596 | Lead Like a Pro: Discover the Key Leader Edge – Part 1

Introduction (00:00:00)

We're diving deep into the heart of leadership challenges with our special guest from our own Key Leader Program and the new VP of leadership development, Lyneé South.

So if you're a leader feeling overwhelmed, struggling with delegation or dealing with team trust issues, this episode is for you. So stay tuned because that is coming up 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. I hope you're having a fabulous day. Wherever you are today.

I can tell you I am having a fabulous day because joining me in studio, her virtual studio, I should say, uh, is our new VP of Leadership Development, Lyneé South, who also happens to be very special to me since she is also my daughter.

So, Lyneé, welcome to the show.

Hello. Hello. So glad to be here.

My, my show debut. Your show debut. It is so good to have you on it. We've talked about this for so long about having you on the show, and now you're here and, uh, super exciting for me.

Super proud moment for me. There's so many proud moments that we've had over the last couple of years, actually, for the last 20 some years of you in the leadership space, but just a lot of fun stuff that's going on.

So today, Lyneé is joining me and we're going to give you practical solutions to break free from the most common leadership cycles so that you can start leading with confidence.

So maybe you're stuck in the Leadership Crazy Cycle, which most of you probably are, where you're just so bogged down with tasks that you can't actually lead, or perhaps you're finding it impossible to delegate without things falling apart, which is super common.

And let's not even start on the stress and anxiety from, you know, trying to handle tough conversations that we've all experienced, you know, how difficult that is and trying to keep everybody on the same page.

So topics like these are just so much easier said than done. I know a lot of folks say, Chris, I hear you talking about that, but. And it sounds so easy on the show, but it's really difficult.

But truthfully, it's actually not as difficult as you think. The key is getting started. So we are going to dive into a bunch of this. This is my opportunity to interview, and I love that it's you, Lyneé, so let's just dive in.

Key Leader Struggles

The first thing that we're talking about is key leader struggles. And I just mentioned before we get into that, well, before actually, before we get into all of this.

How about you kind of share with the folks your leadership journey, which is over. It spans a few decades. Yeah, it's weird to say that I have been in leadership for over 20 years.

I still think I'm 20 sometimes. I know, but, yeah, leadership for me has always been something that's kind of just been innate. But officially started when I was working in youth ministry and just leading the youth has been such a passion of mine.

And now having teens myself, it's actually super practical for me to remember and reflect on that time. But professionally, I started my leadership journey.

You know, I was working at that canvas shop and actually began managing it within several months of being on staff. And I remember reaching out to you.

Cause I knew you worked in leadership and you had just started that brand new program. And I went all the way out to Tennessee and went through a week long of leadership training at that time.

I think I was 19 at the time, and that's where leadership really became a focus of what I did. And that led into all the- Every job I've had has always now had little pieces of the leadership training.

I mean, and diving into that more and more as I went on after that business, I went into another business where I was actually teaching others how to lead and their team all over the country and also implement processes for their business.

And that has actually become such a specialty of mine of process-driven efficiency within business and as well as leading up that has because I've done a lot in executive administration, business management, stuff like that.

So that's really where I find kind of a little niche of mine. And then fast forward a few more years. And I started with you guys back in 2015, I think. I think so, yeah.

Yeah. I started in the coaching department and just listening and absorbing and working under you and Joel at the time, and Heather also her coaching.

And so that led into me just doing coaching outside of- I mean, it just, when you are surrounded by it, it's so natural to share. And so that just really sparked my passion for coaching, basically.

And just a couple years ago, I was given the opportunity to start coaching here, and I have loved every minute of it.

I'm coaching a lot in the Mastermind group, and it's got some Key Leaders as well. So it's just been a fun ride, and I'm so happy to now be the new VP of Leadership Development. Kind of crazy. Yeah.

It is so crazy for me because it doesn't seem like it's been that many years. Like, I. I always picture you as a young girl, being a leader in the family, you know, leaders with, with the cousins and everything and just who you were and just.

You were always just more mature and always took that role. Well, I don't know, sometimes you took the role, sometimes I think it was given to you. But, you know, you just always did a phenomenal job.

But I can go back to the day of us, you know, starting that leadership journey together, you know, when you were 19 and. And just how proud I was of you and how proud I've been as you came into Poimen and that was our company.

That was a no brainer. It just made so much sense and you just killed it. But I think the interesting thing was is that, you know, I'm quite biased.

And so as you are coming up through, and you're literally it, one of the most awesome things was to hear you back in the day, years ago, coaching and guiding and directing and sounding just like us.

I mean, it was, it's this, it was the same thing, which obviously, I mean, why wouldn't it be, right?

But as you stepped up into that coaching area, for me, it was like, okay, I gotta step back. This cannot be my decision making. I'm gonna put this on the leadership team.

They have got to tear this apart, otherwise I'm just gonna be biased and you're just gonna be in the role. Right. And so they did a phenomenal job of walking through the whole process and trying to scare you out of it.

They did try to see if. Okay, are you really up for this or not? But by the time it came to you stepping up into a leadership role, that was a no. You. You were ready.

