Breach Your Mind
Explore life's depths and unlock the secrets of mental well-being on "Breach Your Mind." Join us as we navigate the intricacies of the human experience, offering insights, inspiration, and practical strategies for a fulfilling life. Get ready to breach the barriers of conventional thinking, embrace self-discovery, and nurture your mental health. Let's embark on a transformative journey together. Welcome to Breach Your Mind.
Breach Your Mind
Adapting Leadership Style Pt. 2
Want to supercharge your leadership skills and foster a more productive and happier team environment? This episode promises to equip you with strategies to adapt your leadership style to the evolving needs of your team and ensure they're performing at their best. We delve into the correlation between an employee's home life happiness and their productivity at work, and how as a leader, you play a crucial role in detecting and rectifying signs of a struggling team.
Imagine having a team where open communication isn't a hurdle, but a norm. We talk about how genuine conversations with employees can significantly enhance team dynamics and overall productivity. We'll help you spot the unofficial leaders within your team and leverage their insights to fine-tune your leadership style. We discuss the power of encouraging employees to express their ideas, resulting in a more cohesive team and better business outcomes. Lastly, we underline the importance of treating your team with respect and appreciation, fostering loyalty, and ultimately creating better products with faster turnaround times. Tune in, and let's create a work environment where everyone thrives!
You knew they were going to make sure that you had a happier home life. By having a happier home life, they knew they were going to get a better product and more productivity out of you. Team one stand by Copy. Team one stand by Breach, breach, breach. How is that any different than now? You know, here it is 2023. And yet we still have people who could care less about. We have leaders, or I call them. I give them leaders just because they're titled, but let's be honest, they're not real leaders. But we have people in leadership positions who could care less about the lives of their subordinates.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying you have to make your subordinates life your priority, because it's not. You got your own life. They're responsible for their lives. But by making sure that you do what you can within reason. Within reason, you do what you can within reason to make that employee's life at home better, make it seem that that's a priority for you, and whether you actually care on a personal level or not is irrelevant, because that person believes that you were looking out for them and you want them to have a happier life, home life, and they see that you're doing that. It's not just about believing. Okay, let me make sure I make that clear. It's not just about making them think that there has to be some action towards it, but by these employees seeing that, for these subordinates, by them seeing that you're making an effort to make sure that their home life is better, you're going to start to see a better result. You're going to start seeing a better product. You're going to start seeing more productivity. Just by that simple thing alone. Like I said, it doesn't mean you have to take their lives into, you know, into every decision that's made Probably should at least consider it. But by making them believe that you want them and taking action to show them that you want them to have a happier home life, your chances of getting a better employee are drastically increased. And that's not saying that what you already put into place is going to stay the same, because we're human beings. Life changes, our life changes. We change as we get older and wiser, or however you want to say it. All of this stuff changes, which means, as a leader, it is incumbent upon you to make sure that your leader is better, to make sure that your leadership style and what you are doing to keep your team motivated is constantly adapting as well.
Speaker 1:Now, when you start to see those signs that things are not going as well as they should, then it's time to change it up. It's time to do something a little different. Like I said, if you fail to do any of that, if you fail to act on these signs, well then you failed as well. It's not just the company that's failing, it's not the employee or the subordinate that's failing. You failed as a leader and you bear the ultimate responsibility of the failure because, well, let's be honest, you were putting that position to make sure it gets done, and now it's not getting done and you are very likely, or could be very likely, the sole reason as to why that is happening. But, brian, I'm in a leadership position. How am I supposed to know when things aren't working right for my team? How am I supposed to know when I need to change up my leadership style? Well, I'm glad you asked, because if you're asking that, then chances are you're at least trying to be a good leader.
Speaker 1:And my first response to some question like that is when's the last time you talk to your subordinate? When's the last time you talk with your employees, not just in the sense of telling them what to do? When's the last time you had a conversation with them? Just find out how things are going. When's the last time you asked them about things going on in their lives outside of work? You had them. Oh, Okay, you should probably start there.
Speaker 1:That's one way to get your employees, your subordinates, your team, to feel like they matter, like they're important, like they're valued. Do you have to be really, truly invested and, you know, worried about what's going on in their personal life? No, at least not to the extent that you know you make it your issues or your things. But at least care enough to ask, care enough to find out if there's something you can do to help make their lives better. You know you can truly only affect directly their professional or their work atmosphere, but the byproduct of a good professional or work atmosphere is a better, happy or a better and happier home life.
