Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Leadership Growth Podcast. I'm your host, Daniel Stewart, joined with my brother, Peter Stewart, as always. And we're here to be able to talk through the practical tips to help leaders like you be able to develop yourself even stronger, being your best self each day. The topic today is how do you adopt and build a leader mindset? What does that mean? What does that look like? But before we go to that one, here is an interesting Insight of the Week. Peter, you want to dive on in and share an interesting Insight of the Week? Happy to. And I think it actually, we can make a nice segue into the topic of the day. As I was having a coaching session the other day with an executive, and they had returned just a couple of days prior from helping out at a local chamber of commerce event in which they were helping be an advisor mentor to a group of small business owners, up and coming professionals. And they came away surprised at the level of energy they had after that event. And they were just energized interacting with them. And so we were able to highlight, one, that recognition that this leader had been able to identify something that filled their bucket, helped to recharge their batteries. And it was being around and working with some younger professionals, more early career professionals. And so that made her stop to think a little bit more of,‘well what can I do to engage in that a little bit more, to how can I bring that mindset to really embrace some of the things they love and bring to the workforce?’ And she made a comment that she said, being around these professionals more, it helped me believe that this younger generation is going to help us do better in the workplace and be better in the workplace. And I thought that it helps kind of turn it on its ear a little bit, this notion of just because people may do things different, it doesn't mean it's wrong. How do we embrace? How do we promote? How do we truly pay attention to the strengths that others are bringing? So it helped bring in a little bit some of the great content that we had in a prior episode with Haydn Shaw talking about intergenerational differences and ways to do that. But it just helped bring that up from the point of, how do we help promote and be an advocate for those younger professionals? But also how do we recognize for ourselves things that boost our own batteries and energize us in the workplace? I love the openness, especially around this insight of challenging our own assumptions and being willing to challenge and being open to that is such a powerful way of being able to continue to learn. And then, of course, I also love what you're emphasizing is the willingness to help others, especially those in a different life stage, perhaps those who are beginning their career. What can be done to share, not only with them, but then, of course, you learn back in the process. And that is a very worthwhile way to spend one's time as a leader. Mm hmm. Because you're always learning. And if you're not open to that notion of learning as you're interacting with others, then I think that's a good gut check of like, why have I stopped learning? Why have I assumed that I know it all, that I know the process and the methods and everything and... But when you adopt that mentality of, hey, I'm interacting with somebody and they've had experiences I haven't had, what can I glean from it? What can I learn from it? That's just, I think, a helpful, healthy way to go through life. It is. And so let me ask you a question related to this, Peter. What happens when you've been around the block so many times, you've had experience, you've gone through the seasons of performance reviews, you've worked for multiple companies, and you have a pretty good idea of what's right, what one should do. How do you balance that while still being open and learning about new things? Because that's a tricky balance because part of it is this confidence we develop due to experience.-Yeah.-Yet, there's always that measure of how do you still stay open enough? How do you balance that? I think you hit the nail on the head there at the end when you said open enough. It's not saying every time you start to do something, you're starting with a complete blank slate. That's not learning. That's not openness. I think that'd be stupid. That's throwing all efficiency out the window. But it's saying, all right, I've had some experiences. We've learned that this way... a customer responds to a certain way, or this department likes it done a certain way, whatever it might be. How do you then take that, but then be open to the feedback and opinions and thoughts of others?-Yeah.-And so it's really asking. And how do you create that environment so that people are willing to share some of the thoughts so that then you are able to actually listen to it? I think it's also paying attention to what are the high leverage situations and the low leverage or the high impact and the low impact. Maybe you can take a risk on those that have a little bit lower impact as you get going. But the high impact ones, you don't want to cut corners on. There is established best practices for a reason.-Yeah.-But you can be open and listen to it.(laughing) But there are certain things you're like, OK, no, this is how we're going to do it. And that's OK to recognize as a leader.