446 | Replenishing Your Leadership Toolkit

Chris LoCurto 0:00
Like any skilled craftsmen, leaders must sharpen, upgrade, and even replace their tools in order to continue doing their jobs well, that is what we're talking about next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show, where we discuss leadership and life, and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks. Hope you're having a fabulous day. Now, before we get into today's topic, the first thing that I want to hit is a crazy exciting announcement. Coming up soon, we're launching registration to our Next Level Leadership Live Event. We're super excited about this. This is our big leadership event. And it will be held here in Franklin, Tennessee on April 27 through the 29th. We've been doing this for years now, it was originally only for our high-end Mastermind folks and coaching clients, but in 2016, we opened it to everyone. And so we are so excited to share this with you, and have you guys come here and visit us for three days and have just an amazing event. Now we've got an action packed three days of going deep on incredible topics that are pillars you cannot ignore for your business growth. These are huge things, huge things you must learn to master. Now if you've been to great events before, you know what that's like. It's going to be three full days of great learning, great content, lots of fun, and lots of meeting new leaders like yourself in the best possible environment that we can give you guys. This is all about next level. No matter where you are. This is the stuff that we've been teaching for an incredibly long time and it is truly our heart. We've helped so many people to discover that there's always a next level of growth. These are lessons that you need to know no matter where your leadership is, we have people coming in at all levels of leadership, all levels of business. And the great thing is, is that this information is not industry specific, doesn't matter what industry you're in. It's not leadership specific. It's not entrepreneurial specific. It's for any level of leadership, no matter where you are, you're going to leave ready to go kill it in your leadership. And some of the success stories we're going to have are from people that have walked through these processes with us that have come on board and said, "Listen, I need help. I need direction, I need information." And we've helped them blow up their leadership and blow their business out of the water. And some of them come from very small businesses, and some of them come from monster sized businesses, it doesn't matter. It's what you need to know to lead incredibly well. These are also lessons that I have successfully discovered, learned, put in place, and have done for decades with my teams. Now you can actually be on the list to receive the information when we launch this bad boy, with the absolute lowest pricing you'll be able to get. So if you sign up and get notified early, you're gonna get your tickets off at: 40% off. That's right, 40% off. So if you want to be the first to know when we open registration, so you can grab your discounted tickets, go to chrislocurto.com/nextlevelleadership one word, again, chrislocurto.com/nextlevelleadership, to sign up and get notified and save 40% off of your tickets. Again, we're so excited to bring this event to you guys and can't wait for this spring. Again, the event will be in Franklin, Tennessee, April 27 through 29. Go to chrislocurto.com/nextlevelleadership to sign up to get notified when registration opens and save 100 off your ticket price.

Now, what I want to talk about today is why rebuilding and replenishing your leadership toolkit is so vital to your future success, to your team's success, to the company you lead. Now I'm going to ask you guys some questions. And I want you to really think about this. Don't just answer quickly. I want you to ponder this. How many of you would say that your jobs have changed or shifted focus within the last three to five years? Likely, it's well over half of those people listening? Most likely it's well over half and possibly decently more than that. Question number two, if your job has changed, how many of you got the new tools and training you needed to help you do the new job well, to really succeed in your new job? Well, chances are you didn't. You probably are still using the same old toolkit or leadership skills that you had before your job changed. Am I correct on that? Think about that. Question number three, how many of you would say that your jobs have stayed the same, but your team members have changed? Which is resulted in changing the current dynamics in your workplace? Probably almost all of you, right?

