can be more successful? What is the "theater" of work and how are some gestures and ways of communicating meaningful to the culture and success of a group? Think of ceremonies and rituals that allow for people to be more successful by making them feel more connected and a "part of" a group. Being more intentional with the theater of work and knowing what matters most will help engagement and satisfaction with the work itself. The more disciplined and mindful everyone is in how they are focusing on connecting and moving forward, the more successful the organization can become.

In this episode, Ken and Seth talk about what it takes to create a safe space for the up and coming leaders of tomorrow. What does it mean to be the kind of leader you might have needed when you were coming up in career. There's a tendency to make choices and play games with boundaries that might make things more convenient in the moment but could have negative impacts down the line. The courage to say the hard things now and have the difficult conversations will help to create a safer space for your team and your organization in the future. What does it take to show up in this way? Why do we need to create psychological safety?

In this episode Ken and Seth talk about the importance of introspection and reflection on the success of leadership. When we take the time to be curious and reflect on ourselves and how we are impacting those around us, we can learn so much about how we are being received by others.What can you learn about yourself and your team when you take the time to be curious and process what's going well, where we are, and what needs to happen? More than you can imagine.

In this episode, Seth and Ken talk about the ways that emotions impact a leader's ability to connect, motivate, and facilitate the success of a team. The more aware you are as a leader about what you're feeling and how those feelings impact your communication, the more effective you can be as a leader. Check in with yourself and get clear on what's going on with you and who you're being in the moment. It's okay to know that you're having an off day. It's not okay to let that feeling be spread unconsciously into the world. Take the time to pay attention to yourself and what's happening to you and you will be more effective.

It takes courage to be clear, honest, and vulnerable in your words. In this episode, Ken and Seth talk about what it takes to share clearly what you're feeling and what's going on for you, without needing your audience to trust you. Trusting your audience builds trust. When you come in with clear intentions and a clear vision, you get a better chance to motivate and inspire. Be the kind of leader who is willing to be a real human being and communicate with courage with their team.

How do you create a culture of safety and support in your community and organization? What does it take to cultivate people's courage to speak up and say what they need you to hear? In this episode Ken and Seth talk through various ways to create a sense of safety and openness in your team and community. It's a challenging tension to balance between not wanting people to hide and also not wanting people to just complain and criticize. Ken talks about ways that he invites people to ask any question they want and he will try to answer it as honestly as he can. The goal is to create the intent of bringing people together and allowing them to connect with each other and to the overall goals of the organization. Clear communication is one important way to eliminate uncertainty and create better boundaries.

In this episode, Ken and Seth talk about the importance of vulnerability to being a real person in leadership and having a better impact, but to be aware of not overusing vulnerability. We want to be real and vulnerable, but we don't want to overshare. When we offer too much personal information, we can overburden our people with our own problems. While it's important to show your feelings and share your perspective, you don't want your team to feel like they have to take care of you. Understanding your own boundaries and the boundaries of your team will keep everyone safe. The goal is not to force anyone into sharing personal information or to manipulate people's emotions, rather it's about building trust and creating a space of growth and trust.

How do your beliefs impact the way that you lead? In this episode, Ken and Seth talk about how core beliefs can and will impact the ways that we communicate and lead. Belief systems are both powerful and dangerous. Can you set your own beliefs aside to see more clearly and make space for other voices? How are your beliefs possibly driving your actions and how are they getting in the way of you hearing the truth?

What does it mean to be authentically yourself? How do we show up as leaders with vulnerability?Ken and Seth talk about the ways that leaders can learn to drop their masks enough to inspire and engage their teams. The leader of any group, team, or organization has the opportunity to model what it's like to be uncomfortable with being real. Everything in tech and in business will have difficulty with leading through change if they aren't willing to give up on perfectionism and the illusion that they need to know what to do next.Get honest about what you're struggling with, as long as you aren't needing the team to take care of you, and you will earn people's trust and honesty.

Ken and Seth talk about what it took to put together episode 3 and all the weird turns and pitfalls that happened this past year. As the saying goes, "man makes plans and God laughs."In this episode, Ken and Seth sum up the ideas behind this season (the desire for leaders who are real and authentic) and they talk about dealing with disappointment and mistakes with a sense of humor.

In this final episode of season 2, Ken and Seth discuss the value of touching into our own ambition and our relationship to it. Perhaps you have something inside of you that wants to be expressed, and it's important that you take the time and the energy to express that thing. Toxic ambition is about thinking that you're inherently a better human being than someone else. Positive ambition is in believing that we can be better at who we are and how we do things. It takes ambition to achieve great things in this world, and we need solid leaders who are willing to do this work collaboratively and with humility. Read more about us at https://www.itsnotpersonal.net/episodes or https://sethrigoletti.com/its-not-personal/

In this episode, Ken and Seth talk about the value of feedback and how it can change your life. The three types of feedback that are most common are appreciation, coaching, and evaluation. It's so important to be clear on what you want to hear and how you want to hear it. Thanks for the Feedback, by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen. The gift of feedback is when you can be specific and help the receiver understand themselves a little more. Find out more at https://www.itsnotpersonal.net/ or at https://sethrigoletti.com/

What if you could manage your worry and the worry of your team more effectively by both planning and trusting that you will figure it out? The ability of leaders to meet the worries and concerns of their teams with compassion and a sense of purpose makes the difference between a team that is built on self trust or one that's based on fear and control. Ken and Seth talk about how leaders can learn to trust themselves and build trust in their teams by doing a better job of managing their own worries and concerns. Self trust and trust in your teams are the two most important components of a good culture. As usual, Ken and Seth talk about how vulnerability is the path forward to this.

We can train ourselves to be more comfortable with discomfort and get more out of our own experiences and the experiences of those around us. Being a leader means being uncomfortable most of the time. If you are avoiding that discomfort or if you're trying to manage your team away from discomfort, then you're going to create problems for yourself and others. In this episode, Ken and Seth dive deep into the ways that leaders can lean into change and discomfort with their teams and their organizations.

In this episode Ken and Seth talk about the value of accepting that a career does not have to follow a straight path. Perhaps, it's even better if it doesn't. Ken shares how many of the successful people he works with in IT don't even have a computer science background. As a leader, you can provoke your team to think different about their own career path and how they might be able to support people to discover their talents. Whenever we think that careers have to go in a specific direction, we might be limiting ourselves from seeing opportunities as they appear.

In this episode, Ken and Seth talk about the importance of treating your teams, your employees, and your managers like adults so that they behave like adults. When we treat people like children, they tend to behave like children. When asked why he's willing to let his team decide whether to work remotely or come into the office, he says, "I have a fundamental principle, I only hire adults." Ken and Seth share their perspective on what it takes to build a culture of adults and cultivate an organization that's mature and responsible.

How do you feel about conflict? What does it mean to be a "tough boss?" How do we hold ourselves accountable and why?It's important to bring feedback to people that removes the personal out of it. Why? It's because when we feel judged, we tend to shut down. Even so, it's crucial that leaders see the people who worked for them. The more you see them, the easier it is to motivate them and to help them improve how they develop. Being a "tough boss" isn't about being a jerk, rather it's about being clear, direct, and honest.