The Ryan Leak Podcast - What Mistakes Can I Own?

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

There are moments when you won't get inspiration, direction, or vision from your leader. This is why you need to have some go-to questions you can have in your back pocket to help you lead yourself when you need to the most. The first question you can ask yourself is: Why Am I Doing This? The second question you can ask yourself is: What Credit Can I Give Away? The third question you can ask yourself is: What Mistakes Can I Own? When things are going well, everyone volunteers to get their piece of the success pie. When things are going south, everyone scatters because most people don't want own their piece of why things aren't working.  Two of the most powerful words that can help you lead yourself well are: I'm sorry.  What will make you more attractive to high-level leaders is when take ownership for your area. We should be generous with credit and hogs with the blame.  What colleague could you call, message, or email today to apologize for something you've done in the past 6 months? What do you need to own that maybe you've been ignoring? For more show notes and episodes, go to ryanleak.com/followership. 

Welcome to Followership with Ryan Leake, a podcast designed to equip followers with the tools they need to succeed in the workplace, regardless of the kind of leader you have. I want you to know that that does not determine the type of follower you can become. What we've been talking about the past couple of episodes of followership is about self-leadership. It's about not waiting for our leaders to give us direction or vision or even in. inspiration to be who we know we should be. We're looking at four questions that will help you lead yourself well. First question was why am I doing it? You have to know your why.

If you miss that episode, I encourage you to go back and check that out. The second episode, we looked at a question, which is this. What credit can I give away? There's something about us having an infatuation with being self-made. all reality, no matter who you are, you had help along the way, you read a book, you had a friend, you listened to a podcast, you watched a TED Talk, you did something, you did something. And it won't hurt you to give some credit. It might hurt your ego, but that's good for all of us.

If you miss that episode, I encourage you to go check that out. Also, the show notes from both of those episodes, as well as this one, can be found on ryanleek.com slash followership. Again, that's ryanleek.com slash. followership. Today's question, our third question, that helps us lead ourselves better, is what mistakes can I own? What mistakes can I own? I found that when things are going really well, everyone volunteers, everyone raises their hand

to say, oh, yep, I had a part in that. This was the part I played. yep, everyone applaud me, that's great, yep, it was me. No, it was me, it was me, it was me. But when things are going south, when sales are down, when customer reviews are two and a half stars at best, I found it's very difficult to find a volunteer. it's easy for us to point the finger at somebody else when it's going bad.

And we love to look in the mirror when it's going well. But if we're going to be a good follower, we have to ask ourselves this question. What mistakes can I own? What blame can I take and say, yeah, yeah, that's on me. I was speaking to a group the other day. and I had them all repeat after me to say these words. These words are very, very difficult for us to use. Oh, we hate using these words.

And those words are these. I'm sorry. I don't know why that's so difficult. I just said it. You should try it right now. Repeat after me. I'm sorry. There ain't nobody in the car.

There ain't nobody in your office with you. You just say, I'm sorry. You should just practice it. See how it comes off your lip. I'm sorry. Let's try it a different way. My bad. They don't feel as bad as I'm sorry, but my bad.

Like, this is on me. It's so difficult for us to use, but it's so pivotal. If we're going to lead ourselves well, in my career, the moments that I grew the most or the moments I was able to own the mistakes that I had made, for me to just pause for just a moment and go, you know what, I need to take ownership for this. This one's on me.

I remember the first time I had the opportunity to speak at a Fortune 500 company. I was incredibly giddy. I was incredibly excited to have the opportunity. Perhaps I over-prepared. I didn't even know that was possible, but I studied my subject. I over-studied the subject, I should say. and I thought that that was going to be very, very impressive. I got reviews back from that company,

and a couple of the reviews said he was an excellent speaker, but I wish he would have applied it to us. I remember reading that comment and thinking, man, how did I forget to apply it to them? How in the world did that happen? And I just, I had to own that. really didn't study them. I studied my subject. I had to own that. The person that brought me in, I had to own that and go, hey, this one, this one's on me. That's my bad. You know, with all of the

things that I get to do, the many hats that I wear as a speaker, as an author, as a podcaster, as an executive coach, I've got several people that I contract to help me. wear those hats. And I was asking a couple of them the other day, I said, hey, what can I work on to help you be successful with me? And you know what one of them just said

it's so clear. They said, you know, you don't know what you want until you see it, so it's hard to win. We don't know if it's good. You got to feel it, you got to see it.

And I went, man, you're so right. And I had to own the fact that I wasn't casting vision with clarity about what I wanted. And so how can I expect someone to deliver that which I have not clearly asked for? And that was something I just had to own. I remember I was doing a workshop for a company in the Bay Area. and I had scheduled several breakouts throughout the day.

And it was one of my first times actually doing an all-day workshop. And I actually underestimated the amount of energy it would require for me to do that, what I needed to eat. I didn't eat breakfast that day. That was a mistake. You know, I was a rookie. My bad. Okay.

And during the breakouts, I thought the breakouts were timeouts. I thought, okay, y'all going to go on a break, go talk about the stuff I just talked about for an hour while I go in the corner and replenish my energy. But the message that sent to the organization was that I had checked out. The moment I was supposed to check in, those breakouts, that was the moment I was supposed to step up. And instead, I took a step back. And I had to own that. Here's a reality. I know it can be very difficult for us.

us at times to take the blame. But to pull on even last episode where we asked the question, what credit can I give away? I think we should be generous with giving credit away. I think we should be hogs when it comes to blame. I think we should take more than what's really there. I think we should err on that side. And here's why. I think those are the moments that make us who we really are to be able to raise our hand and go, hey, this was on me. You might work for a social media team and something got put out with a spelling error. Hey, that's me. You may not have even crafted the tweet. You may not have even crafted the caption. But hey, you played a partner. Hey, I own that. I should have, I should have caught that. I mean, what would it look like for you to just,

for you to just say that. Again, last episode we talked about how reply all is a great opportunity to give credit to someone else. Reply all is also a great opportunity to take ownership of a mistake. Hey, hey, this one's on me. Can you imagine a reply all where everyone was trying to take blame instead of everyone trying to take credit? Can you imagine that? Just imagine. Imagine if you're on a reply all like email chain, right?

and there's 15 people on there. And you're the first one to go, hey, this one's on me, that's my bad. And then the person after you goes, no, no, no, no, actually, it was my bad. I shouldn't have did that. And then the next person goes, no, no, no,

forget what those last two jokers just said. It's on me. I mean, can you imagine if you worked in an environment like that where there was an extreme amount of ownership of people that were just raising their hand to just say, hey, this is on me. Here's a deal.

You cannot wait for a leader to teach you this. You cannot wait for a leader to say, hey, you know what's going to help you go along faster and further? Is if you harness this ability to take ownership of the mistakes you've made, you have to ask yourself that question. So the takeaway from today's episode is this. I want you to think of one colleague who you can apologize to today.

I want you to send them an email. I want you to send them a message. I want you to make a phone call. And I want you to just go, hey, you know, that project, you know, that sales call, you know, the Zoom meeting we had with that client. You know, when the deck didn't present right online, I should have tested that. Just one colleague, one boss, one leader, you picked the person. Today, I want you to own something. I want you to apologize to at least one person.

And I think when you do that, I think when we do that, we find ourselves leading ourselves so much better. Hey, if today's episode added value to your life, I encourage you to share it with a few colleagues, a few friends, maybe even share it on social media if that's your jam. Please rate it. Don't forget to subscribe. And we'll see you next time for the fourth question that will help us lead. ourselves well