Speaker 1:Byproduct of talking with your employees and asking about what's going on in their lives is going to be the sense to the employee or the team member that you care. That's the first step. That's the first thing to do in wanting to do better with your team. The next thing and this is a more, I'll say a more. This is a less direct route, but one that you can see immediate results.
Speaker 1:How's production lately? How's the progress in reaching the company goals? How's that going? Has it dropped? Yeah, why? Why has it dropped? You don't know? Let me guess Bad employees.
Speaker 1:Right, that's the typical response. Typical response is the employees aren't doing their jobs. Are they not doing their jobs, or are you just a bad leader? Hmm, so look at your results. What kind of results are you getting? What are your outcomes? If you're seeing a productivity or an efficiency fail or start to fall, that's probably your first clue.
Speaker 1:Some may write. Probably Is there something you can do to change it? Yep, simple, start caring. Not just caring about a company, not just caring about the bottom line. That seems a bit big, but start caring about your employees. Start caring about the team and don't make it a whole big enough. We have to wind that up some. Yeah, it's too big, but start caring. Start actually giving a dang on or about your employees. Start actually caring and trying to do something to make a difference.
Speaker 1:If your goal is to have a certain production level and part of the reason why you're not reaching it is because of low productivity from the team. Change it up. Go to them. Go to your not just your direct leaders. That's another thing. Those of us that are in leadership positions like direct leadership positions. That's our title.
Speaker 1:As a leader, you're the leader, and title A lot of people don't understand is that you have what are called indirect leaders. You're indirect leaders. How did I cut those holes? Your indirect leaders are those that are on the line with everyone else doing the exact same job, but don't have the title. As a leader, you should be able to pick out who your indirect leaders are, those individuals that the rest of the employees look at, or the rest of the team look at and say you know what? I'm going to go talk to them, I'm going to find out what they think, I'm going to find out their take on this particular thing, and when they do that, the person they go to is that indirect leader, the one that they see as being one of them and someone they should follow. If you're a leader a true leader you're going to know who that individual is. You're going to find out who that individual is and then you're going to lean on them, not to put pressure on them, but you're going to lean on them to get more knowledge, to understand how you as a leader an official leader can do better, what the atmosphere with your team is. That's how you know, that's how you find out. You go to those unofficial leaders and you talk with them, you build a relationship with them and then you start adapting your leadership styles in accordance with what you learned. Is it something that requires an authoritarian approach? Maybe You're not going to know until you find out. Is it going to be something that requires a minor change that you can make? Maybe you won't know until you find out.
Speaker 1:The point I'm trying to make is that communication is key. You need to talk. You need to talk with your employees, you need to talk with your team. You need to talk with your unofficial leaders and get those lines of communication open. Once you've got those lines of communication open, you're going to start being able to find out things about your business, about yourself, about your leadership style that either does or does not work, and that's where the changes are going to start to happen, especially when there are changes that you personally, as a leader, can make.
Speaker 1:Once you've gotten to that point where you're asking these questions and you're open those lines of communication with your team and you start finding out all these things about your team and leadership and your leadership style and so on and so forth, then you're going to start being a real leader. Then you're going to start seeing the positive changes. That's how you're going to know that you're moving in the right direction, because you've talked to your people. You've talked to your team. You know what's going on with them. You know their concerns. You're giving them a chance to express their ideas, because, again, it's about a team, a whole team, coming together to accomplish one thing.
Speaker 1:And with those open lines of communication, that's exactly what you've done. You allowed yourself to open up that avenue and you're going to realize that there are better ideas out there. You're going to realize that they're individuals, that their strong suit may not be what you originally thought it was. Their strong suit may entirely be something completely different, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with being the leader that doesn't know everything. That's one of the biggest things I've had to learn in being a leader is that it's not about what you know, it's about how you know how to get it done, how to utilize your team to get it done.
