the bossbabe podcast - 309. Qualities Of An 8-Figure Leader + How to Develop Them

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

Whether you’re a team of 1 or 100, being a highly effective leader is absolutely critical to your growth + success as an entrepreneur. Even if you don’t have a team yet, building + refining your leadership skillset will support you at such a deep level all along your business journey. In this episode, Natalie is sharing how to bring out the best in others so you can scale your business and actually enjoy the process. She’s peeling back the curtain to share qualities that 7, 8 and 9-figure leaders have that you can apply to your business even if you’re currently a team of 1. This episode shares the secret sauce for bringing the best out in others + creating win-wins in life and business so you can thrive in your role as a leader and continue to up-level along the way.  HIGHLIGHTS Why EVERYONE needs to refine their leadership skills - even if you don’t have a team yet.  How your leadership skills ultimately help you grow your following + become a successful influencer Bringing out the absolute best in others + how that is connected to scaling your business How to determine your leadership style (+ qualities you need to be a high-level leader) The power of creating win-wins + better outcomes in life and business LINKS Join Growth Day - GrowthDay.com/bossbabe   FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie

Welcome back to the Boss Babe podcast. All right, leadership, let's talk about it. A lot of people think they don't need to learn leadership skills until they have a huge team. And I'm here to tell you that is so not the case. Leadership shows up in so many different areas of our lives. And it's really important that all of us are continually refining our skills as leaders. Even showing up on social media, you need to show an element of leadership for people to actually want to follow and engage with you. That's why I'm really excited about today's episode. It's one of the things I found to be really important in my own leadership journey and stepping into what it looks like to be authentic, effective, and a high level leader, both in my business and in my personal relationships.

Conscious leadership is a term that I actually learned from my own coach. And I want to dive in with you today and share some powerful lessons I've learned about stepping into conscious leadership in my daily life and how it can really set the tone for all the relationships around you because the quality of your relationships contributes so much to the quality of your life. This is a snippet from a talk that I actually gave on Growth Day on culture and leadership. So if you're interested in hearing the full thing, you can also head to growth day to watch it. And I'm going to include the link below. With that, let's dive straight in.

I thought I would kick us off with a little bit of boss babe energy. Okay. If any of you follow boss babe, you'll know that for the past eight years, I have been writing really sassy Instagram posts and putting out there what I really feel. And there's this one quote. Now, I can't take credit for it, but I have posted it and said it in so many different ways because it really, really rings true for me. And this quote is, be the type of person who makes others want to step up that game. I'm going to say that again. Be the type of person who makes others want to step up that game. Now, I have been sharing variations of this quote for a really long time now. And the reason is there are a lot of people in my life that make me want to up my game. And I'm guessing there are people in your life that make you want to up your

game. Whether it's friends, family, whether it's Brendan, whether it's any teachers on growth day, whether it's people that you connect with on the internet, there are people in your life that make you want to up your game. And in this session, I really want to flip that when we talk about bringing out the best in others, what does it look like for you to be the person that is actually making others want to step up their game. I feel like that's something we can all aspire to. So kind of diving into that a little bit. Generally, what I know is that we cannot control others. And we really shouldn't want to. But our actions do and they can have influence.

This is something Brendan talks about a lot, influence. Our actions can and they do have influence on other people. And an example of that, I have friends in my life that are so unapologetically themselves that when I'm around them, I feel really comfortable being my unapologetic self too. Just for example, I have a friend called Sarah and I love the way she shows up as herself. And she recently had a book launch party and she turned up to this party in the most hot pink dress that you could possibly get. And it was huge. And it has had all these layers. I mean, when she walked in, you couldn't help but stare at how amazing she looked. And although that's not something that I would choose to wear,

I celebrated how much she was unapologetically herself in that. And it was in that moment that I realized, huh, she is someone that I personally feel like I can unapologetically be myself around. I feel really comfortable being in my full expression, even if that's where I'm black, right? I feel really comfortable because she models to me what it looks like for her. There's also people in my life who I've witnessed as judging other people for perhaps being their authentic self.