-Yeah. And all this—-What would you add? Well, I was going to add that all this is ideal to then continue to dive into the topic at hand because so much of it deals with the mindset that we need to have as a leader. And how do we keep shifting out of an individual contributor mindset or we'll just say an individual mindset and shift more into a leader mindset? And so what I would add off the bat here is that it's all about the other person. This leader mindset, it's so critical that we continue to shift outward instead of inward. And when we do that, we're able to then optimize, maximize not only ourselves, but others. We can pay attention to what others need. We can see the ways that we can interact and benefit each other a little bit more clearly instead of it so focused on the inward because the other aspect of the inward focus, we then start getting into blaming or get extra defensive because then it's all about us, about us, about me, about me. Developing this leader mindset is so critical as we focus outside of us. How do we recognize, I'll say the goodness, meaning all of the positive contributions that people can make now and in the future while also being open enough to keep us learning and saying, yeah, I might know a lot. However, I'm going to keep learning because every situation is potentially different. And so as we begin this topic around developing this leader mindset, first and foremost, it's shifting out of my own mind, my own abilities to then working with and through others, which is both promise and a burden at the same time. Promise in that it can introduce so many new ways of accomplishing things, big, scary, hairy, ugly problems that we can't deal with ourselves. And yet it can also be so frustrating because it involves more than just us. Yeah. There are more variables that are outside of your complete control. And I'm not saying that when we're individual contributors, we have full control over all the variables.(laughing) By no means. But when you add in this layer of leadership in which now there are direct reports that you have responsibility over for oversight, for guidance, for assistance, to really be monitoring and helping them be successful, it just adds this layer of complexity. And it's not necessarily taught when you're instructed on how to do your job technically. You don't get this added layer of, oh, and by the way, yeah, also you get to monitor kind of the emotional mood of everybody on your team and their progress. And, oh, keep a tally of their strengths and weaknesses so that you can leverage them appropriately. And there may be some frustration that comes in and, oh, and these two actually don't get along as well. But good luck and get done with what you need to do.(laughing) It's a lot and it's not easy. It also involves us defining work differently.-Yeah.-That is one of the biggest mindset shifts that any leader goes through, is looking at the work that one used to do. And that might involve, if one's an engineer, to be able to do critical analysis of some set of data or to be able to understand and complete that spreadsheet or that extensive timeline. Valuable work. However, that's not leader work. That's not the kind of work that a leader typically will do. A leader might need to do it sometimes. However, there's different kinds of work that a leader needs to do. And those kinds of work involves setting clear expectations, listening to concerns and objections for others and helping resolve it. Reinforcing the why and the prioritization of what we are needing to do. Understanding what people want to do in their careers and how that relates to their job and the strengths. Those are conversations and interactions. That's leader work. And sometimes we might look at those things as we either don't have time or they're not a priority. And the trick is to be able to make sure that as a leader, you view that set of work as important. And in fact, it is what leaders need to do and do more of.-Yeah, this notion of leader work. And it's a phrase that's not used often. I think it's powerful. I think it helps give us that understanding and even helps give us an excuse to prioritize it because it's less tangible. It's not on the to-do list as clearly as far as what we are trying to get done and deliver and accomplish on the job description. It's all of... it's built into the how we're doing things and not just the what is getting done. And so that fundamental mindset, it's I'm not getting it done or I'm not the one doing it. It's my role now to help this task, objective project, whatever it might be, to get done through others, to help facilitate their success. And so all of that leader work, as you're calling it, which I love that, that way to look at it. It gives you that time and space mentally to say, all right, what needs to happen in order for this to get done? And it's not just the solution of me throwing hours at doing it.-Right.-No, that's the shift. It's, oh, OK, how... what is getting in the way of this individual doing it or what direction does this person need or what additional support does that other person need? Or how do I need to now talk to this other department in order to make sure they're getting the information they need on time? Do that— all of that is the leader work. And it's very squishy and less tangible.