Probably almost everybody out there listening, have seen team members change that also ended up changing the dynamics in the workplace. Question number four, if your job stayed the same, what about the challenges in the demands of that job? Did they change? Did they get easier? Or did they get harder? Chances are they got considerably harder, probably much harder, especially as we went through 2020. Question number five. So what are you doing about it? If any of those questions have actually happened to you, what are you doing about it? What have you done about it? Now that little question is really the big question, right? Leaders, you need to think about the skills that you're currently bringing to your workplace because it's likely way past time for you to rebuild and replenish the toolkit. How do we know this? Well, because we see it all the time. We have a business that helps people to grow in their leadership grow in their business or in their lives for simple reason. Because not a lot of people have somebody in their life teaching them and training them to do things better to do things right to do things updated, right? So let me kind of paint a picture of what it looks like to have your skills and leadership tools revamped. So replenishing your leadership toolkit means getting new, improved skills for communication. Number one problem we see with every single business that we work with, is low levels of quality communication, every business. So here's what I want you to know. We have been doing Stratplan for years where we bring in leadership teams. And on the opening night, I'm going to give give this away to some companies who are probably coming in the future. We ask them to rank their communication almost every single time. Almost every single time, the number is seven or eight, the leadership team says off seven, eight, every now and then we'll get a nine. I've even had one time somebody say 10. So it's always, "Oh, no, our communication is great. Our communication is great." I always asked that on the opening night, because day one is all about communication. And when we get a couple hours into halfway through the day, I'll ask the question, "Hey, guys, how would you rank your communication now?" And every single time the answer is usually, "Crap. It's it's like a two or three." The highest you get is, "Well, I feel like it's a five." But usually people will say two or three. Why? Because we don't know what we don't know. So if you are sitting there thinking to yourself, "Man, I think our communication is pretty darn fantastic." Chances are you're ready for some improved skills on communication, you're ready for getting some improved skills on decision making, and when can you ever have enough skills on leading people well, so it means that you start putting in place, the culture that you need, and that you want, all right, that's important that it's both, you know, the culture that you need, we got to make that happen. But there's also this part of your culture that you just really desire to have in place, how do you get that done. And finally, you start killing what we call the Leadership Crazy Cycle that's holding you back. It means getting the tools you need in order to conquer conflict in the workplace, to set appropriate boundaries and expectations as well as navigating tough conversations. So when we come back, some practical steps that leaders have to take in order to have an adequate toolkit for the job they are currently in. That's coming up right after this.

Folks, if you've been listening to me for any length of time, then you know the number one issue when it comes to business, when it comes to family, when it comes to friendships, is having a lack of high quality communication. To make sure that you are absolutely winning in every aspect of your life, it all starts with having great communication. The best way to get that communication is to understand your personality style, and to understand the personality style of the folks that you're spending the most time with; whether it be at work, whether it be at home. The best way to do that is to go to chrislocurto.com/store and get your personality profile and personality profiles for your team today. Get for your family members, today. As you go through that profile, you will begin to see the greatest ways to communicate. Go to chrislocurto.com/store today.

So we've all heard the saying, "If you're not growing, you're dying." Well, somebody has changed that. And they said, "You're either growing or you're already dead." Now, that may be a little extreme, but I think we all get what they're trying to say, right? So here's the deal when it comes to business, you have to always be growing somewhere. But what people usually think about is growing their revenues. A lot of leaders are oblivious to the fact that they need to grow themselves that they may come across too strong that they deal with their team too heavy handed, or they don't handle conflict, well or they don't stop to gain perspective, which is huge, we see a lot of that, that they don't communicate well, or that they pivot to passivity, which, by the way, is allowing anything to happen, not jumping in, and solving or taking control or guiding people to success on those things. So at the end, without the right tools in hand, there's incredibly low unity. And by low unity, I'm not just talking about people being on the same page, what I'm talking about is we are spending money and resources for people not to get to the same destination for people to go into what we call a shotgun approach. For people to not be unified in what they're doing for people not to be unified in how they handle their, their workday, their projects, right. We see high stress. And my gosh, we see an incredible lack of accountability. Why is that so important? Because the accountability piece is the thing that is keeping us from getting to the results that we want. Right? That may not be something that, you know, you're completely understanding when you look at your team. We call it the accountability gap. We tell people, This is what we need them to do, we have this expectation of the result. And we can't figure out why they can't get there. And we're not helping them to get there. Because we don't know what to do well. There are three tools that every leader must replenish, you don't just get this and you don't do anything about it. You don't just learn it once and you're good to go. The first one is leaders have to lead themselves well before they can lead others well. If you can't lead you well, there's no possible way you can lead others well, right? And even if you're doing a decent job leading them, but you're not leading you, then what are you communicating to them?

