Start With A Win - What's WRONG With Your Leadership? | Adam Contos

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

Are you ready to uncover the hidden leadership gaps that might be hindering your success?Business leaders and entrepreneurs, this episode of Start With a Win is a game-changer. Host Adam Contos delves into the critical gaps in leadership that might be holding you back. Shockingly, 80% of leaders believe they're in the top 10% of leadership, revealing widespread blind spots. Adam shares six vital leadership concepts. These insights empower you to elevate your leadership style, drive growth, and bridge the leadership gaps that could be stifling your success. Download the resource and start your transformation journey as your presence creates trust, so let's start with a win!00:46 Only how many employees are fully engaged!01:45 Six Leadership Concepts03:56 Where does leadership gaps start?05:02 Adam’s mantra for all things06:13 First concept, where do you stand?08:00 Talk about the vision regularly!10:10 Trust, MORE, what is your word?11:25 Keep learning, do 1% more, acknowledge mistakes14:34 What is accountability?16:32 Balance, huh can that be done?17:57 Stay focused⚡️FREE RESOURCE: 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘞𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱?  ➡︎ https://adamcontos.com/myleadership===========================Subscribe and Listen to the Start With a Win Podcast HERE:📱 ===========================YT ➡︎ https://www.youtube.com/@AdamContosCEOApple ➡︎ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/start-with-a-win/id1438598347Spotify ➡︎ https://open.spotify.com/show/4w1qmb90KZOKoisbwj6cqT===========================Connect with Adam:===========================Website ➡︎ https://adamcontos.com/Facebook  ➡︎ https://facebook.com/AdamContosCEOTwitter  ➡︎ https://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOInstagram  ➡︎ https://instagram.com/adamcontosceo/#adamcontos #startwithawin #leadershipfactory

Leaders, what's wrong with your leadership? I have to tell you, this is probably one of the most important podcasts you can listen to this year. We're going to talk about the gaps in leadership on Start With A Win. Welcome to Start With A Win, where we unpack franchising, leadership, and business growth. Let's go. And coming to you from Start With A Win headquarters at Area 15 Ventures, it's Adam Kantos with Start With A Win. Hey, did you know that 80% of leaders feel that they're in the top 10% of leadership? Do you see a problem with that? I mean, realistically, we have these massive blind

spots in our leadership, these huge gaps. And I want to get into those today with six concepts that will help your leadership. Let me give you a couple of statistics here to start with, though. Only 15% of employees are fully engaged at work globally, according to Gallup's most recent engagement survey. Highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability. Would you like 21% greater profitability? And companies with engaged leaders, engaged leaders, you have 48% higher operating margins. According to research by WorkHuman, engaged leaders boost productivity and performance. In fact, teams with inclusive leaders, so we get different perspectives here with inclusion, are 17% more likely to report that they are high performing

and six times more likely to be innovative and agile. And get this, eight times more likely to achieve better business outcomes, according to Deloitte. And did you know that leaders account for 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units per research by Gallup. Hey, let's get right into these six key concepts here. Are you missing any of these things? I want to go through these six ideas that I've done a great deal of research on in order to pull out how to create more engaged employees, better direction and clarity within an organization, shared values, and get this, action-taking that results in outcomes. So let's dig into it. Let's start off with the secrets of leadership. Leadership is a demanding role that requires a delicate balance between soft skills,

such as relationships and emotional intelligence. We've all heard about that. And hard skills of leadership, like tactical skills that are measurable and can be taught. When soft skills are neglected, organizations may suffer with employees only achieving the bare minimum because they revert to managed performance and tactics. Let me give you a secret here. I'm going to give you a free gift at the end of this podcast. I'll tell you where you can download it then. And it has all of these key concepts on it. So I know you want to listen to this, but you don't need to take notes. I'm going to give you all the information at the end. But I have a question for you. Are your employees excelling or are they merely meeting minimum requirements? So when we think about this, the answer lies within, is your culture maximum possible or minimum

necessary? Where are your employees on this question? Typically, you can list an employee's or a manager's name and quickly state whether they fall in this as maximum possible or minimum necessary. So are they performing the minimum necessary to get a paycheck? I know that kind of grates on your nerves as a leader and a manager, but the reality is we need to know where they fall or are they given the maximum possible? It's pretty clear and easy to see. They're generally doing what their leader is doing and tolerating. We deserve what we tolerate in business. Hint, this means if you're giving the minimum necessary leader, you're barely showing up. So are they.