And that's when I tried to scare you out of this, of saying, hey, listen, I. I want you in this role, but I need you to understand this is going to be even more difficult than anything you've experienced because we have layers.

The way that I lead and guide and direct. It doesn't matter who it is, whether it's my daughter, whether it's my wife, whether it's, you know, my best friends, when I like people to have expectations.

Hey, you're now stepping up into this role. Expect it to be this tough and, you know, just making sure that you were ready for that. And my gosh, you stepped in and fit perfectly.

It has been yet again, like the 4000th proud moment that I've had. And so I have just loved that. And so it is great having you as the VP of our Leadership Development area, which you've just been just killing it in that area and doing so much.

I want to do a Trump thing. You're the best. Everybody knows it. Nobody's better. I don't know if that's a good Trump.

But hey, there you go. So, yeah, it's been great, especially having you leading. I mean, the rest of the team, fantastic as well. So, I mean, they have, they've really just helped me fit in and guide me through all the levels of this.

So, yeah, it's just so natural, which is the greatest thing. There's no difficulty, which is fantastic. But I think one of the most proud things is one for me, I'm super proud that you've been a part of this business for so long and that you're, you are where you are.

But my proudest moments are actually people telling me how amazing it is coaching with you and how great it's been and how helpful you've been and the things that you've guided and directed them on that, that to me is, you know, we are servants and that is my most proud moment right there.

Leadership Crazy Cycle

So. All right, so with all of that being said, some of these folks are wondering what it means when I say the Leadership Crazy Cycle.

So kind of explain what that is and, you know, how it affects leaders. Yeah. So a lot of people come to us that are stuck in what we call the Leadership Crazy Cycle.

That is when you don't have time to lead your team, you don't have time to think about what's important. You just do. It's just a reactionary role that a lot of leaders are dealing with and struggling with and they don't know it.

They just think it's business as usual and it really prevents them from being efficient, intentional with their time, communicating to their team what's really needed.

And so basically they're going, they're going, going in every different direction. Right. And nothing really important is getting tackled. The goals just get pushed further and further out.

Communication with their team is lacking. Lots of balls are being dropped a lot of times is what might I experience.

And so that's what we talk about as the Leadership Crazy Cycle. It's funny because as I think about this, I think through your history and I don't, I don't know of a time that you've been stuck in it because we've been so proactive.

But I could be wrong. Is it, do you, do you think, like, that's, we're very proactive in making sure none of our leaders ever get stuck in the Leadership Crazy Cycle?

But can you think back to other businesses that you were in where you were stuck in this overwhelm? Oh, yes, yes, there was a business that I was a part of that it is.

And I was not the. Obviously, I wasn't the CEO or the owner of the business, so I was working with the owner and it was directive and delegation in a million different directions.

We had no focus and my days were 10 hours long at that time, just task after task after task, but nothing really aligning or moving forward real goals.

It was, we had way too many balls in the air and not. It's the shotgun approach. We talk about it all the time. Right. We're just trying to shoot something out there and see if anything sticks.

And such a lack of direction and disconnect was really affecting that. And yes, I was in the Crazy Cycle along with her.

Yeah, no doubt if you are definitely the owner is so kind of talk about when it comes to decision making, you know, when a business owner or leader, you know, like you just shared, we didn't have a clear path.

We didn't have a clear direction. And for those who don't understand what a shotgun approach is, this is when you're doing so many different things and you're not focused on, you know, like a laser focused direction.

You're going in 17 different directions, you're draining your resources and all that kind of stuff, and you're, you're not getting your greatest productivity, you're losing profit, all that kind of crap.

So what is it like for, you know, the difficulties in decision making when business owners or leaders just don't have that clear path?

Well, the problem is, is it starts at the top. Whatever you're doing as a leader trickles down to everybody below you. So if you don't have a laser focus and you have your vision just completely chaotic, that's going to trickle down to everybody beneath you.

So it's so important to have the alignment with your team. And I always recommend that the owner and the leaders beneath the owner work on that alignment and that vision together, especially your really key leaders, because you need their buy in as an owner.

You need them to be able to champion certain things because you can't do it all. And so when you get them, you're taxing that collective intelligence.

You are getting them to probably champion one of these initiatives as well. So you're not alone and you guys are working together, and then the accountability is seamless because it's their goal as well.

So creating that alignment in the beginning is super imperative to make sure that you all are going in the same direction.

So in decision making, if you don't have that alignment, you guys are not going to be making decisions the same way as you would if you had the alignment.

So the big thing is we talk about core values. We as a team are trying to make decisions based on those core values. So if you don't have things that are aligning you, such as core values, mission, vision, where are you making decisions from? Right.

So making sure that you are aligned and that those core elements are being conveyed to your team is super important, and that's where you're going to be able to build that trust that they are making decisions from the right place because you've already taught them where that comes from.

Yeah, I think we see this so often, and, you know, we've experienced this in our young leadership careers as well, that there sometimes there can be this desperation you don't have, you know, you don't know where you're going, you don't know what you're doing.

