473 | Prioritizing Grace In The Workplace

Chris LoCurto 0:00
Giving, goodwill, and unearned favor to those who we lead that is coming up next.

Chris LoCurto 0:16
Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discussed leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks, I hope you're having a fabulous day, wherever you are. Today we are continuing to dive into some of our core values and business. And I want to get into something that we haven't dealt with in a long time, and that is grace. Now maybe you're thinking of the National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. But we're not talking about a person's name. We're not talking about saying a prayer before meal or even having a certain smooth elegance. We're talking about courteous goodwill extended to others, especially when they don't deserve it. Now, we dealt with this topic about 300 episodes ago. And you can go back and listen to episode 165, leading with grace. But today, I want to focus on the effect that has on leaders and teams. So when we come back, Grace, why we all need it, and can't get enough of it and what happens when we don't offer it to others.

Joel Fortner 1:28
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 over 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 2:30
So there's no doubt that we all need grace. But that doesn't mean that we're ever going to give it right. So how many times have you ever needed grace? How many times have you ever screwed something up? How many times have you ever done something that you didn't intend to do? How many times have you failed at something that affected other people? And what you really needed was grace? Yep, I've got my hand up. Because it's been about 10,000 times. So grace is in this business. God is our number one core value. Grace is number two, giving grace. And what I tell people is I have been given so much grace that I must give it to others. That is one of our core values. Now, when was the last time you were in a sticky situation? And maybe it was your fault? Or maybe not. But somebody bailed you out? Hey, don't worry about that, you know, that kind of thing will sort all this out. We all need that level of grace. I am not advocating screwing things up on a consistent basis. But what do you learn about this show and my leadership and what we do here? Failure is an option. This ridiculous concept of failure is not an option coming from suppose that thought leaders is just I'm sorry, lame. Failure is inevitable. Failure is going to happen unless you're doing absolutely nothing. So what we teach here all the time is learn from your failures. But guess what? Sometimes your failures are gonna affect other people. And what we need is that human need some grace. So here's the key thought. Grace reinforces respect and value to your team members, instead of reducing them to mere employees or numbers with a timecard to stamp. Think about that. If you only treat your people as a number, if you do not give grace if you do not help them and think about this, you already know that you've been given grace 10 billion times in your life. What is it like for you to have received grace but not give grace? If you are not somebody who can be graceful to your team, if you're not somebody who can extend grace to your team members, and again, you're not hearing me say, you know, allow team members to just make colossal mistakes over and over again, you can make this mistake here. But what do we say? Don't worry about making a mistake, don't worry about failing, just don't keep failing in the same area don't fail in the same area twice. If you fail in the same area twice, what does that say? There's something you haven't learned yet. So I am not advocating that it's okay for people to continuously make the same mistakes, that would be horrible accountability. But in the process, if you're moving anything around, somebody's going to fail at something. If you do not have some modicum of grace, then what are they going to receive that you don't care about treating them with dignity, and that they are just a number. Two. Point number two, giving grace empowers us, as the leader doesn't matter if you're a leader or team member, whoever you are, when you give grace, believe it or not, it empowers you. So how does choosing to be graceful towards others help you? Well, just for a moment, let's think about the opposite of grace. Things like resentment, fear, bitterness, anger, defensiveness, giving grace to others, is part of letting those negative things flow through and out of us. Not allowing them to find root in us. So in the end, believe it or not, it's purifying and empowering. What happens whenever you have somebody screw something up. I own multiple businesses, I've led people for decades. Do you know how many times people have failed? Oh, my gosh, it's a large number. Do you know how many times I have failed? I have a business that is built on me screwing up things and just learning how to fix them and then teach people how not to screwed up? Or what to do if they do. I've screwed up so many things that I have a business that helps people to overcome screw ups, failures, do things right, do things correct, right? So if I hadn't screwed up a ton in my past, how can I possibly teach you. But here's what happens many times, somebody screws up. And instead of us having grace, we resent them. We have bitterness, we have anger.

