Are you the intelligent leader? Or the @$$hole?

Why are your employees, your employees? The answer to this question lies solely with you, the business owner and the values you have built your business around. In this article, I will discuss 3 key aspects of leadership and how your leadership style shapes both the employees you attract and ultimately the revenue you can generate.

Leadership talks are everywhere - in podcasts, on stages, in tons of books and yet, people still seem to lack understanding on how to be a good leader or what a good leader does. Wanna know why? The lack of self-awareness.

Did you know that self-awareness is ranked as the 6th most important thing in defining success?

Because they lack self-awareness, they lack emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict. It has been suggested by Daniel Goleman, author of the book Emotional Intelligence, that having a high EQ is equally, if not more, of a predictor for success than having a high intelligence quotient (IQ) in the work place.

So, are you the asshole - the creator of emotional chaos in your business?

Or the intelligent leader? The person that brings together smart independent thinkers that can productively disagree to come up with the best possible collective thinking and dissolve disagreements appropriately.

Here are the 3 key ways you can become a more intelligent leader and avoid being the creator of emotional chaos in your business:

1. Establishing clear values for your business and those whom you desire to work with
2. Inspiring your team vs banging the gavel
3. Viewing problems as opportunities

Establishing Clear Values

We’ve all worked for less than desirable people in our lives and we’ve also worked with with those whom we would work with again any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Perhaps you've even been one or the other in your own leadership role. What makes these 2 people so different? Why was one person a pain in the ass to work with and the other one so marvelous?

Simply put - values. It seems like every time I write anything I mention the importance of values - hopefully you’re starting to catch on. Let me show you how value systems in leadership can lead to someone being a great leader or a crappy

Here are the 6 typical human needs:

1. Certainty - we like to KNOW what’s going to happen
2. Significance - we want to feel important or be noticed
3. Variety - its the spice of life
4. Love/Connection - each of us desires the love of a significant other, friends, or connection to a tribe of people
5. Growth - each of us desires improvement in ourselves or to climb the corporate ladder
6. Contribution - we have an inherent desire to help others

Each one of these is present in our lives in one way or another; however, the first 3 from a leadership standpoint tend to be self-serving while the last 3 are selfless. Here’s a few examples of how these values show up as a leader.

As a leader who values certainty, you will micromanage your teams like a helicopter mom; yell when things don’t go your way; and look for someone else to blame. Controlling everything is your main drive.

As a leader who values significance, you take the credit when things go right, but don’t extend that credit to your team. You also desire to be the first heard or recognized and take little time to listen to others thoughts, feelings, or experiences. Sound like anyone you know or have had experience with?

To be an intelligent leader you must have an inherent desire to give first, and get later. Here are some traits that are congruent with a leader who values growth and contribution:

1. Self-Regulation: They are able to manage their emotions and impulses. When the stakes are high, mastering self-regulation can be the difference between someone who explodes with anger and someone who seeks to find solutions to a problem despite frustration.
2. Empathy: They are able to identify and understand other’s emotions. This gives them the unique ability to listen to the concerns of others while keeping the emotional decision making under control.
3. Motivation: They take action and work hard to the benefit of the whole team, project or system, while inspiring others to work towards a common goal.
4. Social Skills: They are effective at managing relationships to the benefit of everyone and they communicate in a way that’s clear and understandable. Social skills also give the unique ability to lay appropriate boundaries without coming across as inaccessible.
5. Self-awareness: They recognize their own strengths and weaknesses and how they affect those around them. A leader with high self-awareness will add gas to the fire that are their strengths while hiring others or implementing systems to account for their shortcomings.
6. Vulnerability: This is last on the list but definitely not least. It could fall in the section about empathy; however, it’s a strong enough attribute that it deserves its own explanation. A leader who is vulnerable will admit when they made the wrong decision. They ask for forgiveness when they make mistakes and they hold themselves accountable to their decisions and values of the organization. Most importantly, they are not afraid of asking for help for fear of looking weak.

