the bossbabe podcast - 310. Conscious Leadership, Highly-Effective Communication + 5 Essential Principles To Master In Business

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

When it comes to building a successful business that goes the distance, leadership is absolutely essential. Cultivating highly-effective + conscious leadership - within yourself and on your team - will help you go further faster and with more buy-in from everyone around you. In this episode, Natalie shares 5 principles of leadership you need to master to lead others with grace and cultivate amazing relationships with the people on your team. We dive deep and share how to become self aware (+ how it’s a superpower in leadership), how to acknowledge your team in ways they’re actually going to receive + appreciate, and so much more!  HIGHLIGHTS Practices to cultivate + grow your self-awareness (and why it’s a superpower when it comes to your leadership) The biggest red flags you can easily fall into + how to turn them into assets as a conscious + highly-effective leader The 5 essential principles to becoming a really amazing leader How to assess if your communication is above or below the line + how to use that information to course correct and grow LINKS Join Growth Day - GrowthDay.com/bossbabe Subscribe to our Weekly CEO Newsletter to get more leadership + business insights from Natalie - https://bossbabe.com/newsletter  FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie

A Boss Babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own version of success. Welcome back to the Boss Babe podcast. I'm Natalie Ellis, your host for this episode. And this week is another good one. So a big topic of conversation in the Boss Babe community lately has been leadership. We need to know how to be great leaders, whether we are running companies, whether we are in leadership positions in organizations, or whether we are amassing a following on social media, which is

leadership. This is a talk that I gave at Growth Day. If you're not inside of Growth Day yet, I'll put a link in the description. It's an incredible platform for personal growth and development. And in this talk, I was talking about how you could be a great leader and my five key principles to being able to bring out the best in others. Again, this is really important, especially if you have a team or you want to have a team. So with that, I won't take any more time. Let's dive straight into the episode. What I wanted to share with you is five principles that I personally love to employ when I'm above the line when I'm in situations where I know I'm above the line I'm typically doing one or more of these five things that I'm sharing with you. So I would definitely write them down because these five things can be a real game changer in the way you approach situations,

whether it's bringing out the best in your employees, in your partner, in your kids, in your friends, in family members, in coworkers, you'll typically notice you're doing one or more of these five things. So the first one is self-awareness. Now self-awareness is an interesting one because often when we are below the line this is something that can be quite difficult to cultivate. When we're below the line we're not being super self-aware. We're often being aware of everyone else and everyone else's flaws and the way in which everyone else is doing the wrong thing. And we're righteous. And we're like, I'm right in this situation. I've been doing the right thing. Like there's a lot of reasons why we are in the right from below the line. But when we're above the line and we're in self-awareness,

we're a bit more curious about how we may be causing certain situations to unfold, how we may not be showing up as our best self, how we may have done something, said something, shown up in a certain energy that actually may have caused a certain situation. And so there's a few different ways that you can move in to being more self-aware. The first thing is reflecting. And you'll generally want to build this into almost every single day because it's very hard to reflect if you are just go, go, go, go, go.

If you don't have a minute to spare. Now I get it when you're busy. It can be very, very difficult to almost get five minutes to yourself. I feel it as a CEO, as a mom, as a wife, as a partner, I really feel it. But if I don't have my own reflection practice every single day, I notice myself very easily slipping below the line. When I'm in my self-awareness and I'm having a reflective practice, I almost witness myself as coming outside of my body and just witnessing a situation unfolding, a way in which I'm speaking, a way in which I've been showing up. I'm able to look at it and observe it and just take a look at what might be triggering me. How have I been reacting to

certain situations? Is there a situation where I could have reacted slightly differently? Am I being triggered from a wound that actually I need to go and take to my therapist and do some work around? And so I generally will bake in reflection time to each of my days. And that for me personally looks like in the morning with my coffee, I'll just sit even if it's for five minutes and I'll just sit and I'll let myself think, how am I showing up right now? Am I feeling really good? And I'll often pull up my growth day journal and I'll just put in there a little bit of reflection.

And the great thing about it is writing it down almost lets it out. Because if there is situations that I'm below the line on, just kind of letting it out can really help. Another thing that I do is I ask for feedback. Now, I only ask for feedback from people that I trust. So this can be friends, family members, colleagues, people that I trust are going to give me feedback that's for my highest good, right? Feedback for my highest good, not criticism. That's not really based in their truth.