(laughing) And thus, sometimes leaders can feel like they haven't done real work because sometimes they're like, I need to do real work. I need to, you know, do this analysis or do this PowerPoint or fill out this approach or revise this policy or procedure. That's the real work. Or I need to talk to customers. Yes, that's all important work. And yet the leader work often is, as you say, a little squishier. For example, it's listening. Listening not to just respond, but listening to understand and listening to show empathy and listening to empower and listening to clarify decision making rights and listening to be able to then help develop and listening to be able to move and adapt and move out obstacles. Those are listening moments. And also, let's make it very clear. We're not just talking about, say, a brand new leader, a new supervisor or a new manager. This is relevant at every level. In fact, there's a CEO for a large publicly traded company that we've been working with for a while, various different levels of the organization. And this CEO does not like to listen. He has been the CEO for quite some time. He is very confident in his own viewpoint, and he loves to talk at people. Now, when you get him to calm down enough, he can shift and do leader work and listen. And yet on a day to day basis, he is so task focused, so driven, it is very hard for him to shift and adapt to do more leader work, which is really leading the team and modeling and setting the example and prioritizing instead of him doing all of the work himself. This is such a balancing act, but it is not just specific to the entry level leader. It is all the way. And so, listeners, as you're thinking about yourself in whatever leadership role, whatever leadership level you're in, begin to reflect on what is the leader work that you are actively doing, and how are you able to spend your time to devote enough time to the leader work? And I'll give a couple of quick examples. Leader work looks like this. It's spending the first 30 seconds of a meeting, clarifying the purpose as to why we're meeting and setting clear priorities as to what we're going to talk about and what we don't need to talk about. Leader work is also at the end of a meeting, the last 30 seconds, praising and acknowledging the kind of behavior that you want to see again. It's also clarifying what decisions were made, who's going to be following up with those kinds of decisions and why they're important. Leader work is also following up after some conversation with a one-on-one conversation, sending a Team's message, for example, saying, hey, that was a fantastic presentation. I loved how on slide three and four, you really illustrated with clear examples as to what we needed to do differently. Thank you. All of those are examples of leader work. And it's the small things that can too easily be brushed aside.-But they're so impactful. You know, to continue on examples of leader work, it's recognizing who might not be at that meeting and how do you help ensure that they get this information so that they can be successful. It's looking at, ooh, this is the third time this person has tried to deliver this project or task, and it's not meeting the standard. What additional coaching? What additional feedback? How can this communication be more clear so that we can position them to be successful? Like taking the time to do all those things, that's leader work. And it can feel, because we're not necessarily checking something off the to-do list, like we've had a very unproductive day.-Mm. Unless we take that time to stop and recognize, wait a minute. Look at the conversations we've had. Look at how that meeting went. Look at who I was able to collaborate with. Look at how that conversation went as we were trying to secure resources for the next budget round. You know, look, all of that. And so what you can do is you can look at your calendar and start going down and classify how many of these things are really leader work activities and how many are more project or task work. And if you're going through and finding that many of them are actually not leader work, maybe this helps explain why maybe there's some challenges or difficulties and why you're not feeling like you're accomplishing as much as a leader. Maybe there are a lot more of those leader work activities, and now you're able to see why, oh, well, that's probably why I'm not getting all these other things done as much, because I am spending time. Oh, and now I'm hearing I actually should be spending time on these things. Oh, that's a relief. Like, we're trying to, this is, it's all about the mindset shift. And that's hard to make happen and make stick because we are not ingrained to do that, especially early on in our careers.-Mm hmm.-We're measured by our performance and what we are delivering.-Very much so. And it's tricky when we hold on to both. This individual mentality and the leader mentality. And we're trying to continue. Now, usually any role has some combination of work we need to do, kind of a player-coach notion. Sure. Get it. And we are not saying don't do that kind of work.(laughing) What we're saying is, where's the balance? And I would bet anything that there would be more in your day-to-day that you could delegate or shift or stop to enable you to have more time to listen, to clarify expectations, and to communicate. This thing about communication. I'll never forget one CEO I was working with. He said, when I feel like I want to throw up because I've communicated something so much, that's when I know I've begin to communicating enough.-Mm-hmm.