You don't have that clear vision, you know, kind of like you talked about that shotgun approach, and everything becomes desperate. Something has to work, something has to, you know, something has to take off.

If it doesn't, then the whole thing just, you know, the house of cards just seems to fall apart. So it is, if I. If I don't have alignment, and that's, again, you know, we. We are so focused on.

On being so aligned, sometimes it's hard to remember what it was like, you know, in early days of experiencing that lack of alignment. But the great thing is, is that as we help people, we're constantly seeing from their perspective what they're experiencing.

So a big piece that we struggle with all the time and we talk about all the time, but so many people struggle with of implementing, and I truly believe it's because they haven't had quality versions of this is accountability and how crucial it is and.

But how also how difficult accountability is to maintain. So share kind of some ideas of what it's like to start implementing accountability with your team.

Like, you know, what are some steps? What are some things that people can do? So, so many people, we've said it. If you've listened to us for any amount of time, you know, that we say a lot of people feel like accountability is a bad word.

Yeah. And I was just talking with a Key Leader group yesterday. One of the terms that I am really trying to put in a union with accountability is, is conversation.

So when you have built a relationship with your leader or your team member, whether you're leading up or leading down, is, it's so huge and I preach this so much, is building a rapport and building a place where you can have conversations without having fear of conflict.

Conflict is such a abstract thing, especially for I'm a High S. And so for me, getting to a place of maturity to be able to say that is crazy because conflict still bothers me.

But if you can look at it from the lens of just a conversation, accountability, because one, like I talked about alignment earlier, if you guys.

So taking our KRAs, starting with a KRA, knowing what is expected from this role, from your role, and agreeing on it, that's what we do when we have a KRA.

We set expectations and we say, we both agree that this is the direction we want this role to go to accomplish the greater goal of the business.

So we've set that. Now we go into a conversation, hey, I see that you didn't meet this goal this month. Why not? And we just talk about it.

You've created a space of, a safe space for you and your team member to have this conversation of what's working, what's not, and how do we make it work?

Because we both have agreed that this is acceptable, this is what is expected and it's attainable. And we've opened up that line of communication to say, this actually isn't working.

And then we figure out why. And that's basically it. We're just asking questions to get to success in the role or in the project or whatever the case may be.

But being able to take out that bad word, the bad connotation of accountability, and reframe it into, we're literally just looking for success.

And I'm here to help you get there. You know, it's so funny because we're both High Ss, but we've also, we also implement and do the stuff we teach, which gives us a higher level of confidence than the, than the normal High S.

But we both still hate conflict. We're good at it. We can handle it, we can deal with it, we can lead people through it. But at the end of the day, you still hate conflict.

And I think as you're sharing that, I love that you add the conversation piece into it because so many leaders are like, I hear you, but I know that once I get into the middle of that conversation, it's going to be painful, it's going to be difficult.

I'm not going to be prepared or whatever, but I love the way that you're posturing that to say, hey, once you've created this open space, then it is just a conversation.

It's not coming. You don't have to build yourself up because every High S believes that they have to build themselves up like a High D just to have a tough conversation.

Instead, once you create it, it makes it easier on you to actually hold somebody accountable because you're not looking at it as like you're a hammer and they're a nail, right?

You haven't done the thing. So bam, you know, I've got to hit you over the head on this thing and it's just got to be so difficult.

So I love the conversation piece. What are some other things that people can do to kind of institute accountability? Like what are some tools?

I'm big on meetings. One on one meetings with your team members is so huge. It is a place for you to build that relationship with them and again, hold them accountable. But in our company we use Asana. Asana is such a, it's a project management application.

Basically we get to have communication to specific that are tied back to specific tasks. If you didn't hear me before, I'm all about processes and efficiency.

And so the system- Asana doesn't take away from the meetings, but it gives you a place to start. You get to have those conversations tying directly back to specific tasks or projects that you're working on.

So making sure that you have something, what is your place where you're capturing the things that are important, the goals, the initiatives, whatever you need to hold your team member accountable, it has to be captured somewhere.

They have to know what is expected. So making sure that your processes are written down that hopefully not on a post it note or for all of our High Is out there, not in your head. Oh, I got this. No, you don't write it down. Put it somewhere.

Yeah, exactly. You got to communicate. And then, so using some sort of project management software, whatever that looks like. I don't recommend email either.

They go into the void. But we need something that's really helping us stay on track and move forward. Goals and initiatives.

The other thing, like I mentioned earlier, are the one-on-one meetings. It's so important to set some time aside to let your team member know. I need this time with you.

Sometimes we are going to talk about 99 tasks and other times we only have one. And I just wanted to spend some time with my team member, getting to know what's going on in their lives.

This is a place where you set that time aside. We do it weekly in our business it is a 30 minutes touch base. We talk about projects. We talk about whatever it is that we need to talk about. And then if there's time left over, we talk about each other's lives.

You need to build relationships with your team members, especially those that you're leading. It's so important so that you can't. When those difficult conversations do arise, you have a foundation of they know that you already care about them.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I think so many leaders struggle with this one-on-one meeting because they don't really understand what to talk about.