Have you established clear values for your leadership style?

Inspiring Your Team vs Banging the Gavel

1. Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them - they hire motivated people and inspire them. Gone are the days of the John Wayne style of, “Rough, tough, don’t take no sh*t off nobody,” leadership. Yelling, demanding and putting people on blast in a meeting will not make you an intelligent leader nor will it inspire them to work harder for you. It will inspire their departure from your business. If you have high turnover in your business, look no further than this style of leadership. It is often said that people don’t leave the company, they leave their boss.
2. Getting the right team so you don’t have to use John Wayne leadership is based on hiring for character capability and creativity. Too many times leaders hire for experience rather than character and this can cause lots of friction. Each person should think and act on behalf of the company values and the benefit of the team while holding people accountable to do the same.
3. Lead by delegation NOT by abdication. This situation happens often when you hire for experience rather than for character. As business owners we often hire people to assume a position or do a job which we really don’t want to do. For example, if you own a bakery you’re most likely excited about the process of baking - the flour, the sugar, the icing, etc. You probably are less excited about how to make adjustments to your marketing, so you hire someone to take over the marketing for you and because you are not proficient at marketing, you led by abdication. This means you assumed they were experienced and knew what to do, so you let them run without the proper guidance. Then one day you see a social media post that doesn’t match your brand and you wonder where they came up with that! But, had you taken the time to delegate and instruct them on the image you would like to portray, your outcome would likely be different. Because of this abdication you start to believe that no one understands your brand or how to market it, so you vow to never use another marketer again. Do you see how your leadership now affects any relationship you could potentially have with a marketing person?
4. Radical Transparency. Radical transparency brings everyone into the decision-making process. The result is better, more nuanced decisions. And a steadily building foundation of trust between employer and employee. This works by providing an open forum for people to discuss ideas and solutions to problems in thoughtful disagreement. Too many times we see leaders dictating decisions instead of opening up the floor for discussion and allowing active trouble shooting from the teams that support the business. This undoubtedly requires a significant amount of emotional intelligence and active listening skills. Radical transparency can also be present in how your company shows its plans for the future with your team as well as your financial situation.

Inspiration drives people to do more and be more. When this happens your business makes more money - not before.

Revenue is a byproduct of excellence.

Problems are Opportunities

How do you view problems in your business? Are they roadblocks or are they opportunities?

Have you ever had a leader (or maybe you were the leader) that hated to receive bad news? It almost always provokes a temper-tantrum and makes you super apprehensive to approaching them.

It’s inevitable - things happen. Problems arise every day. Its how you handle those problems that make the difference in being an intelligent leader or an asshole. Remember, the same level of thinking that caused the problem will not solve the problem.

Anytime I receive bad news, my initial reaction is to take a breath and ask, “Ok, where is the opportunity here?” We can’t change what happened, but how do we fix it efficiently and then how do we make corrections in our processes or systems so this issue doesn’t repeat itself?

When we use energy to search for someone to blame or explode in the face of problems we are consciously taking away our unique ability to be creative in solving the issue in front of us . Your tantrum doesn’t do anything more than show your lack of self-regulation and promote more emotional chaos. Instead, if your team feels confident in coming to you with problems they will be more likely to have already found the solution before they even bring you the problem.

The rule in my office is this - don’t bring me a problem, bring me a solution. When my team realizes that I am up for creative problem solving - it opens them up to be creative on their own. Promote solution oriented thinking!

In closing

Through reading this, have you discovered any areas of your leadership style that could use a little more self-awareness and self-regulation?

Have you been having a large amount of turnover in your business while getting stuck in thinking, “I’m the only one that can get this done correctly.”

For every cause inside our business we are the effect as the owner. Take the time to discover what leadership qualities you possess - pour gas on the ones that serve you well and take steps to either change or hire someone else who can make a positive change on the others. As the owner, it is your responsibility to set the tone for your everything inside your business including the leadership style.