-And that is a key point because you might be sick and tired of saying what the priority is or the expectations. However, your role is to continue and using language that fits others and then asking others, what did you hear? Repeat back to me, what is the most important thing to do right now? What are the expectations? How does that fit with your understanding? Because we want to align. There is so much power in the alignment and in the conversation up front as much as possible. Versus, well, I sent the email. They should have all got the email. Why didn't they figure this out? Well, yes. And what else have you done to reinforce it? How have you followed up to make sure that there was understanding? That there was clarity? Are there additional resources needed? Are there skills that need to be developed? Is there a shadow process that's happening behind the scenes that's actually hindering the process that you want to be put in, that you want to have established, but nobody is willing to actually voice it to you? How do you dive deeper in? And it is through communication and listening and making the time to be able to do it. The other great example is walking around. And yes, you can do that physically, but even virtual. How do you walk around? How do you check in? How do you just say, hey, I'm thinking of you. Give me a sense of what's a great thing you've done this morning thus far. I love it. And these are the quick Teams messages that you can send out to get a quick response, to check in, to say, I'm here. I'm happy to support you in whatever way we can do this. Continuing to clarify why we're doing things is so key. Yeah. It's... if you and I, if we had a nickel every time we're in a coaching session and someone makes the statement of, “I just, I wished I could be more strategic.”(laughing) I wished I had more time to, you know, think about things more from a big picture. And how often when we dig into that statement more and more, we find that this isn't talking about building out a large, you know, long-term strategic plan. That that's really, usually that's not where the error is. Most organizations, they've got a plan, whether it's a perfect one or not. We could go into down the road. That's a tangent. But really those strategic activities we're talking about are fundamentally non-tactical. And so this is the leader work. It's that time to look at, not only are we helping connect people to what we're trying to accomplish from a vision perspective, from a strategy perspective. It's all of those interconnected conversations. And that's fundamental to what we're talking about. Yeah, I chuckle because you're spot on. I mean, so many leaders will say,“oh, if I just had more time to be able to be more strategic.” And yeah, it's a constant desire. And yet when you look deeper, there's usually opportunities, especially when the leader is willing to let go of something that they're holding onto. Now, maybe they're holding onto it for a good reason. Maybe they don't quite have enough trust or confidence in their team. All right, now we know what to focus on. And what can you do to help strengthen your team and the confidence you have in them? Are they the right people? How have you set high expectations? How have you challenged them? How are you developing their own level of proficiency so that you can let go of things so that you can then have more time to be strategic as well? So key to then continue to challenge oneself to go from doer to delegator. And that is such a key thing. And the other element here around a leader mindset is going from one right answer to many right answers. Because so often we as humans, we want to find the one right answer. And I want to be very clear that there's rarely one right answer.(laughing) There's usually a lot of great answers. And one of my great questions to ask is what else could be right? What else could be right? And as a leader, being open to hearing and talking about what else could be right and not carrying the source from which the source comes from. It could come from anywhere in the organization or outside of the organization to get great ideas. Your job is much more to facilitate, prioritize, and yes, help make decisions to move things along. But it all often comes down to, are you comfortable at talking about what else could be right?-Yeah. We make so many assumptions as we make decisions. And we assume context will be consistent and static. And what the right decision for right now may be isn't necessarily going to be the right decision tomorrow or next week or whatever it may be. Because situations are in a continual state of flux. And I mean, we're living in a world where there's so much ambiguity and change across all sectors, industry. I mean, you name it.-Yeah.-This is not a stable time to be a professional.(laughing) It isn't. There's so much you're having to balance. So being able to be open to what is the next right or what else could be right is a great way to look at it. And another way to extend this thought to have more of that leader mindset is to shift from being more reactionary to problems and just focus on solving those to being proactive so that we are anticipating what problems may come forward so that you can be prepared, you can get ahead, you can meet them before the problem actually hits. And that takes time, again. You have to pull up out of the tactical weeds to be able to look ahead and see how are things happening, what demands, problems, challenges might our various customers or collaborators or other be experiencing and how can we meet them and exceed what they might need or want. It's a shift. It's a whole different way of looking at it as opposed to, oh, I've solved the problems for today. Oh, I can breathe. I'm good. I'm done. But yet, Peter, firefighting. Firefighting can be so tremendously satisfying because it makes you feel immediately needed and you're jumping in and there's a problem, a physical problem, there is something right there in front of you that you need to address or it's acknowledged in some way. And if you can solve it, then you get the dopamine hit and others can look and look at it and say,“hey, great job.” There's all sorts of incentives to reinforce firefighting. The immediate—-And the hero.-Yeah, the hero completely.-Being the hero.-And yet it's counter to what a leader is typically wanting to do, which is build for the longer term and acting in a more strategic way. So how do people get out and deal with this firefighting? Because it's, I mean, a disease is a little strong, but it's like a drug to be able to go, oh, yes, another fire. I love it. And they're always able to check their phone and they're always checking notifications and it makes you feel really important.