#463. Leading Through the Turn. With Elise Mitchell.
Elise Mitchell, CEO of Mitchell Communications Group, and CEO of Dentsu Aegis Public Relations Network, as well as the author of a very interesting book, Leading Through the Turn: How a Journey Mindset Can Help Leaders Find Success and Significance, joins me on this episode of #Accelerate!
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
[Click the TimeStamp to listen to play the episode from that spot!]
[2:20] Leading Through the Turn looks at leadership as though riding a motorcycle. She started riding with her husband 10 years ago, and never looked back. She was hooked. Today she rides a Honda CBR300R — sleek, red, and fast.
[4:10] Key concepts are a destination philosophy and a journey perspective. The journey matters as much as the destination. Elise is naturally a destination person. She says her strength of entrepreneurship became a weakness as she hit extremes.
[5:35] Elise had to rethink how she was sacrificing important aspects of life to reach the destination of success. Motorcycling became the catalyst to make her rethink her journey. Now she savors it.
[7:28] Elise explains her drive was pushing her to burnout. She was missing many experiences. She wasn’t investing in living.
[9:09] Elise learned to ‘scrap the map,’ when the family moved away from her large corporate job. She had to decide if she would go, and be bitter, or go, and let change make her better.
[11:40] We can’t, and shouldn’t, control everything. Elise discusses adaptive leadership, about learning to solve new problems in real time, where there is no clear answer.
[13:00] Elise warns against building a company around a leader. She illustrates with a personal anecdote about letting go of control, and delegating — the entrepreneur's challenge!
[16:09] Every step of leadership feels a little scary if you are ambitious, and want to grow and challenge yourself as a leader, and broaden your impact. Don’t let fear hold you back.
[17:41] A spirit of reciprocity is thinking outside yourself. Elise has a personal professional anecdote. She asked other leaders, “What can I do for you?” She cites Give and Take. The Go-Giver is in the same vein. Help first.
[21:56] The called leader vs. the accidental leader. Elise has strived for leadership since her childhood. Accidental leaders have circumstances thrust upon them. If you have the heart of an explorer, it doesn’t matter how you got there. Go with it.
[26:41] The higher calling of leadership is to determine what good can you do as a leader. Can you create significance in the lives of others? You have so much potential to open doors.
[28:38] Leadership and significance starts with the individual. Elise discards the grandiosity of philanthropism for doing the right things, one at a time — changing that one person’s life for good; helping that customer further their opportunities.