And it's just a chance for them to jab at me, right? Those are not people that I trust, but people that I really trust. And I can say, what are my blind spots? How could I be showing up a little bit better right now? And it can be a really great insight. It can also be really challenging. But I really believe if we are not challenging ourselves, we're not growing. And it can be quite difficult to ask for feedback and be given it. You can almost be standing there like, oh, I know I asked for feedback, but geez, right? And it can kind of hit you quite hard. But if you really take that in and reflect on it, maybe you journal on it, maybe you really sit with it, you might recognize, no, I was being a bit short with them last week, or I was being a bit extra critical with them,

or you know what? I wasn't speaking in the best tone and I get why they might have felt that way. Another thing I do when I want to be in self-awareness is just paying attention to my emotions, being aware of when I'm being very emotive and reactive. Am I triggered? Am I anxious? Am I angry? Am I frustrated? Identifying those different patterns that I might have in my emotions, really, really important for me to be aware of. I'm also, when I'm in self-awareness, just being a bit more mindful. So like I said, you can really pull out to have perspective, to be able to really reflect, but you can also be mindful in a sense of sometimes that might just look like taking a breath and seeing that bird's eye view before you respond. It might look like catching yourself in a pattern or catching yourself being below the line and just saying, I'm going to remove myself for a couple of minutes. You know, I had a Zoom call like that

a couple of months ago where I felt like, you know what? I'm not being my best self right now. Give me two minutes. And I just hopped off. I stood to the side. I was mindful, took a couple of breaths, brought some presents and hop back in. Right. So it's the kind of thing, this self-awareness, we can course correct at any time, just because we start a conversation in one way, doesn't mean we need to end it in that way. Right. And so what you'll see from what I'm sharing around self-awareness is just being open, being open to feedback, being open to being reflective, being open to being on a growth journey. All right. So number two, the first one was self-awareness. Number two is something that I'm doing when I'm generally above the line is I'm acknowledging

people. Now it's interesting for me to say this because it didn't always come very naturally for me to acknowledge others. And when I was in self-awareness and digging into that, because I was getting some feedback around not acknowledging people, I was getting some feedback from my team when I did some anonymous surveys. I was getting feedback saying I wasn't acknowledging people enough. And that really bothered me. I'm like, they think I don't acknowledge. All I'm doing is acknowledging them, you know, telling them when they've done a good job, celebrating their wins. And actually, when I dropped into self-awareness,

I realized I'm probably not acknowledging them in a way that's supporting them being their best selves. And I'm going to share with you what that looks like. And for me, when I got into that, I realized that came from childhood. And I think probably a lot of us can relate to this. I don't feel like I grew up with a lot of acknowledgement that probably supported me in being my best, right? I would get acknowledged over, you know, certain things that on textbook were like textbook were a good thing to do, like getting high grades, but I wasn't necessarily

being acknowledged for just trying and certain things like that. And I feel like a lot of us can probably relate to this. And so in some ways we didn't always learn how to acknowledge others. And so I just want to share with you a few things that I personally had to learn in order to acknowledge others in a way that they'd be able to receive, right? Acknowledge others in a way that they'd be able to receive. So the first thing is I'd be specific when I'm acknowledging them. So I'll pull up a specific instance, something that they did, whether it was a way in which they completed a task, a way in which they communicated, a way in which they completed a task, a way in which they communicated, a way in which their energy was. I'd be really specific and I'm sincere about it.

So I don't give empty praise just for the sake of it. I'm not scheduling into my calendar, acknowledge Stephen today, every Friday, right? I'm sincere when it really comes up for me. I take the time to sit with the truth of it. And when I give that acknowledgement, people know when it's sincere. 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. Another thing that I do is I give it in a timely manner. So like I said, I'm not scheduling it into my calendar. I generally will give acknowledgement in the moment it's deserved, right? Because if I notice someone do something great and I write down and I have in my calendar, acknowledge them on Friday and I bring it up on Friday, it might feel like the moment's kind of passed, right? I didn't acknowledge them at the time, the moment's kind of passed. And so I'm timely about it. It also really requires me to be very present with people in order to be able to acknowledge them. I'm actively listening in our conversations so that I'm understanding their perspective, their feelings, the way in which they communicate and therefore would like to be communicated with because we all have different