-Mm hmm. And I think a fundamental to that is one, the recognition that as humans, we like to be recognized. We like to be valued. We like to be praised and needed. And we like those contributions we do to be acknowledged and accepted and to get that credit. Like that drives a lot of people. So what doesn't drive us? Usually it's uncertainty. Usually it's fear. It's the, well, I'm not quite sure. It's the unknown, all of those things. And as you adopt this leader mindset and recognize that there are things now that you're having to do that you might not have done before, or you might not have as high level of confidence in doing, we can compensate for that by then leaning into the tactical, leaning into being that hero. Oh, I'm the one who's going to come and fix this because then that's going to further validate how I feel in my role. Because if you really knew what was going on in my head, you knew how much, I don't know what the heck I'm doing. And that's called imposter syndrome. And at least 50% of leaders have it.(laughing) So if you're experiencing it, that's not abnormal. You're very much normal. But how do you help ensure that that, you know, uncertainty that you have on the role that you're not trying to overcompensate and look for ways to then get that reinforcement by trying to be the hero. So it gets at some of the subconscious psychological drives that we have.-Yeah. And you're reminding me years ago when I learned that Beyoncé has kind of an alter ego, Sasha Fierce, that she will think about and kind of put on before she goes out and performs. Well, I wonder for all of our listeners, what's your alter ego? And whether you name it, at the essence, it's essentially asking yourself, what would a proactive leader do right now? What sort of behaviors, what mindset, what sort of habits would a collaborative leader do right now? Would a delegating type of leader do right now? Would an empathetic leader do right now? Instead of asking yourself, what would a doer do right now? What would a task focused leader do right now? No, those are kind of the things that are seemingly automatic. How do we shift and ask us these other kind of identity shifting questions? This, what does, what would a proactive leader, what would a strategic leader do right now? And that is a powerful tool for all of us to be able to help make that shift from doer to delegator, from one right answer to many right answers, from I need to do my own work to I need to do leader work, which involves listening and conversing and listening to challenges and resolving them and setting expectations over and over and over and over and over and over again. That is leader work and it pays off because at the end, people want a good leader. They expect to have a good leader. They want somebody who can listen to them and guide and direct, set a clear direction, provide resources and to develop them so that collectively all of the efforts make sense and they can accomplish something. That's so well captured. And as you're describing that, and I think as listeners, as we're paying attention to many of those questions, Daniel just went through, but particularly that one is what would a strategic leader do? I think is a powerful one to then pause and think, what can I do? So we've introduced this notion of leader work. What's meant by that? Hopefully now you're giving yourself a little bit more credit for some of these things that you might not recognize as important aspects of your role. They are absolutely critical. Usually they are not noticed. They're not on a performance review.(laughing) They're not all those other things, but your people sure notice it and they recognize, and it helps them understand and know that you care, not about your own success. You care about their success. You care about that notion of we succeed. It's not about the I. And at the heart, how often have we repeated this on episodes over the course of this podcast? It does come down to these relationships and it's paying attention to the human level and how we all can grow together. Well said. So let's wrap it up. Here's a question, a one thing question for you, Peter. What's the one thing that a leader needs to do to adopt a leader mindset? I think the one thing a leader needs to do to adopt that leader mindset is to recognize that they make the most impact by helping to empower their people to get the work done. And not so that they get themselves get the work done. It's working through them. And then the close second to that one is give yourself credit for all of this leader work that you're doing. Recognize it, prioritize it, and carve out the time so that you can accomplish it. Your people are gonna thank you for it. And you're actually gonna find yourself with a few extra open cycles in the day because you're handing it off.-I love it. Peter, thank you. Thank you. It's been another fantastic episode of the Leadership Growth Podcast. Listeners, thanks for joining us. We hope you can take these tips and tools to be able to help you elevate your leadership journey. Please like and subscribe. And we look forward to having you join us again in a future episode. All the best. Take care, everyone. Bye. If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague or better yet, leave a review to help other listeners find our show. And remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode. For more great content or to learn more about how Stewart Leadership can help you grow your ability to lead effectively, please visit stewartleadership.com.