Chris LoCurto 7:23
Maybe we're defensive, maybe their defensive. Maybe fear enters into the situation. I think as I say this, we all understand that. So when we have grace, what happens to resentment, fear, bitterness, anger, defensiveness, it diminishes considerably. Now, it may not all go away in the first 10 minutes. But it will, it'll go away. So key thought is this. It's not a weakness to be merciful, and kind. In fact, it's a key purpose of power, of position of strength of, of authority. It's part of God's original intention for leadership. So think about how much God has had grace and mercy for you. Now for me, I'll go by the old saying, grace is not giving you something that you deserve. Mercy is giving you something that you don't deserve. So I focus on those things when it comes to my God, and recognize, I am the one who screwed up so many times. And he has been so graceful to me so and so merciful to me as well. So, so much of the time when we're not prioritizing grace, we're allowing ourselves to be motivated by what's the word you probably have it in your mind, frustration, or feeling out of control or fear, right? Whatever it is. And that's not helping to create great decision making. Because if we're frustrated, if we're feeling out of control, if we're fearful, if we're resentful, if we're angry, then how do we base our decision making on the very things that we're experiencing in the moment, and the various things that we're feeling? So the next time you want to just react from the gut, pause and reflect? Sit down with your team member, investigate a little bit, ask questions, what's going on? How can I help you? What are you experiencing what happened? You know, for us, we go through a five step process with failure. What happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? How do we fix it? How do we make sure it never happens again? Does it we do it? Then there's no ripping somebody's head off. You teach you got and you direct, if they keep making the same mistakes, that's when we have tough conversations. Right? So can I be frustrated that there's failures that happen oh my gosh, absolutely. But how I handle it, is how it changes me. And the team member. If I go with grace, then I can do things like asking questions about what happened, how did it happen? Why did it happen? All those different pieces I can seek to understand first, and not to be understood. First I can gain perspective, and then help make a plan. I can do all of those things. But if I'm frustrated, if I'm angry, if I'm better than I guarantee you, those are going to play a part in my decision making, one of the things that I will tell people is, if you're going into a situation with a team member, I know, I'll never forget, I had a team member who screwed up a couple of contracts and contracts with different places. She was doing them at the same time. And she screwed up a couple of things, and it cost me a lot of money, a whole lot of money. I found out about it on a Friday did not like a Friday morning, did not talk to her until Monday. Why? Because I had just lost a lot of money. And I knew that if I went into a discussion with it right, then I might get a little angry. Because the number was large. We're not talking about small pennies here. It was a lot of money. 10s of 1000s of dollars. And so I just told myself, there's no way you're going to talk to her today. You will wait, you'll go through the weekend. And I have people say you carried that through the weekend. That's a heck of a lot better me carrying that than me carrying the resentment of having talked badly to her saying something bad. So when we come back, we're given grace to your team members does for them.

Joel Fortner 11:46
Hey, leaders, this is Joel Fortner, VP of leadership development at Chris LoCurto Company. I have some questions for you. Do you as a leader feel like you are caught up in a Crazy Cycle of stress and tasks that never ends week to week? Do you ever have to deal with tough conversations with team members? And you sit at home the next day the night before? Worried about how's it going to go? What am I going to say? What are they going to say? Can I think fast enough on my feet? Is it going to be a total failure? Are you experiencing culture problems or that stuff that just breaks down trust and unity on your team? Well, if you're if you can relate to any of this, this is a pretty typical leadership story and situation. Here's the thing though, it doesn't have to be that way. And we can help you solve these things, we can help you become the leader that solves these problems and leads 13th to greater success. I want to introduce you to the key leaders program. This is an ongoing leadership development program that gives you the lesson track coaching and accountability. You need to become the leader you can become to actually implement what you're actually learning in this program. Things Fall Apart without great leadership and intentionality. If you want to solve the problems that are holding you back from being a great leader, we can help you with this program. Get in touch with Joel Chrislocurto.com.