They will mirror what you do. Leadership is holistic. It's a lifestyle you live. They will watch you completely on duty, off duty. It's not a position in your company. Leadership starts at home, in fact. And a negative home life for key personnel, including yourself and those that work directly with you, can impact

your workplace energy. Let me tell you, when there are problems at the office, there are leadership gaps, it's because it starts at home. We bring to the office how we work at home. That's why successful companies promote a work-life balance. Happy employees are more engaged and productive. Similarly, those with miserable home lives, poor relationships, and even dishonest tendencies will bring those traits to the office. It's interesting. When I went through my MBA course, one of the things we learned about in business leadership and ethics was if you have, say, somebody responsible for your financial reporting in your business and they were cheating on a spouse, guess what? They likely will end up cheating on

the books of the company. So if your personal life is unhealthy in any way, so will your work life be. So I want you to think about one phrase that I use a lot. How we do one thing is how we do all things. Great leaders create great leaders. A players attract A players. Here's the other reality. B players attract C players. Leaders need to strive to be A players themselves or risk a decline in overall organizational performance. A leader's actions, mindset, and values set the tone for the entire company. This is your culture. How do you want to be known as a leader and as a company? This will attract or it will repel great employees. So let's talk about how to be a better leader. Effective

leadership requires strong communication, a clear vision, a collaborative culture, a commitment to learning, personal accountability, and well-being. So let me break these elements down. So we have communication, good leaders, and this is a gap for a lot of people. In fact, in the free gift that I'm giving you to download after this, we're going to do an audit on all of these different things. So I want you to figure out where do you stand on your communication. Communication is about being transparent and authentic. It's about your presence. You're either in video or in person. This matters. It matters that people see you. Now, you don't have to be standing in front of their desk. You can be on their monitor,

on their phone, whatever it might be, but you have to be present either via video, in their ears with a podcast like what you're listening to right now, or in person. And here's the reality. It's got to be a combination of those three things. I've coached a lot of CEOs. What I've found is that those who put out a podcast to their company actually create greater results in their company. Those who put out videos in their company create greater results. And here's the big one. Leadership by walking around. We've heard about that before. That works. It used to be called management by walking around, but it's leadership by walking around. We've heard about that before. That works. It used to be called management by walking around, but it's leadership by walking around.

And what do you want to ask people? How are you doing today? So convey your vision and reasoning clearly with everybody. When you talk to people, actively listen. Invite input from them. Share information proactively and avoid surprises. People hate surprises. You know what surprises do? They create anxiety and fear within an organization. So if you have something coming up, share that. If it changes, share that it's changed. People just want to know

that you're working to move the ball forward. They want to have this communication. Also, big one, don't be defensive. When somebody says something to you, say thank you and be appreciative. Keep calm, keep a smile, and say thank you. So let's get into vision and clarity. That was communication. Let's get into vision and clarity. People want you to define a simple, compelling mission for the organization. Simple and compelling. What do you do? We help people have the best sandwich for their lunch that they've ever had. A compelling mission for the organization, even for a sandwich company. Or I came from Remax. We define our vision and mission as to be the number one company in the real estate space, helping people buy and sell their homes. It was great. Set clear goals and responsibilities for

each team member as well. Clarity, vision. What are their goals? What is their contribution? In fact, one of the number one aspects of an employee survey, they get bad grades, is I know what my goals are clearly and understand what I am supposed to do to accomplish those. A lot of people rank those low because those things are not talked about on a regular basis. You also want to explain the rationale behind major decisions that you make. If you come in and make a bunch of changes, people want to know why and they're okay with that. They just want to know that there's a reason behind it. And they can get behind that reason. Now let's talk about culture and collaboration here. Foster kindness, caring, and ethical behavior in your organization. We have to build trust and

resolve conflicts quickly. Let me tell you what trust and conflicts are. It's like lighting a match. You're standing in a forest and you light a match. Now, obviously, we see there's a risk because if that match continues to burn and is unaddressed, what happens? We have a forest fire. The forest burns down. But immediately, if you deal with that match, the forest is safe.

Think of trust and conflicts the same way. Get ahead of them. Even if you don't have an answer. Conflicts happen on a regular basis in business. Here's what I always say. Immediately say, hey, I see what's going on here. We're going to work on this. I'll get you something about it quickly.

People just want to know that you're actively addressing a conflict instead of letting it fester. Ignored conflicts create forest fires. Reinforce your organizational values consistently when you're dealing with these conflicts, as well as during meetings and through your own actions. At Remax, we had a specific value statement. It was more, M-O-R-E. Make your values statement, spell a short word. Four letters is perfect. I've seen trust. I've seen true. I've seen more. I've seen win as a three-letter value statement. But what did more stand for? More, the M stood for max and deliver to the max. The O stood for obsessed and be customer obsessed. The R stood for right and do the right thing. And the E

stood for everybody and everybody wins. So think about that. I always talked about more in our values. Are you living more? Are you being more? Are you doing more? And really what it comes down to is when you back up and you look at these different levels of performance that we want people to achieve, the first two are deliver to the max and be customer obsessed. Isn't that what we want from people? We want to deliver to the max and be customer obsessed. But then we talk about, okay, let's talk about ethics and values here also in that, and that's do the right thing and together everybody wins. So let's talk about a big one for me.