That they shouldn't really care about what you're teaching them. Because they can see that you're not doing it yourself. So you've got to conquer you need to always be in control. Many leaders struggle, and it's because it's a big worth issue. But you've got to learn how not to struggle with needing to always be in control. You've got to get to a healthy version of yourself in order to lead others well. If you're not operating in a healthy way, how in the world do you lead others to operate in a healthy way? Right? How do you lead others just to be successful in the role that you have them in if you're struggling with that, right? You've also got to know your capacities, as well as your deficiencies. Now, as I say that, a lot of people like well, I'm pretty darn sure I know what my deficiencies are. Okay, I get that. A lot of times we're able to look at ourselves and sometimes we beat ourselves up too much on what our deficiencies are. But do you understand what your capacities are. Do you undertand what you can accomplish? Do you understand the things that are holding you back from accomplishing more? The funny thing is, and it's actually funny and sad, is that many times our deficiencies are the very things that are keeping us from our capacities. The very things that we're struggling with, are yanking us back from being able to be highly successful and the things that we're good at or we should be good at. The very deficiencies are the things that keep us from being able to do more of the things that we should be doing and instead cause us to be focused on fixing the things around the deficiencies. So leaders have to learn to lead themselves well before they learn to lead other people. Alright, number two, leaders must duplicate their healthy selves and the people that they lead. So listen, if you are not taking the healthy versions of you, the good versions of you the things that are good for the business, the things that you're doing and duplicating and other people, then you're holding your team back, you're holding you back, you're holding the company back. You have to learn and I'm going to use a word that people screw up all the time. Delegation, people think delegating is giving something to somebody and going, did you get it done? Did you get it done, you didn't get it done. Right, I'll take that back. I'll just do it myself. Delegation isn't so much about getting stuff off of your plate, as it is about getting others to take and own the things that have been put on their plates. The end result is that the leader gets freed up to lead. So when we talk about Leadership Crazy Cycle, what we're talking about as people that are so bogged down leaders, not people who are hired to do tasks, leaders who are so bogged down in tasks that are so bogged down in stuff that are so bogged down in their identity and being in getting 100 things done today, that they're actually not leading people to success. What is your job leader, business owner? To lead people to success, not the other way around. When you are bogged down or stuck in the Leadership Crazy Cycle, guess what you're not doing? Leading. You got to learn how to lead. But the problem is, a lot of times we won't delegate properly, because we're afraid we don't know how to lead well. That's what you need the tools for. That's what you need to learn. That's what need to do. That's what you need to grow in. But it starts with proper delegation. Delegating is about setting others up for success, getting stuff off of your plate. And again, I'm speaking to the leaders, the business owners here, right? If the role is supposed to be doing tasks, great, have them do that. But those people are looking to you, leader, they're looking to you business owner, to actually do more important things than the things that they should be doing. So we need to get those things off of you. It's about setting others up for success. Delegation is built on the model that the leader presents. So if you do not present a great model for delegation, guess what's gonna happen? It's not going to operate well, they're not going to do a great job with it. Why do so many people take their stuff back? Because somebody is not doing a great job with it? Why are they not? Because the leader didn't teach them they didn't lead them to success in the delegation process. So when we come back the third skill that you've got to replenish in your leadership toolkit.

Unknown Speaker 17:53
Hey, it's Joel Fortner here. I'm the Vice President of leadership development on Chris's team, and I oversee our Next Level Mastermind business coaching program. Most business owners and leaders lack a clear path to succeed in business. They question whether they're making the right decisions, if they're focusing on the right things to really grow their business. If this is you, you need a coach in your life. Coaches help you make better decisions, navigate uncertainty, lead more effectively, and grow your business without sacrificing your life and your family. In their first year, our clients typically see an average of 67% increase in gross revenue, and an average of 138% increase in net profit. And regained hours of time, our clients stay in the program for three and a half years simply because of the results they get. So if you're ready to run your business at the next level and see the growth you've been wanting, then visit chrislocurto.com/mastermind. Again, chrislocurto.com/mastermind, today.