And that, as I realize it has made me feel uncomfortable being myself around them, right? Probably because there's this innate fear of being judged or, you know, whether they're judging me in their head or they're going to go to someone else and judge me. And what I really witnessed is probably they're not super comfortable being themselves. And so therefore that is projected in a way that I don't feel comfortable being myself around that person. Who else can relate to having those people in their life? Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know, I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity,

which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place, so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so

because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash boss babe. So what I really want you to think about is think about the people that you want to be your best self around. What kind of qualities do they have? How do they hold themselves? How do they act in conversation? And also think about the kind of people that you don't want to be your best around. Think about the kind of people that you notice

yourself almost shrinking into a little shell around. And you walk away from the conversation, you're maybe not feeling fired up, maybe not feeling motivated, maybe not feeling like you want to go and do something for that person. And I'm not trying to make people right or wrong. I'm not trying to make them bad or good. It's all just noticing, right? And we all have those different people in our lives. And it's really good to have that noticing. And in both of these situations, people aren't controlling how I behave or how I react, but they are influencing it, right? They are influencing how I behave and how I react. So we get to decide, do we want to positively or negatively influence someone? Do we want to bring out the best in them?

Or do we want to bring out a smaller, more defensive version of them? And when I talk about making the choice between either or, I like to talk about this concept that in conscious leadership, they call being above the line or below the line. Who's head of conscious leadership? There's an amazing, amazing book that I really recommend any of you who are in a leadership position to read. And leadership looks different for every single person. It might be leading a team within a company. It might mean leading an entire company. It might be leading a household. Leadership looks different for every single one of us. And if you are in that, I really do recommend the book. It's incredible. And like I said, they have this concept called being above the line or below the line. So conscious leadership as a whole

is about being self-aware, compassionate and committed to making a positive impact on others and the world around you. It's a way of leading that's really focused on personal growth, understanding others, creating positive outcomes.

I think probably the exact way in which all of you want to live your lives based on being inside of Growth Day. I mean, it's an entire platform built around those things. And so specifically, the idea of above the line and below the line is a way to describe two different approaches to conscious leadership. So when someone is below the line in their leadership style or in their life, they're typically not being very self-aware and they tend to be very reactive and defensive. So they might blame others for problems. They might criticize without offering any kind of solution. They might feel like they're victims of circumstance and not take responsibility for their actions or the impact that they had on other people, right? We've all been below the line

often on a daily basis. And I share that because it's not about being above the line 100% or below the line. We weave in and out because we're all human beings just doing our best. On the other hand, when someone is above the line in their leadership style, they're really self-aware. They're really open-minded. They're focused on finding solutions. They're learning from others. They really take responsibility for their actions and they want to understand the perspectives of the people around them. So they're very proactive versus reactive. They're looking for ways to improve themselves and be their best self. They're looking for ways to improve their organizations, their households, their relationships.

And they're really committed to creating positive outcomes for everyone involved. It's not, I'm going to one-up you. I'm going to get the best deal here. I'm going to make you concede. It's what is a win-win for all look like? What is a positive outcome for all of us? What does that look like? So like I said, conscious leadership is about being intentional. It's about being empathetic and it's having a focus on positive outcomes. So being above the line, it just means being self-aware, taking responsibility, looking for solutions, and being below the line means being defensive, reactive, and blame-oriented. And so, like I said, we are going to float between both on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. We might have some weeks where we're just completely sleep deprived.

We're so overwhelmed and it takes every ounce of strength we have to just climb above the line a little bit to not be so reactive. And we might have some weeks where we feel amazing. We're well rested. We're working out. We're getting that morning sunlight. We're eating really well. We're doing the things that we know make us our best. And coincidentally, everyone around us is happier, is being nicer to us. We're getting better outcomes. All right. We go between all of them.