Learning and development. Learning and development. This is one of our key points also. A lot of companies drop the ball on learning and development. We need to be coaching others and delivering constructive feedback to them through this thing called accountability. Learning and development is learning a little bit, stretching ourselves. Think of it like exercising. We push ourselves by lifting heavier weights or running a little bit further or longer than we did before. And then we evaluate that. That's how work goes. So what can we learn specifically that helps us lift more, run faster, or run longer? How do we do this with, let's say, sales? Let's say you're in a sales

position and you need to make 1% improvement in your sales, just 1% in the top line revenue generated by your sales. How can you do this? Well, obviously, you can raise the prices, but ultimately what it comes down to is getting additional customers. People want to do it the easy way. The easy way is continuing to do the same thing they did before or find a lever so they can do less than what they did before. But what I want you to do is I want you to think about doing more than you did before, 1% improvement in these different things. Take and call 1% more people. Ask for 1% more transaction when it comes to the volume that's going on in that.

Find the side sell, the upsell, the after sell. Work on gaining referrals out of your customer base. All of these things will help in that sales process. And if we hold ourselves accountable and learn a little bit more in this process, we will win. Additionally, learning and development. We got to admit when we make mistakes. We need to do that openly. In fact, the leader that stands in front of their people very transparently and says, I made a mistake on that, but you know what? I learned from it and we're going to fix it and we're going to move on, gets more respect than the leader who avoids the mistakes and does not admit to doing something wrong. It's weird. There's this ego play in place that prevents leaders from doing that. But ultimately,

it comes down to admit your mistakes openly. Discuss lessons learned. If you're an employee, by the way, and let's say you make a mistake. Theoretically, you've screwed something up. Your manager's going to meet with you. They are looking for you to avoid that mistake because then they can hold you more accountable for it with some sort of a punishment, if you will. I hate to use that word, but that's the reality of how managers manage. We punish people. We hold them accountable to that minimum necessary, and then we write them up or whatever it might be at the end of that. But what if you came in and said, yeah, you know what? I kind of screwed that up.

Here's what I learned from it though, because this is going to help me in the future to do better performance. And if you came out with that, the manager would be able to lead you and help counsel you through doing better. That's encouraging continuous growth and improvement. Do it yourself also. Share the value you learned in personal development and encourage others to do so. Share this with

your co-workers. Now, I mentioned accountability before. I want to dive deeper into that. You need to define the accountability for your team. So what is accountability? Accountability is witnessing without judgment. Witnessing without judgment. And who can hold us more accountable than ourselves? Okay? A lot of people can hold themselves massively accountable. But who can hold us more accountable? It's a peer. Have someone hold you accountable and hold yourself accountable in front of your team. Follow through on the commitments that you make and take responsibility for mistakes and failures. A friend of mine has a program. It's called Go to the Board. And on a weekly basis or bi-weekly basis, the team will sit down in front of the whiteboard and they will walk up there and they will look at their key performance indicators, their outcomes. OKRs, also objective and key results, are also what

those are called in business. But ultimately, what did you say you were going to do? Did you do it? I was going to make five of these, three of these, and 12 of those. Did I make five, three, and 12? Or did I make four, two, maybe eight? Or did I do three, zero, five? But ultimately, if we have to go out and be publicly accountable for this, and this is tough for a lot of people because it gives them anxiety. It makes them embarrassed. They think they're being attacked. But the reality is they're attacking themselves. They're attacking themselves through their own personal accountability. Hold yourself accountable. Say, if I were to stand in front of everybody and say, here's what I promised, here's what I delivered, would you meet your brand promise as you? Good question, isn't it? So a big part of this also is to give credit to others

for their performance. Now, lastly, I want to talk about well-being. Well-being. We talked about a lot of business concepts here, a lot of dive deep, improve your leadership concepts. But let's talk about leading a balanced, healthy life to model good self-care. You have to be empathetic and emotionally intelligent in the relationships that you're in, and you have to be that way to yourself. You've got to remain calm under stress. You need to smile a lot. Hey, by the way, what's one thing that we never run out of and is free to give out that we should be giving out all day? It's a smile. It matters. So consider this well-being. Are you in a good place right now?

Or are you in kind of a dark place? Are you in a rough place? Have you worked on your leadership? Have you worked on yourself and personal development? I'd love for you to go and download this document. Go and review all of these six things that we just went through. And then in this document, there's also a 360 review. Give this out to five or six people and ask them to review how they see you handling these situations and do a self-review with it as well and then compare the two and then make an action plan

based on all these different concepts. But ultimately, the question is, what's wrong with your leadership? Well, it's time to find out. It's time to find your leadership gaps. Here's where you can get this download. It's at adamcontos.com slash myleadership. And there's a link to it in the show notes.

You can always get a copy of this by going to adamkontos.com. But ultimately, my wish for you, focus on these six concepts. Focus on these six things that will help you build more self-awareness, more authenticity, more clear vision, and more values direction in your business. And remember, presence creates trust. Be present for everybody with you. Project this confidence and remain calm under stress. This will inspire others to follow your lead when facing challenges like filling these leadership gaps.

Remember, go back and listen to this again. Write down all these things. I know this is a lot of information, but ultimately this will help you uncover what's wrong with your leadership. I'm Adam Kantos. Thanks for starting your day with a win.