Chris LoCurto 18:54
We're back and we're talking about the tools every leader must replenish. And number three, I think is the most powerful. Leaders must conquer their limiting belief systems, so that they can go to the next level. Oh, boy, folks, I see this all the time. I've been guilty of this. But I see this all the time. There are so many people stuck in this belief system that they can't, they're not able to. They don't have the skills, the tools, they can't get the skills, the tools, they're not good enough. They're not worthy. There is so much fear. And so much fear of man, fear of judgment. There's so much fear that if you don't get rid of it, there's no possible way that you can lead well, you can't lead healthy, right? If you are limiting yourself with your beliefs, then what in the world are you teaching your team? Ah, teach them that they can do anything. Okay? How's that working out for you? If you don't believe it, do you think they do? If they don't see you overcoming fears of man's opinion, man's judgment, then what do you think they're doing? If they don't see that you're not struggling, a great example of this is my wife. Well, before we were married, as we're working together, we were we had a situation, we had an event coming up. And it's so funny, I'm at one end of the event space. And I'm working on my presentation, my lesson that I'm going to be teaching, so I'm practicing this and she's at the other end. And some she's working on something, but some situation happened. I cannot remember what it was, it was just something went wrong. And she stressed out. And she's like, I need to talk to you. I'm like, okay, so I came over. And I always whenever I'm practicing, I usually will have like, some music in the background or something like that. When I have music in the background a lot. That's just part of me. So walk over there, the situation is happening on my okay, well, what are you doing about it? While I've done this, I've done this. I'm waiting to hear on this. And this is what I'm trying to fix over here. And but what if, you know, I'm doing all these things? And I'm like, okay, well, you know, it's a mess up. It's something that's screwed up. So we're just gonna have to do whatever it takes to get that fixed and looks like you're doing the right things. Well I go back to practicing my lesson-well, you may not know this about me, but I have a tendency if good music is on I'm usually dancing around or singing or something. Right. And so while I'm working through my presentation, I'm also over there and just got a little, you know, little dance going on. I don't I don't know if my wife would say that it was a dance. She might just say that I was moving oddly, but anyways, she, she looks over at me. And she goes, You're dancing. I'm like, Yep, I sure am. Why? And she goes, you're not stressed out? And I go, nope. What would being stressed out do for me? And she goes well, but like you really aren't stressed out. I'm like, No, being stressed isn't going to fix the problem. Taking responsibility, being proactive and doing something about it is going to fix the problem. Why? And she goes, Oh my gosh. My whole life I believed and because she was over there stressing out. She goes my whole life. I believed I had to act stressed, looked look stressed. For people to think that I was taking something seriously. I'm like, really? Like, how does that work? Does it change anything? Does it do anything? For me? She's like, not at all. Like, well, that's the reason why I choose the dance. I can't do anything this moment right now to fix that problem. So it's kind of ridiculous for me to stress out about it. It's really ridiculous for me to be fearful about it. Did we do the things? Are we are you literally doing the things to solve the problem right now? Are you putting things in place to solve the problem? Yes. Done. What is stressing about it gonna do to help you? And it was a good powerful moment for her to go, oh, my gosh, I have been limiting myself for my whole life with this belief system that when things go wrong, you've got to respond stressed out, you have to respond fearful, you know, like you're struggling.