You know, maybe you're just supposed to give me updates, and they miss on, you know, like, you just shared.

So. So my assumption is there's a small percentage of leaders out there right now that just heard personal stuff. Oh, come on. This is all about business.

Listen, the more you get to know somebody personally doesn't mean you take 30 minutes to dig in on their personal life. It doesn't mean you're asking intrusive questions.

It's just getting to a place of, like you said, having that comfortable ability to have a conversation. You know, if I'm asking you how your weekend went and you're like, oh, my gosh, you know, my daughter just played in a, you know, travel ball and did great.

And, you know, she got to be catcher for the first time when she did a phenomenal job. Yeah. Shout out to Kylie. It was fun to be able to praise God. They had a camera. We got to watch that.

But, you know, it, then all of a sudden, there's that connection.

Totally.

And you know. And if I care about you, which we're constantly saying, care more about other people than you do yourself, right.

Especially with your team members that you've got in the moment, just spend time caring more about them than you care about themselves, then we've created this connection, and if you're doing it and it's false, don't do it.

Right. If you don't really give a rip about what's going on and you just can't wait for them to stop talking so that you can get to the business side, don't waste your time, you know, because you, you know, you can't kid a kid.

You know the old saying, you can't kid a kid. Well, the same thing. You can't kid an adult that you care if you don't actually care.

So. But spending that time in meetings and a little bit of personal time, just having that conversation, I think, goes a long way to being able to institute the accountability side, because now I trust you more.

You know the old saying of if you're going to take withdrawals from the bank, you have to put in more deposits than you take withdrawals. It's the same thing with people. I have to put more deposits into your life, into.

Into you as my team member, then I can take withdrawals so that when I do have to take a withdrawal, it's not so bad. Right.

If there's something you did wrong or something that you're not doing the way that we, we've talked about it, then I can speak into that.

Hey, help me to understand why isn't this getting done the way that it's supposed to get done? Are you going to feel like crap?

Sure. But you're also going to be. Man, I don't want to disappoint Chris, you know, I don't want to disappoint Lyneé.

Um, so, okay, that was tough, that was painful, but let me get back in there and do a great job.

Delegation Challenges

So, second thing I want to kind of hit because I just, you know, teaching this for 30 plus years, I think this is something that people still struggle so heavily with and we define it here on the show many times.

But delegation challenges, you know, struggles with delegation. How difficult it is. And what we call it is, we call it proper delegation. So in our lesson, Killing the Leadership Crazy Cycle, we actually talk about proper delegation.

We have to put the word proper in front of it because 99.9% of people are taught a crappy way of delegating. So kind of speak to the difficulty that some leaders find when they're trying to delegate tasks effectively.

You nailed it. It is proper delegation. It's being intentional. It is not sending an email, hey, can you take over this project? No details, no timeline, no set expectations, no follow up.

So those are all the things. I mean, as a leader, I have had to learn this myself and how to teach people, and I had to learn.

So, for example, I was just talking about this yesterday in one of our calls is we create a lot of workbooks, lessons a lot.

So many things like that. And I used to create them so many years ago. So going from a place where I did the job myself and I knew what to expect, and I had Heather who taught me, and so I had to learn to process through why something wasn't right.

Because sometimes I just want to go in there and fix it myself because I didn't want to take the time to process through my thought process on why something just didn't sit right with me, why it wasn't the right image.

Why something was off in alignment. And so for me it was, okay, Lyneé, stop. Take the time to think through your process. Now teach it. Yeah. That is so much long-

That takes so much more time and effort, brain capacity to do that, to lead and to explain your process. But what you're doing in that is you're allowing somebody, you're duplicating yourself. Right.

Right. So once we can duplicate ourselves, and that's the whole intent behind delegation, it's freeing up our time so that we can go and work on things that are more important.

And so that's one aspect. One thing that leaders get into when they're delegating is taking things back, doing it themselves, because I can do it faster, quicker, and I don't have to explain myself. Yeah.

And just using the point of view, the number of workbooks that we do and the detail that goes into these workbooks and how long they are and all that stuff, you would not be able to do your job correctly if you were having to go and take back and do.

And this is the part that so many leaders don't get. I don't have time, Chris. I don't have time. Lyneé, where am I going to find the time to teach and train?

I hear you and I think that sounds great, but I don't have time. Okay, well, how many times is this thing going to happen over the next month, the next year? Right. If it's going to happen once, great, fine, take the thing back.

Run with it. You still lost out on an opportunity. But what happens when it's something that is going to be done over and over and over again?

You know, something like creating, you know, different workbooks, different styles, different ways. What's going to happen is, is that we're paying somebody to do that job and we're paying you as a leader.

And if you keep taking the job back, then now we're paying both of you to focus on that task and you're not doing the leading.

And I think that's the part that so many leaders don't calculate that in their brain. And I want to add on to this other side of what is that also telling your team member, right.

Yes. You know, your person, you supposedly delegated to one, maybe they're not worth your time to train correctly or that they're failing and you don't trust them. Like, there's so many layers we can get into that that's a whole other episode.