styles. And if I'm not being present with people and I'm kind of fleeting and I'm on my phone and I'm on my laptop and I'm always doing something while I'm around those people, I'm not slowing down to notice what they're doing first and foremost, that would, you know, warrant some acknowledgement, but I'm also just not understanding the way in which that they communicate and the way notice what they're doing first and foremost that would you know warrant some acknowledgement but I'm also just not understanding the way in which that they communicate and the way in which it would be best for me to communicate with them I like to show gratitude and so gratitude's not always the same as acknowledgement acknowledgement I can be very acknowledging of a specific thing they did and I'm timely around it. Gratitude can be slightly

different because you can just let someone know that you are grateful for their contribution to your life. Whether that's, you know, a coworker, you tell them you're grateful that they're a part of the team or your partner, you tell them you're grateful that you get to do life with them. I like to practice gratitude every single day and I will often share that with people. So it is a form of acknowledgement, but it differs slightly. And finally, I just want to share with acknowledgement is being consistent with it all. Being consistent with that really specific, sincere, timely thing you want to celebrate them for and the way that they want to be celebrated or and having gratitude for them, do it consistently. Because consistency is really key when it comes to building strong relationships. So if you make a habit of acknowledging

other people on a regular basis and look for opportunities to show appreciation and gratitude in the way in which you interact with them, you're really going to build strong foundations. And it comes back to what we were talking about at the beginning of building those foundations in which you trust that person and they trust you, right? So that you can have that kind of relationship with them that you want to have with them. So that was acknowledgement. The first one was self-awareness. The second was acknowledgement. The third one that I want to share is communication, right? Now this is a big one. Now who else, when they were growing up, heard this phrase? Now I'm about to call some of us out here, probably from your mom or dad.

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Let's talk about that. Let's dissect that one a little bit because I fundamentally disagree. Now, maybe this is the boss babe energy coming through, but I fundamentally disagree with if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. I think a lot of us have been conditioned to be nice. Now, what is nice? Is nice not speaking our truth? Is nice not giving candid feedback?

Is nice kind of being quiet when really you want to speak louder? Is nice being really passive? Is nice being avoidant? I don't think the idea of if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all is serving us, is serving our relationships, or is serving bringing out the best in others. Now, something I've actually learned a lot from Brendan around is actually when you really respect someone as a friend, a partner, a coworker, when you really respect them and you love them and you care about them, honesty is a real gift to that person. And almost if you're not willing to communicate with them, you're not setting your relationship up for success and you're not setting them up for

success because you're really robbing them of the opportunity to do their own work. You're robbing them of the opportunity to get challenged and grow. You know, we were talking about earlier when I was saying you ask for feedback so you can be more self-aware. Well, if we're not willing to give it, how can we expect others around us to be able to grow and learn and become their best selves? And so with communication, I think this is a real pillar that you employ when you're above the line. Now, I want to talk about the ways in which to communicate, because just saying to someone, hey, I think that work that you did was really terrible is communicating below the line, right?

You're criticizing. You're not doing it in a way that's going to serve them best. You're not offering solutions. And you're probably being a bit reactive. But you can communicate and give feedback about perhaps work that someone did or the way in which someone has treated you. You can give feedback from above the line. You can give someone has treated you, you can give feedback from above the line. You can give it with love, but you can give it firmly. And giving firm feedback doesn't

mean that you're below the line. And so when you are giving feedback and you're communicating, there's a few things that you're going to want to do. You're going to want to be really clear and concise. So you don't want to be vague. You don't want to use overly complex words, striving to get as many words in as possible. You want to get your point across as clearly and as simply as possible. You also, if you're in a situation where you're sharing it and the other person has a chance to respond, like it's a face-to-face, it's on a phone call, it's on a Zoom,

you want to have active listening so that you can pay attention to what someone's saying and reflect back to them what you're hearing, just so that you can make sure you are listening because communication is a two-way street. Communication is not, let me talk at you while you listen. Communication is, let me say what I have to say. And you can tell me that you've heard it and dissect that. And then let me hear what you have to say. And let me reflect it back to you just to make sure that I've got it. And doing it that way means that we're avoiding misunderstanding. We're avoiding

making up stories, but just listening clearly, reflecting back, and then sharing our perspective. We're honest. We're open and honest. And so, like I said about the niceness, sometimes we can think being nice is not being honest. Honesty is absolutely key to effective communication. Being honest with others about your thoughts, your feelings, and your intentions. Like I said, avoiding being vague and withholding information. Being open and honest is really, really important for being able to be your best self and therefore bringing out the best in others. You also probably do want to consider the way in which you have that honest communication. Sometimes it's better to be in person.

Sometimes it's better to be on the phone. Sometimes it's better to write a long email, right? We all know in different situations, we're required to show up differently. And so when you're thinking about communicating, and that's how you know when you're above the line, because you're thinking about it, you're intentional about it, you're not reacting. When we're thinking about communicating, you think about, okay, like I'm going to be clear and concise. I'm going to have listened so that I'm not misunderstanding. I'm going to be open and honest. I'm going to have this conversation in the right forum. So whether it's an email, phone call, you're also going to think about using I statements versus you statements.

And so what I mean by that is if you are communicating honestly, let's say you're in a situation where you feel like your partner isn't pulling their weight at home, right? If you start that situation with, you know, you're really just not pulling your weight at home, right? If you start that situation with, you know, you're really just not pulling your weight at home, right? You know, it's, you're not pulling your weight at home instantly. Your partner's going to jump into defensive mode. It's this primal instinct that they have where they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me get my shield. Let me get my sword. Let me get my sword let me get ready to go to battle right who does this it's not just our

partners whereas if you approach it from an I statement you might say like I'm feeling like I would love a little bit more support around the home because I'm feeling a bit unsupported I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed that's you speaking from the I versus speaking from the you. Now, if you approach a situation where I'm feeling like I'm a bit overwhelmed and I'd love a bit more support, your partner is not rushing to grab the sword, the shield and getting ready to go to battle. They're probably leaning in because they hear you stating a need that you have. And people that care about you care about being able to support. And so you are then

bringing out the best in someone else because you're able to ask for it in a certain way. Right? And finally, you really want to practice empathy when you are communicating. And the way in which, the best way in which to do this is just put yourself in someone else's shoes. So like I said in the beginning, you know, who are the people you feel really good being around? What are they doing? When you're the best around people, what are they doing? How are they communicating with you? Something that you really want to think about. So that is communication. That's the third thing I wanted to share.

The fourth thing is confidence, transference, confidence, transference, right? I believe when you're above the line, you're generally feeling pretty confident in yourself and the way that you're carrying yourself. One of the best gifts you can give to people that you care about is taking a bit of that confidence and transferring it onto them. Seeing the good in them, telling them that you see the good in them, telling them that you see what their strengths are, telling them when you notice that they're doing something really well, modeling confidence. So when you're modeling being confident in the

actions you take, the behaviors you exude, the communication that you have, it can make others to feel more confident around you. Like I said, in the beginning, I have this friend that showed up to her book launch party in the biggest hot pink dress ever. And she was modeling confidence in that moment, probably without knowing it. And that confidence was transferred to me. It was rubbed off against me. And I started showing up more confident. I started to think, well, actually I want to wear this thing and I want to show up in this way and I want to use my voice in this way. Okay. So the fourth thing is confidence, transparent. When I'm above the line and I'm inspiring others to be their best, I'm transferring confidence. And the fifth thing, which kind of ties all of these things together is leading by example. I cannot possibly sit and

wish for the people around me to be their best if I'm not leading by example, right? If I'm leading from below the line and I'm constantly looking at all the other things, you know, people are doing wrong and all of the ways in which they could be doing a better job supporting me better X, Y, Z. And I'm not leading by example. If I'm also not sharing open and honestly, if I'm not leading by example, I really can't expect those around me to do the same thing, right? Who relates to this? When we see people lead with example, like I said in the beginning, when I see people be the kind of person that makes me want to up my game, I'm upping my game. So a few ways, I'm going to

ground a way that you can lead by example is practice what you preach. So if you want others to behave a certain way or you ask others to behave a certain way, model it yourself. If you want someone to load the dishwasher in the right way, in the same way you do, model it. Put the things in the dishwasher that way. And I'm sure if it's a productive way to do it, people will follow suit. If you want people in your organization to format documents in a certain way, make sure you're formatting documents in a certain way. Model, practice what you preach. Another thing that you want to do when you lead by example is taking responsibility for your actions and your mistake

and be willing to admit when you're wrong. When you're able to demonstrate integrity and accountability to others, you really encourage them to do the same thing, right? You really encourage others to take accountability and to put their hands up when they've made a mistake because you doing it has shown them that it's safe to admit when things are not necessarily going to plan or you didn't execute in the way that you thought you would, right? Boundaries. Boundaries are another great way that you can lead by examples. So setting a healthy boundary can help you have positive relationships because you're very clear with others about your expectations, your limits, and you communicate them assertively and respectfully. And generally, firstly, that will teach people how to treat you.

So you might even experience them as being better versions of themselves. And it's probably going to transfer confidence into someone else about how they could set boundaries. So you're leading by example in the way in which you just show up in the world, and it starts to give others permission to do the same. And finally, what I'll share about leading by example kind of ties up everything I've said here is striving for self-improvement. So consciously working on improving yourself personally and professionally. If you are constantly striving for self-improvement, it means you're constantly striving to be above the line. And I don't know about you, but it's almost impossible for me to be around people that are constantly striving for self-improvement and for me not able to do the same or not wanting to do the same, right? And so I've noticed in my company, when I show

others that I'm constantly trying to self-improve, so an example is giving them that anonymous feedback survey that I mentioned. When I'm showing others that I'm here to improve, I notice I get the best out of them because they sense that this is a culture of growth, of learning, of not having to be perfect all the time. And I notice that when I do things like that, I inspire others to come forward and ask for feedback about themselves. I notice that people come forward and maybe notice when they haven't been in a place that's taking responsibility for their feelings. They haven't been practicing what they preach. They haven't been doing the things in which they're asking their team to do. And so just to kind of go back to explain those five things again, the five principles I have for bringing out the best in others,

especially being above the line, five things that I notice I'm doing. And like I said, you're probably going to notice yourself doing at least one of these five things when you're above the line. And it's going to be a good barometer for starting to realize and recognize when you are above the line or below the line. So self-awareness, acknowledgement, communication, confidence, transference, and leading by example. Those are five things that you're going to be doing when you are leading from above the line. And that's not to say that if you are not above the line, you are a bad person. It's not to say that if you're not above the line, you can't go to work that day, right? It's not a reason to camp out in bed all day and feel sorry for yourself. It's not a reason to go on a walk and beat yourself

up the entire time about being below the line. Because like I said, it's not good or bad. We're all human. And one of the great things about our human experience is that we get to experience the full range of human emotion. And if we did not spend time below the line, we wouldn't get to feel how good it feels to be above the line. If we don't experience not being our best selves, then we almost don't know how good it feels when we get to be our best selves. Like who's had those weeks where you just know you are being your best self. You know your energy is high, you're getting stuff done, you're communicating in a way that makes people feel good, you're feeling good in your relationships. Everything's just in flow. Who's had those weeks? Now, if you had 52 weeks a year

like that, would it always feel good? Probably not because you don't have a reference point of anything else. It might start to feel like Groundhog Day. Whereas if we have weeks where, you know, we're feeling stuck, we're in a bit of a judgmental place where, you know, blaming others, we're kind of in a victim mindset. We're getting to experience that range of that emotion, which in turn allows us to grow and growing feels really good. Often when you're on the other side of it, but growing feels really good because you know, you know, that you're going in kind of the right direction. You know you're growing in a direction that is going to save you in the future. We often say, and the quote I shared is,

you know, we ask for growth and then we complain when we get it. So we have to be okay with knowing that we're going to be below the line sometimes. And when new situations arise that encourage us to grow, we might be below the line. And all of that is just giving us a much better reference point for when we're above the line and how we can spend more time above the line. And so I really, really just want to encourage you over the next week, and it will be great if you could use your journal to do this, your birthday journal, because then you can go back and look at it. Really just at the end of each day, start to reflect, was I above the line in my communication with that person?

Was I really inspiring them to be their best? Or was I below the line and I was throwing a few digs out there and I was making them second guess themselves? And quite frankly, it's no wonder they were defensive. Just start to notice that and have those reference points. And before you know it, you'll be able to, in the moment, acknowledge when you're below the line and snap out of it a lot faster. And trust me, there is no better way to bring out the best in others than to bring out the best in ourselves. And the best in ourselves looks like those five things that I shared with you when we're in relationship with others.

And so I hope that has been helpful in giving you some food for thought in terms of having that reference point and food for thought in terms of how you can bring out the best in others.