Well, guess what she's communicating to her team at that point? This is how you respond. Guess how I was communicating to my team, dance, dance, have fun. Go on, do the things. Put the things in place to solve the problem. Go back to enjoying your day. Check up on it, make sure it's gonna get done. Push people if you have to. But stressing in the time that you can't do anything. She already put the things in place. It's not like she could do anything else past that point. She had to wait for the problem to the things that you put in the fixes that you put in place to start working themselves out. Folks, your fear of man your fear of judgment, your fear of not being good enough, your limiting beliefs that say that you're not good enough. You're never going to be good enough. You don't have the capacity. You shouldn't be in this role in the first place. All of those things are keeping you from leading people well. It's a waste of time. It is a waste of time. All you're doing is hurting you because let me ask you a question. Does anybody look at you when things are going bad? And go? I don't believe you're stressed enough? If so, they probably should not be in your business. Right? But nobody does that. Nobody looks at you and goes, I don't see you physically stressing enough right now, I think you need to add more stress. Right? Now, somebody might say to you, you're not taking it seriously enough. But that's a different situation, right? Nobody's looking at you going, I don't think you're stressing enough over this situation. Nobody healthy is let me say it that way, right? Your limiting beliefs are keeping you business owner, business later, your limiting beliefs are keeping you from going to the next level. Your limiting beliefs are keeping you from being at a level where you can bring people up, where you can reach down and lift people up to their next level. This is something you must conquer. In that process, what do you need to conquer, you have to get rid of the negative self talk that says that you're insufficient. As long as you keep telling you that you're not good enough. As long as you keep telling you that you're insufficient, as long as you keep telling yourself that you're not going to lead this well solve this, make this good enough. Whatever it is, whatever, whatever the lie is that you're telling yourself whatever the negative self talk is that youre telling yourself. I'm not saying you're not going to lead people, you're definitely going to lead people, you're probably lead them into their own negative self talk, because they see you struggling with it. But you're not going to lead people well. Right? So you've got to stop the negative self talk, you have to trample that thing. Right? There's times when negative self talk comes up in my brain, that I have to first shock it, I go knock it off, or stop it. And it's not enough to stop right there. At the shock, get to stop, right? And then I go, why am I telling myself this? Why am I telling myself this? And then I'll figure out what the problem is? Once I find out why I'm telling myself that I start battling with the truth. Why am I telling myself I'm going to be insufficient for this task? Because the truth is, I'm worried that I'm going to fail at this task. And if I fail at this task, what are people gonna think what are people gonna say, I go into all these ridiculous assumptions in fear of something that doesn't even exist yet. So when I can see that I'm holding myself back with this negative self talk, I start battling it with truth. My worth is not stuck in man's opinion on me doing this task. My worth doesn't come from that. I have the ability, I have the knowledge, I have the wisdom, I can find out how to do this, well, I can whatever the personal responsibility of solving this. If you don't get you out of the negative self talk, then you're always going to pull yourself back down to the level you're at the level below it, maybe a couple levels below that, you will always keep you from being in your potential in your capacity.

The limiting belief systems will keep you from going to the next level. So what makes all this work is that you as a leader, are becoming more self aware that you're growing in your authentic self, and that you're getting the tools you need to succeed. Speaking of the tools that you need in order to succeed, I've developed a, a free assessment tool that helps you to take a look at where you are, as it pertains to the Leadership Crazy Cycle. Are you stuck in it? If you are, how bad are you not? If you're not stuck in it great, then you're probably leading people incredibly well. And for large amounts of your time. If you are in it, and it's important to see just how much you're stuck in a Leadership Crazy Cycle, because the sooner you can kill the Leadership Crazy Cycle, the sooner you can get to your capacity, get to your potential, take your leadership to the next level, take your business to the next level. So if you follow our emails and you've heard probably received this in your email already. Or you can go down into the show notes of this episode below and you'll find a link that will take you to an inventory survey. Self awareness is the first step to self improvement. If you are not aware of what needs to change what needs to improve, you can't improve it, you don't improve it. So hopefully this will and I'm, hopefully I know that it will. This will help you to gain perspective on your current situation. This will help you to see the things that are holding you back from taking your leadership your business to the next level. So guys, again, before we end, today's episode, registration to the Next Level Leadership Live Event opens soon, if you're a business owner or leader you want to be there. People are constantly hearing from the so called experts who claim to have a magic pill on how to lead their team on how to run their business. Well, I'm here to tell you, there's no magic pill. Instead, it's digging deep into the processes, learning from those who are running successful businesses and have been doing so for a long time. And I can tell you, we are so crazy excited about it. Now, you're gonna have the ability to get the absolute lowest price when we launch registration, go to chrislocurto.com/nextlevel eadership, one word to sign up and be notified early and save hundreds off your ticket price. You do not want to miss that. So with that, we hope all of this has been helpful to you. We hope that you've enjoyed today. Take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life. Join us at the event and join us on the next episode.