Speaker 1:As a leader in my organization. I don't know everything there is, and I've got individuals that I work with that have been doing this job longer than I have. They've seen more, they've done more. Do you think, just because I'm their supervisor, that I'm going to stand back and ignore the fact that they've got all this information, all this knowledge, all this experience? No, I'm going to approach them and I'm going to try to get them to help me understand better. I'm going to lean on them to help me make the team better, because that's my job. My job is to get the job done. My job is to make sure that the goals of the company are met and, at the same time, that I'm able to enrich or better the lives of my team. And I can't do that. If I'm so self-absorbed, if I'm so wrapped up in my own desire to be whatever, then I lose focus of the team, because being a leader is about so much more than the individual. Being a leader has nothing to do with the individual, absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1:How Are there things that, as a leader, you can benefit from that can make things better for you? Certainly, certainly. The better your team does, the better things are for you, the better you look. So, yeah, if you're driven that way, then 100% yes, it benefits you from your team doing better. But again, it's not about you. It's not about only you accomplishing what you want. You should be trying to dual-purpose accomplish being a better leader and, at the same time, meeting the company goals.
Speaker 1:Sadly, what I've found. Well, there are too many people that have gotten wrapped up and being so proud of being the leader or the boss that they've forgotten how it is to truly lead. They're too busy Sometimes, most times. I hope that it's unintentional, that they didn't mean to get to that place, that they didn't mean to get to a place where they were so happy to be the boss that they forgot what it meant to actually lead. It's those individuals that really kill a business and their leaders, the leaders of the leaders, because everybody's had a boss their leaders if they're astute, if they're paying attention, if they're being a real leader, then they're seeing exactly that. They're seeing that it's those bad leaders that's causing them not to meet that bottom line. They're seeing that it's those bad leaders that's costing them good employees, because employee retention is also another sign of bad management.
Speaker 1:You take some of the worst jobs in the world and see that there are people that have been doing that job for a very long time. They're not doing that job because it is just oh so great of a job. A lot of these jobs if any of you ever watched Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, a lot of you'll notice some of these jobs are just absolutely horrible. I could not work in a job where I had to work with human feces, couldn't do it. I couldn't. I would be gagging entirely too much, and that is not how I want to spend my day at work. That being said, there are individuals that do that job. Why? It's highly doubtful. They're doing it because they just love working, that kind of work, but more so, they probably work for some pretty good people, probably work for people that realize that sometimes the job is not all that great.
Speaker 1:But if you treat the employee well enough, make them feel valued, make them feel like they count, they matter, you can do that and that's where you're going to get your loyalty from. That's where you're going to get your people that are going to want to stay for 10, 15, 20 years on end. Oops, that's where you're going to get those employees. Those are the ones that are loyal. When you get that kind of loyalty for your company now you're making a difference. Now you're getting somewhere. Because now that loyalty turns into nothing but gained experience and gained knowledge for your company, which in turn can give you a better product, you have a better product, faster turnaround times, so on and so forth. But you have to have that experience, you have to have that loyalty.
Speaker 1:That employee or the employees that are willing to stay there and embrace the suck that it is that may be with their job all because they're loyal to you, loyalty to the company, to help the company reach that bottom line. They know they're not seeing the same dollar that the boss is. They know they're not going to get the same benefits that the boss gets, but what they do get they appreciate. When they feel like they matter, they appreciate it, and that makes a world of difference to a lot of them. Yep, that's about par for the course. Let's try this again. This is how you know. This is a real video. I actually post my fails. That was a good one. The fact this ain't going to come out is another one. Let's be honest, guys.
Speaker 1:We owe it to them as their leaders, as the supervisors, as the managers, as the bosses, as the employer. We owe it to them, we owe it to those that are subordinate, to try to make the job the best we can for them. We owe it to them to help enrich their lives. Obviously, it's on them to truly enrich their own life, but at the same time, we were once there, at least most of us, a lot of us. We were there. We had to start out somewhere. We all had bosses. We all had supervisors and managers that we didn't like. We didn't like how they did things. We thought we could do it better. Now that we're here, we have that opportunity. We owe it to them.
Speaker 1:When I got into being in a supervisory role, my guiding focus was to be the supervisor that I always wanted to work for. I hope that I've come close. I hope that the people that I work with, my team, feel the same way. I haven't always been the best, haven't always gotten it right, but I've tried. I try to keep a constant focus on how I can do better, because I owe it to them. I was there once. We all were. We owe it to them just as much as we owe it to the company. So my takeaway Until next time, guys, appreciate it, appreciate your time. You know what you say. Catch you around. Bye.