But it's, you have to trust and teach and be patient and be gracious and set expectations, you know, so that's just piece of it. Yeah, no doubt. Now, you talked a little bit ago, so we're talking about leading down.

Leading, you know, delegating. I hate. I hate the terms down and up, but I think it's what everybody tends to understand. Right.

And how important it is to lead properly and delegate properly and align properly and all these different, you know, have the accountability, kind of give some leaders, you know, obviously, that would not be the business owner, you know, or they may be in the top layer of leadership.

They might be in one of the other layers. Kind of give them some ideas on what it's like to lead up, because this is something you've done really well. I'm better than probably anybody I've ever known.

You've done such a phenomenal job of leading up, kind of give some ideas on what that looks like. So my experience early on was an executive assistant, and one of the things I was taught was to basically protect the quarterback, who is the person that I was assisting.

Right. My role as a. As a support staff was to protect that person at all costs, because at this point, this person was the. Was the owner, the operator, and the production.

He was building the thing, and I had to really protect his time. And so I learned things. I took a ton of notes, and I'd run back and ask questions as he was producing things on the line.

And we created a rapport of me being able to make decisions and then ask questions and being able to choose when to interrupt and when to, you know, make the decisions on my own. And there was failure.

But the thing was, I was building that relationship with him so that I could understand his thought process, and he would. I would learn to ask all of the questions, and I would observe processes that he would do.

So that, for me, was super important. Take risks within your means and ask the questions. Hey, these are some things I'd like to try. What do you think about that? And then get that feedback.

Well, I think you can do this, this, but don't do this yet. We'll work to that. So, for me, it's being observant.

What are the things that this person needs support with that maybe they don't even know that they need learning what risks you can take and then asking questions.

After you took that risk, what would you have done differently? So getting feedback again, this is such a dance. It is.

Take a step in one direction, ask, what would you change, basically, and implement that and take it a step further the next time. And this only happens in a relationship where you built trust, though.

So that's super important. They need to know that you are supporting them.

You have the interest of the business or their interest at heart. You really have to show that and give a good, I think there has to be a good foundation before you start doing this.

But that's such a big piece on leading up is building that trust and then working from there.

You know, it's, gosh, just listening to you talk about that, like I say, you, I think you've done that better than anybody I've ever known.

You just do such a phenomenal job at it. We always say, hey, if you want to be able to lead up, then come to a place of understanding what the CEO wants you to know. The leader wants you to know.

Get on the page of what they want you to know. Right. But the way that you just described it, I can't stop thinking about how this is a reverse delegation.

Oh, yeah. I mean, it literally is. Everything you just laid out there is really the delegation process in reverse. You know, it's not, not the delegation process, but from the like, chart, reverse delegation, right.

Where you're, you're delegating backwards and finding out, you know, what, how do I make this person successful? How do I make this person, you know, how do I lead them into trusting me? This is a huge piece.

You know, you could be a very immature leader and you're not knowing how to lead that person below you very well. And so you're not going to do anything.

You're not even going to move until you can trust them. You believe that they're going to be able to get to the expectations that you want.

So it's such a powerful piece when you start leading in their direction and helping them, when you're proactively going after, what do you want this to look like?

What decisions do you want me to make? What decisions do you want to be a part of? What is, you know, how much risk can I take? All those different pieces?

It's just a fantastic way of saying, hey, it's your job to delegate back the other direction. And it's funny because not only are you High S, but you've got a lot of C, which it takes an incredible amount of maturity for a High C, High S to be able to go, oh, I can be proactive.

I can be the one who moves, you know, because so often Cs and Ss are, you just tell me and I'll do it. I'm here to support you. You just tell me I would never lead the other direction.

But a leader who has that person on their side, on their team is going to elevate that person like crazy.

Because now you truly have gone from being a support team member to somebody who's proactively, you know, a supportive team member who's waiting for me to tell you how to support me, to proactively running down, gosh, these are the things that Lyneé needs.

This is what she needs for me to do. Let me get in there and see if I can get her to release some of this stuff. And if I could speak to the leader owner operator real quick.

Just a tip for you. One thing that was invaluable, and I preach this to everybody, is let them shadow you. That time is just especially for somebody that's really a champion, that's really wanting to do the role and do it well.

They're going to learn so much in that time. So if you don't have the first week, let them shadow so much of what you do. They're going to pick up and learn and you can teach through this whole thing.

And it's not slowing you down more. I mean, it is probably, but in the long term it really isn't. And it's giving them so much valuable insight into what is important, how you operate, what you need when you break for lunch.

Like these are the things that you don't think about, but it's really important for that support staff. So, yeah, we should probably someday. We should someday do that.

You and I are both, we're both risk takers, you know, even though we're both High Ss, we both will take risks. I might be, that might be a fun one to dig into why we're able to do that more than the average, average, High S.

That's interesting. Anyway, so folks, if you want to, if that's important, let us know: [email protected], it's interesting that you and I are so much like that.

Stress and Tough Conversations

So, all right, we're going to hit now we get into some stressful stuff, which is actually having the tough conversations.

And you kind of touched on this, but, you know, what does it look like in stressful situations? What does it look like in having tough conversations?

One of the worst stinking things, and again, this goes back to Killing the Leadership Crazy Cycle, is that busyness and task saturation are significant issues when it comes to a leader.

You know, and I always tell people, listen, if you have people who do tasks, if their job is to do tasks, then yes, they should be loaded up with tasks. But as a leader, your job is to make people successful.

So if you don't have time to do that because you're so overwhelmed with tasks and so overwhelmed with business, then how in the world are you going to lead effectively?

So kind of. Kind of talk about some. Some strategies that leaders can use. You know, when they're, when they are busy, they're stressed out and they still need to have tough conversations. What does that look like?

I say if it's on the calendar, it is not ignored. So starting with setting that time, no matter what, you need to hold that time with your team member.

And I would have the tough conversations during your one on one. Unless it's a fire. Right.

Right. Fire. We bring them in, we address the thing immediately. But other than that, you don't want tough conversations to have a stigma. You want to be able to just incorporate that into your normal weekly one-on-one.

Great way of putting that. So let's go ahead and just put that time on the calendar and don't ignore it. Don't push it off. Let your team member know that your time is valuable or their time is valuable, just as yours is. Right.

What would you think if they started canceling your one-on-ones? Probably wouldn't look very good. You'd wonder what's going on. So you also want to be aware of what that looks like if you're canceling those.

Because I guess I'm saying this because I hear a lot of leaders canceling their one-on-one meetings, but they're super important and they're super important to tell your team member that they're valuable. Right.

And now we have a space where we just talk about whatever. And the tough conversations, I think, just aren't as tough if you can just incorporate them into our weekly conversations. Does that make sense?

It does. It does.  So what do you say to the High S, the High Cs that are like, yeah, I hear you, but I feel like I lose control.

I feel like, you know, I'm going to go in there with an idea of how this should go, and it's just going to be, you know, I'm going to walk away going, man, I wish I'd have said these 17 things.

What are some things that they can do to make that tough conversation, even in that one on one session? Whatever. Or if it's a fire, either way, what are some things that they can do?

I am a processor. High C. Go figure. I have to write things down so that I don't go off track. I have to process it through ahead of time. We talk about watching it like a movie.

Right. So sometimes as High Ss, we're gonna go back and we're gonna critique things. You can't change what you didn't say unless it's super important, then you can bring them back in and-.

But I would let it go because we are gonna think about a million different things. But making sure that you do put. Especially if it's. If it's a really difficult conversation that you need to make sure that one.

You're not hurting feelings intentionally or unintentionally, I should say. We always talk about. Don't go into anything angry. Right. So process through and dig through. What's truth? What's emotion? Okay.

Take the emotion out. Let's bring in. Okay, what is the corrective action? What are we going to do to solve it? Make sure we're asking questions, gaining the perspective. Right.

That's so big. We can assume. We talked about this in our last lesson that Aaron and I taught earlier.

Just. We assume so much, and it's just nature. It's not anything that we're doing intentionally. It's nature to assume things. And so when we can remember and be aware of that and then say, what are some assumptions I'm making?

Okay. What questions do I need to ask to gain the right perspective? Sometimes we don't even know what the question is. Right. And so we have to get to the lowest level question first and then go from there.

Right. I think that that's such a big thing, is remembering what questions to ask that don't put somebody on the defense so that they come in with truth and not emotion. Right?

Yeah, totally. How can I prepare? You know, we're using the High S, and the reason why we're using the High S is because High S and High C tend to be the ones that are, are, you know, they hate con-

We hate conflict so much that we tend to not face it and you know it. Both you and I have overcome this. Both you and I have for decades, you know, use the stuff that we teach and are able to have tough conversations.

We don't like it. We hate it. I, you know, I have some of the biggest conflict conversations in meetings and, you know, helping businesses get to, you know, get through junk.

And I'm. I'm good at it. Doesn't mean I like it. It doesn't mean I like the conflict piece. Yeah. I like the outcome. I like working through the crap to get to a phenomenal outcome. But what do I do as far as understanding.

You talked about watching it like a movie. What about understanding the personality style of the person? Like, I mean, if it's another highest coming in, it's probably not even going to be a tough conversation, right?

But what do I do about those other personality styles? It's so funny how I've been having so many questions that you're asking.

So many conversations. This week. I talked to another High S who has a High D boss, and she had all these assumptions. She one was saying he put a one-on-one on our calendar and it freaked me out. Oh, yeah. And I was like, yep, I can see that.

She's like, especially cause we haven't had one before. And so I'm like, so what is your fear? And so we talked through what the fear was, and she talked about past dates.

She's like, well, maybe in the last week I did this and I don't know. And I'm like, and what happens if that is, then what? And so we just talked through. So we went through, okay, what's the personality style?

This person's going to come in with this. So I told her, I said, hey, remind him of your personality style. Right? So. So we just had that. She's like, oh, yeah.

I said, do you, does he know a lot about personality? She's like, a little bit. It's big in our company, but he's new. And I said, okay, so explain to him what that means.

And so when you can just say something out loud and bring the awareness to that conversation, hey, High D, I'm a High S.

Let's talk about how we communicate and set the stage for that in the conversation and then have the conversation, hey, I did this because of this. This is how my High C processed this.

Part of me thinks that that's not what you meant. And then just we're talking like it's a conversation again, right? And we're reminding each other of who we are and where we come from and the lens that we're wearing.

So that then, oh, I forgot about that. That's not intentional. That's just who they are. So then we can now say, okay, High D, in the future, I would love to ask you these questions.

Is this the best way I should ask you? Should I text? Should I email, should I, etcetera, and get to what are preferences? We're learning how to communicate the height, the personality styles are a layer, right?

So we start with that layer and we start with that lens, and then we dig in deeper and we're like, okay, well, now what's the values that are playing into this and what's the Root System and the more depth of the relationship.

You're going to get to those lower levels, but start with the surface. Right. And then you can start digging deeper. So it was such a great conversation because, and I reminded her, High Ds and High Ss have the most conflict, so buckle up for it and just be aware of it.

And now you can start to diffuse those. Yeah. It is so funny to hear you say it that way because I've had to guide people going into meetings.

I remember years and years ago going into a meeting with a very dominant personality style. And this is when I was a team leader and bringing in one of my team members who was this monster High I.

But then, you know, High S, really not much D or C, but just total people person.

Yeah. And just saying you need to before we walk in here, slow down. Now, this is somebody who is going to pressure the crap out of you to answer.

And I want you to say, hey, is it okay if I have a moment to think through that? And I'll never forget sitting there because, you know, as a. For me, as a leader, I. I like you to practice the very things that, you know, I'm teaching you.

And so I'm sitting there watching this process, and this D is just pounding this team member of mine, and I'm just waiting. And not pounding in a mean way, but in a...

What's the answer? What's the answer? And I was just waiting. And finally he looked up, he said, is it okay if I have some time to process this? And the High D just got this huge smile.

It looked over at me and I'm like, hey. And he realized, oh, you've been coached, haven't you? It's okay to do that. It's okay to settle, you know, as we talk through processing speed in personality styles.

And by the way, folks, if you've not done DISC and Values in your team, get it done. Go to chrislocurto.com, get it done. Change your communication. It's powerful. But as we talk about DIS and C, these are the fastest processors.

Oh, my gosh. Ds can process so fast, and then Is are a little bit slower, and then Ss are considerably slower, and then Cs are a lot slower than that.

But Ds are gonna have the least amount of information. Cs are gonna have the most amount of information.

There's so much that they're going through, but understanding the person in the. In the conversation, understanding how they're gonna respond, understanding how they're processing, you know, their speed.

All that kind of stuff just changes. If you can focus on those things, then it can change the style of conversation.

And then, you know, like you said, it comes back to, you know, being just a conversation instead of being something that's so tough or so difficult.

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 it 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. All right. A big. I kind of touched on this a little bit ago, you know, in StratPlan.

One of the things I say a lot is, is that if I can't trust you, I can't be vulnerable with you. Right. That is one of my big things. Now I'm somebody who trusts, you know, a lot.

You know, when I was younger and, you know, this, I was super trustful. I trusted everybody and had to change that and had to be smart about, you know, trusting.

But I'm still somebody who trusts a lot. And if you let me down, okay, I'm in a much better place. I can handle that. But that's not most people. Right.

Culture and Trust Issues

So what are some of the common problems that kind of break down trust and break down unity within a team?

It all comes back to talking like that, communication. There's failure, and then things are just either swept under the rug, they're not talked about. They are.

If you're delegating something and there's a failure in who you delegated to, you take it back. You don't address, you don't solve problems. You don't ask questions.

These are huge trust factors, because we're not talking about what happened. We're just making assumptions.

We're too busy. Right? That's where the leadership, these are the problems in the Leadership Crazy Cycle. We are too busy to take the time to have the conversation, to dig in and figure out what happened.

Why did it happen? How did it happen? How do we keep it from happening again? These are the things that are fundamental to creating trust, is that when failure happens, because it will, it's discovering and fixing the problems and going on.

It's done. Don't bring it back up. Like there's. There's just the lack of trust in team members, relationships. I mean, gossip. Let's talk about that, right?

I mean, that happens when you don't address things. I think about when we have situations that happen in our company, you bring it to our team meeting and you say, hey, here's what happened.

This is what's going on. What questions do you have so that we can all talk about it right now?

Open air door, you know, and if we don't have any, and then at the end you do some, you know, we'll say, we're not talking about this anymore, and we move on as a team. Right.

That's the culture that we set. Here's your chance to talk about it. Otherwise, we're not gossiping. Yeah. And I think. I think those are the key pieces to building trust in your company.

I mean, we have a whole lesson on Creating a Culture of Champions. And when you have a culture that you're willing to fight for, you're building trust in your team and showing your team that you're going to stop, you're setting boundaries, you are stopping gossip.

You are building the culture that you want instead of allowing outside influences. Those are all pieces that are going to feed into the trust in your team and that unity.

Right? Yeah. And, you know, like you're saying I have to take. Now, everybody has to take responsibility on this. Right.

But as a leader, if I cannot foster that, but if I cannot lead that, if I cannot be the example, how can I possibly expect anybody else on my team to do so, you know, if I'm not willing to.

And you touched on something that a lot of people are afraid of, and that's shutting down things like gossip, shutting down bad attitudes or people going against our core values.

If I don't shut that down as a leader, then I'm communicating to everybody else that the person who's pulling that off is more important than the rest of the team. Yep.

So not only did I have a trust issue with the person, now I have a trust issue with my entire team, and that's just unacceptable. I can't afford that.

So being able to take the responsibility and run with it and make sure that I am having those conversations and I am.

We talk about all the time, like you went through solving problems. We have a five step process. What happened? How did it happen? What happened? We do it all the time. Right? It's so natural.

We just got run through it. But another thing, another tool that we say all the time is, is ask the question or, you know, make the statement, but you're asking the question. Help me to understand.

Fill in the blank. Hey, help me to understand why this happened. Hey, help me to understand this conversation that you had that sounds to me like gossip. Help me to understand that. Help me to understand.

And the more that you do that, my gosh. The more that you shed light on the junk that's happening and the more you're going to build trust with those who see that you're leading and you're stepping up and you're doing something.

But also being vulnerable. As a company, we are full of vulnerable people. We don't have a problem being vulnerable. We share a lot of what's going on in our lives and going on in things we're experiencing and all that kind of stuff.

And it really helps to build trust. And so that's just an absolute must. All right, so, Nay. I call you Nay. That slipped out, announced to the world.

So, Nay. Lyneé, Coach Nay, we have way too much stuff to get to. There's no way we're going to get to it today. We're going to have to break this into two episodes because this has just been such good information.

Prioritization and Time Management

But instead of getting through everything, I just want to hit one last thing on this, which is the importance of prioritization and time management. Why is that such a critical skill for leaders?

So as leaders, we have a tendency to prioritize things that are easy. We are going in 15 different directions, probably wearing 15 different hats on a given day.

And it's so important for us to lead people handle the conflict. That is not easy.

And when we can learn to lead and lead well and we prioritize leading, we are going to have so much less conflict on a regular basis because we're teaching people the right way.

We're teaching on our Core Values, we're leading our Mission or our Vision. We're putting initiatives in place.

And so when we can prioritize leading and leading on these things that are important to us because we've identified them, that's the part of prioritization, is identifying what's important to get us to what does our success as a business look like?

Is that just this quarter? Is that this month? I mean, what is our priority for today?

We don't take the time to do that so often, and one day turns into weeks and months, and then a year is gone and we still haven't hit goals that we're reaching for.

And so that's where I am. I'm actually really helping leaders right now. We just started this 30 day delegation challenge, and what it does is it takes our Killing the Leadership Crazy Cycle lesson into bite sized pieces.

We do it over a 30 day time period. I meet with the group and we talk through what are the challenges? Why are we not prioritizing?

You know, Chris, there's even a day on there to clean your desk or your office space because we don't realize the capacity of clutter and what it takes, how it takes a toll on our environment and our ability to prioritize.

So we walk through this lesson step by step, and I've gone through with a few groups by now, and, and we.

So we used to start all of our Mastermind members with this lesson, but we found it was so big that it didn't really have the impact that we were hoping for because there are so many things to tackle if you want to do it well.

So when we broke it up into daily small pieces, it has become so much more effective, and we're just having so much more success.

And people can do it again. Right. So it's just a great program. And if you're at all interested, you can email me lynee@chrislacurto.com and I'll give you more info about that. But it really has had a tremendous effect on our leaders that have gone through the program, excited about that. We're constantly, I mean, again, we are a company of people who love to serve, who love to help people, who love to help people be, you know, get developed in areas and all that kind of stuff.

And this is something that you guys, you know, brought to me, you and Aaron, I believe, if I remember correctly, of having this idea of doing this 30 day challenge. And I thought, yeah, that, I think that's great. I think it's another great benefit for people. I had no clue the responses that we have gotten, you know, I just think of, you know, Monique James, who, who literally was reaching out to me on something else.

And it's just like my leadership team has gone through this and it has just been powerful. It's amazing how we just keep coming together and walking through this together and learning how to do this together and, you know, just great, great compliments that I've heard. But most importantly, that people are actually learning how to do this, this daunting thing, this daunting task, you know, being able to do it broken down into bite size pieces with, you know, good coaching and accountability and all that kind of fun stuff.

So I love it. So once again, folks, if you want to be a part of that linnaeusla curto.com [email protected] well, we are going to have to, we're going to have to stop this here and pick up and do a second episode because we have so much more to get through, especially on, you know, just coaching aspects, the key leader program, all that kind of fun stuff. So thank you so much for joining me today.

Man, I can't believe it's been nine years in the making. I know, I know. And then not only is it your debut, but we're going to have to bring you back for next week. So, so fantastic. All right, folks, well, hopefully this has helped, helped you today. Again, a fantastic, proud moment for me, but we hope this has been an impactful moment for you. So as always, what we want you to do is we want you to take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.