The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - You're In Your Role to Make an Impact | Foundations Friday #103

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

Inspired by the article from July 26, 2023 titled How to Be a Purpose-Driven Leader Without Burning Out by Lisa Earle McLeod and Elizabeth Lotardo on the Harvard Business Review website.Key points from the article:When you interact with your employees, ask how what they need to get stuff doneAssist your team's decision-making process through purpose-focused questionsPut more of your time and calories into team members that will respond moreRemember...Hope is not a planWork a shared processNo egosNo silosMore at kevtalkspod.com

Let's get logged in and get locked on to this episode of the KevTalks podcast. You're in your role to make an impact. I think that's an outstanding statement. It's from an article from July 26, 2023 in the Harvard Business Review by Lisa Earl McLeod and Elizabeth Letardo called How to Be a Purpose-Driven Leader Without Burning Out. And the article is really well written, has some great tools. I'll touch on those in a second. But the gist of it is we've all heard of servant leadership, right? Put your team first, not you.

And that's great. And it got us, as they say in the article, out of an era where it was always top down. I don't want to hear what you say, just coming in work. To have leaders and managers and above be more human to their people and take more interest in their people. And so this new approach to be a purpose-driven leader, and as they call it in the article, practice noble leadership, is really to do three key things that will still help your team that still say that you have interest in them, but put the onus back on them, right? We're all grownups and that's a great theme. And

when you move up into a position and, you know, advance, whether you're in the military or rank in public safety, or, you know, as a project manager, like I have, and now I'm a PMO manager, we're in this position for a reason to make others better, to help our organization, all those reasons. So these three kind of, you know, overall guidance in the article talk about employee interactions. And so instead of just saying, what can I do for you? What do you need from me? It's really framing it in a way to say, you know, here's the thing I know we have to get done. What do you need to get it done? And then as a leader, you can kind of help with their response if there's gaps. If they say, well, I need these things, but I'm having trouble with

this, then you can jump in, right? And that'll lead to one of these other things that I talk about. And the second thing they talk about is decision making, right? So we frame decisions based on our purpose. So if someone says, well, we're just going to do it this way, then for me as a leader, I would ask, well, how's that going to affect the end user? How's that going to affect the patient or the clinician if I'm in healthcare IT or whomever it is, the other people in the department? So we have a shared purpose and that's our shared focus is what does this impact this decision now that I'm going to help you with by coaching, which is the third thing. So coaching, and if you recall, that coaching is not consulting. And that is a great discussion that I had with Leanne Pond about practical leadership skills for engaging with your employees.

And some of this Harvard Business Review article, particularly the coaching part, echoed a lot of what Leanne talks about in her book, The Engagement Ring. So go to KevTalksPod.com. And if you search for Leanne Pond, her book, The Engagement Ring. So go to keptalkspod.com. And if you search for Leanne Pond, you'll see the episode in the article. It's from January 2021 there. But it's practical lessons for engaging employees, really aligned with this Harvard Business Review article. But the coaching piece and the difference is if I coach you, I'm prompting you to come up with your own solutions. If I'm consulting you, I'm giving you answers. And I've

talked about that here. And I do that in the real world by sharing my experiences, what's worked at this organization. I've noticed these kinds of things as opposed to, well, I think you should do it this way. Is there a time to do that? Yes. If someone asks and they want that straight guidance, but by and large, we're going to coach them. But the other thing that's a little bit different in the discussion I had with Leanne is in the Harvard Business Review article by Lisa Earl McLeod and Elizabeth Letardo for the coaching they're talking about, it's where as a leader do I put my time? Traditionally, we give extra coaching to folks that aren't performing well. Does that always work well, right? Are those folks not performing well and they're not going to?

Not that we give up on them, or could I spend my calories that I've heard folks talk about in meetings, which is I think kind of a good saying, towards the folks that are the midline or the top performers because they're going to respond, right? They're going to take initiative in doing different things. And that's a tough balance, right? Because if we're shifting our mind from servant leadership, where it's all about the other folks, and I'm just going to give it my all, part of what it talks about in this article is burnout, right? It's in the title, how to be a purpose-driven leader without burning out. And it's easy to burn out when you're always focused on other folks and not taking care of yourself or maybe not enabling. It's also maybe

a disservice. Too much servant, right, leadership doesn't empower your people or push them if they need it to do their own stuff or to stretch a little bit. So I highly recommend this article. I'll link to it on KevTalksPod.com and the show notes for this if you're listening on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening. Thanks for being here on Foundations Friday 103. And remember, you're in your role to make an impact. So there's a reason you advanced.

There's a reason you got promoted. There's a reason you moved to another department or another state or wherever you did for your job. It's to make an impact. So get out there and make one and consider this new thought of noble leadership where you're thinking about your interactions, where you're asking them questions and helping make decisions based on purpose and coaching and putting your coaching efforts where they will be most of benefit. Thank you so much for benefiting the KevTalks podcast by listening.

KevTalksPod.com at P-A-N-N-E-L-L-K-G on Twitter and Instagram. Thank you all so much. Remember, hope is not a plan, but make sure that your team has a plan. You're working a process together and you keep those egos and silos out of the way. Godspeed.