Chris LoCurto 13:12
Okay, point number three, giving grace empowers others, a lot of times, we don't know what's going on in a team members personal life until he or she decides to share that information with us. But there's always things going on. So I'm not saying that you need to dig deep into somebody's personal life. I'm not saying that at all, you might want to be very cautious there. But here's what I can tell you. If you're able to have the conversation, great if you have that type of relationship, great. But if you don't recognize that there are things going on in that person's life, then you're looking at that person and assuming that everything is fantastic. Everything is glorious, there's no problems, there's no issues there. They're not dealing with problems with parents or family members or friends or relatives or spouses or kids or paying their rent on time or car problems or whatever. If you do not recognize that somebody may be struggling with something, then how likely are you to have grace? Again, you don't have to get in and know everything and I know you're thinking of that one team member who probably can't seem to get their stuff together. I've had those in the past. I can go back all the way back to my my leadership days at each ride and think of somebody that on a daily basis. That person just couldn't get their stuff together and I felt for them. Here's the funny thing. Quite often when you see that person is struggling then a lot of times they're not going to reveal it. You try to talk you try to help and it's a lot of denial why? guilt, shame, fear. So if that's not something you can recognize, then maybe take a look at you and times you've had those. I can look back on my history of leading people and see when you know, times when people have just struggled immensely, and then look in my own life and go, Yep, I had some problems like that, too. Yep. I struggled with that, too. Yep, that held me back as well. So start recognizing what's going on from the perspective that you can see, because a lot of times they seem to have things going on in their lives outside of their control. You know, what I'm talking about, they can't get to work on time, they can't get that one project done, they can't find a sitter for the kids, there's always some emergency to attend to they constantly are distracted or distracting others, right? These things can jeopardize a team members success at work, but it can also jeopardize a team's success at work. But helping them to be a successful human is foundational to leadership. Leader. Think about that. You're not just a leader to just get somebody to do a task. Right? Your job is to make them successful. How much? Is it your job to try and help them you can't make people successful human beings. Don't read that into that. That's not what I'm saying. But you can help them to make better decisions. Some people just need a little help. Some people just need a graceful leader to step in. Somebody might need to see that you care more about them than the thing that you're asking them to do. I know there's a whole lot entrepreneurs that just heard me say that and go, Oh, come on. Can't they just do what I'm paying them for? Yeah, now they can. But here's what I'm asking you. At the end of the day, what's more important? Your bottom line? Are the people that God put in your business.

Chris LoCurto 17:17
Right? The people that God put on your team, I'm gonna say it's the people. How do I know that? Because God says it's the people. So that's what I'm gonna focus on. Grace is the way forward right here, it empowers them to get a handle on their situation. Now, how is that? Chris? How is me giving grace? Can I help them? Well, if they feel respected as a human being, if they feel like you're treating them with dignity, then it can allow them to drop that guard, it can allow them to be vulnerable, and it can allow them to actually speak about some of the stuff, maybe ask for some help and talk to somebody, when a person doesn't feel like they're being treated with dignity, then what happens? guards up walls up, not going to admit anything, not gonna, you know, take responsibility, I'm gonna be a victim in this situation. So Grace helps them to feel respected. It also helps them to be more honest with you. A lot of times, if somebody can see that you care about them deeply as a human, they might be able to share some of the things that they're experiencing, why is that important? Because you just might be able to help them through it. There have been times when somebody has explained to me a situation that they're going through. And because I had not only grace, but empathy, I was able to rectify the situation a little bit from my my vantage point. Maybe it's helping out by blessing them with money, maybe it's helping out by blessing them with time, maybe it's helping out by supporting their day to day tasks. By pulling some of the more important things off whatever it is, maybe it's just being that that listening ear. But if you have grace, and they can see that, that a lot of times they can be more honest with you, which can allow you to be a better help. If you have grace. This may be the very thing that causes them to want to change. If they can see that you care how many people on your team don't have graceful people in their lives. How many people on your team experience people who don't have grace? But instead experience controlling people? Listen, there are people who are drawn to controlling people. I can tell you as a former people pleaser in my life, I actually just got to a point where I believed that I was supposed to be surrounded by controlling people. Right Praise God. God helps me on that one. Because it allowed me to put healthy boundaries in place. Well, what if you have a young Chris on your team who will leaves that he's supposed to be treated like crap, and has controlling people around him and doesn't have healthy people. Well, if they experience you as being healthy and graceful, it might be the very thing that helps them to desire change. So, Shepherd, leader, servant leader, you need to be a healthier leader, so that you can have healthier teams. If you will, Shepherd if you will guide if you will serve, if you're direct, if you will be healthy, which includes you not going off the deep end, you not being angry, you're not biting people's heads off, you're not holding on to a bunch of bitterness and resentment. If you are able to be graceful, if you're able to give a lot of grace, then you can be the shepherd leader, the servant leader that your team needs that will help not only you become healthier, but it will definitely help your team to become healthier. Well, folks, that's all the time we have for today. I hope this has helped you out to become a stronger better leader. A stronger better person, a more loving, more graceful, more merciful person. As always, we want you to take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode!