Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who have supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. Today our topic is leading different personalities and. And my guest today is Shelly Sturks. Shelly, welcome to the show. So happy to have you on here today, Andrew.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: You're very welcome. How are things with you, Shelly? What's new? What's new in your world? Give us the tea, give us the deets, give us it all. What's going on?
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Well, there is just some interesting things in 2025. You know, I felt like 2024 was kind of a sleepy year, but the way I look at it, it's more of a preparation year. And so as we rounded out into the new finishing Q1, business is really ramping up, which is exciting because it's one of those things you sow the seeds and then eventually you start seeing the. The. The crop or the plants coming up from that. From that, you know, investment. And so right now we're just really gearing up on my team for some new and exciting growth that's happening in 2020.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: That is super exciting. And growth is always exciting. I always love to hear that people are looking to do new things and adapting and not st a regular rigmarole and reg regular routine. So I think if we're adapting, then we're growing and we're becoming very innovative and creative. So I love that.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Yep, agreed. Yeah.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for sharing that with me. I'm so happy to hear that things are going well on your end. And like I said that you were growing. Before we get into the nuts and bolts of this conversation here, Shelly, I always have a fun, thought provoking question to ask my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours today?
[00:01:53] Speaker A: I'm not sure, but I think so.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: We're gonna have a little bit of fun here. So my question to you, Shelly, is if you could only see one color in the world, what color would it be and why?
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Hmm, that's really interesting. So I always think of the things that make me the happiest, which are usually being on the water. We love boating and being kind of out there. There's always blue skies here in Florida, usually. And the water is usually cr. Crystal clear blue. And so I think if I Had to have. Seems weird to say blue, but I really love blue. And I also think that it's just a warm color. It makes me, you know, it kind of is a happy thing for me. I don't necessarily look at it as something that maybe traditionally would be to make you feel down, but. So I guess my answer might be blue. And my why would be just because of how I associate it with the water and the blue skies here in Florida.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: I love your answer, and I would definitely take blue as well. And I love how you associated the color with what makes you happy. That is exactly the way that I would look at it.
Blue puts a smile on my face as well. You mentioned the water. I love to be on a boat as well and look at the nice, clear blue water. It's so calming and relaxing. So I. I agree with you 100 on that. Well, thanks so much for enjoying having fun with me. And that great answer. That was pretty good for not knowing what the question was going to be answered that pretty well. I. I'm pretty impressed.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: You're very welcome. So why don't we get this show on the road here and why don't we start off with you telling us, Shelly, a little bit about yourself and we want to hear a little bit about your why.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: Okay, so I am, as a career, I am a communications coach, or as my career, I'm a communications coach. I really focus on leadership development. It's kind of honed in over the years. I used to do a lot of different coaching and a lot of different things, including sales coaching and, you know, group coaching. But I really found that where niche kind of, you know, comes in and my experience and the wisdom I can bring to the table is all the experience I have with owning businesses, but also leading teams. So as a communication coach, I do tend to focus on leadership coaching. I've also been behavioral analysis certified for over 20 years. And when I do help teams, I really love helping them communicate better. It's difficult for me to come into a scenario where I know there's a lot of talent and the main problem that they have is really communication. As much as silly is that sounds are as simple as it sounds. You know, when people don't feel heard and understood, you don't have the same productivity from them. And they also don't come open to, you know, be more creative and also to want to grow the business. And the whole reason we spend plus hours a day at a company is not just for a paycheck. I really feel like it should be so that we have some fulfillment and, you know, a purpose during our day. The other thing that I am is a proud mom of two young women. They are amazing. Abigail and Brittany. They're both 24, they're off adulting. And I just couldn't be more proud of them. And while they were, when they were little, they were absolutely my why. And now they kind of have their own lives. And so at some point, you know, moms out there can probably relate. You have to shift or pivot from, you know, the day to day focus of being just or being a mom. And that kind of being. You're focusing on your why. But I think my why shifts now with my girls being grown is that I've always known that I'm here to be a bridge, to bridge the gap between people, introduce people, companies, services that help people. And, you know, why, why it is that I, I show up to do that in a way that is, you know, authentically me, but really has nothing to do with anything in return. It just always has felt like that's my purpose here, is that whenever I talk to people, I learn what it is that they do. And then I just have almost like, I call it divine networking. Something in my gut tells me I need to connect them with somebody in another area. It could be another entire area of the world to come find out that those people needed to be connected and that I get the.
To do that. I, you know, I just want to be that bridge. And that's what communication is, is me helping them bridge the gap between them, communicating as well, you know, and really being able to help them come to a more human level of things as opposed to, you know, them just being a number. And there is a lot more productivity for the organization, but there's also more satisfaction as a leader, but as an individual that's part of an organization so.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Much that I want to pack in there. I mean, the one thing that really jumps out of me is when you're saying bridging the gap, and you're talking about people being seen and heard and valued. I really love that. And it's really important to me as well as, you know, in our conversations that we've had, Shelley. And yeah, what I really love about that is that you are bridging the gap and you're, you're communicating and getting these people who are meant to meet. And sometimes what I like about that, and I do the same thing, Shelly. And what I find is that sometimes people, they don't know how to communicate or they don't know how to reach out to people or meet people. So if I can do that as well, to communicate and get two people connected, that I think would mesh superbly, then yes, it makes me feel good. It puts a smile on my face as well because like I said, they just may have. They just don't know. May not know how to do it or they may not even have the confidence as well to, to get out there and, and reach out to somebody that they don't know. So I love that you.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: That you do that. Thank you.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Super cool. So why don't we start off with you telling us. So what I want to know is leading diversity personalities or leading diverse personalities involves what important skills in your.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: So I think that there's a couple of really key things here, and this is, this is foundational work for what I do in communication. Coaching is. It's important, I think, for us to understand our own style first. It's kind of like putting a mask on yourself before you put the mask on a child, right on the airplane when they give you the instructions. And I think there's a lot to that, just as a, as a general rule in life because, you know, if you are running around and just doing whatever it is that you feel like doing and not having in the emotional intelligence level to understand that other people are different and they're not necessarily like you. And just because they're not like you doesn't mean that you can't coexist or even be productive to together. So understanding your own style is something that's really key. I think a lot of times, you know, people are super interested because everybody wants to know a little bit more about themselves, even though they really should be looking inward to understand themselves more anyway. In the day and age we live in, with all the technology, I think it's, it's. You get distracted and you don't have to have that quiet time or that space where you have to go inside and learn about you. So when I do, specifically especially with leaders, when I do leadership coaching, the very first thing I do, but with any, any coaching, you know, client, is that we do an assessment and the assessment helps us. You know, when you have a behavioral style assessment, it helps you learn how you communicate, how you problem solve and how you make decisions. And those three things are very, very different and different in different roles. And so it's important for you to see it. But also what happens is, is that once they learn about themselves, there's things that all of a sudden Start clicking as to why they do that with their spouse or with their kids or with. Because communication is not just specific to work, it' specific to personal life.
It's in every facet of what we do, right? And the interesting statistic that I usually like to tell people is there's 93% of our communication is either body language or tonality. Only 7% of what we do in communication is words. Which means that you really need to understand your own style. If you show up and you are really direct and people that you're talking to are not direct, that could come across as being really harsh to them. That could make them feel uncomfortable. That means they put defensive gates up and then they don't want to open up and want to, you know, communicate with you. But then once you learn about you, then you need to turn around and learn about other styles because you, you have a, you know, you should know you a little bit more, right? You know that maybe if you are direct style, you don't have as much patience in a communication. But if you are more of a, you know, a style that is more about the people and, but you internally process, you might also be more worried about how all boats rise in the harbor. So learning that somebody else might not have that same communication style and what their styles are and what drives them, right? How they communicate, how they problem solve, how they make decisions can give you a whole nother layer to understand. You know, this is like going back to elementary school. Like not everybody's like me, right? Like, this is an important thing that I think we sometimes lose and we segregate ourselves in terms of like go to a family reunion, you normally will migrate to the person in your family, extended family or whatever that's like most like you because that's a normal, you know, thing for you to do. The important part is to learn to socialize with people who are not like you. And especially as a leader so that you can you meld into the conversation in a way that helps them feel like you hear and understand them. Another key piece is having patience. So when we talk about leading diverse personalities, you need to be patient with yourself and you need to be patient with other people. Because you know, there I always tell people, give the grace that you demand because when you have something happen to you and you make a mistake or you do whatever that is going to create a ripple effect somewhere in your business or at home. You don't hope that the harshest punishment comes for whatever it is that you did, right? You hope that you Actually have grace in that situation and feel like it's not as bad as maybe you think it is. And that's exactly what other people need as well. So having that emotional intelligence or awareness that helps you know that that's what's going on is important. And then you have to be intentional with that every day. And it's every single day. It's not just today. It's not just when you think about it. It's not just when someone sends you over the edge because you're frustrated. It's literally every single day in every interaction that you have.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: As you were speaking, I thought of a story of my sales career. And what they were teaching us during our training is the mimic process, where you were basically kind of not like making it to insult a person, but kind of mimicking them to make them feel comfortable when you were sitting in front of them. And it really worked, Shelly. It really did. And it made people feel comfortable because you were kind of. By mimicking them. And not when I'm saying mimicking, not doing the same hand gestures and stuff like that, but mimicking. They're also their personality in a way that they were. So if you. If they were like a outgoing, fun, energetic individual, then you were going to be that person as well. If you.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: If we call that mirroring.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: Yeah. If you're a very quiet person or very laid back, then you would mimic that person as well. You weren't going to be energetic if they were quiet is kind of the way that I was looking at it. And it also made me think of the way that we are treated in certain situations. I think as leaders, we remember that, or I have, as in my career, remember certain situations, how I felt in certain situations, how the leader reacted or treated me in those situations. And I've always said, if I ever become a leader in that respect, I'm going to do it a little bit differently, or I'm not going to do it that way, or I'm not going to be that type of leader. And I'm not. Or I'm not going to be aggressive.
Those are like things that kind of brought up Kim come out at me as you were speaking.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And really it's interesting because whenever I meet people meet leaders and when they. All they do is lead by fear, it instantly tells me why we need to work together. Because when you are leading with fear, meaning you make people stressed or worried or fear you. Right. Or they're in trouble all the time, or you're constantly having to, you know, micromanage that is that that tells me you have no other leadership skills in your back. And it doesn't mean that there it's something negative. It just means that we need to add more tools to that toolbar.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Exactly. So we might have talked about a little, but I want to kind of. But I want to dig into this a little bit deeper here and explain to our listeners what the challenges may arise when leading different personalities.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: Well, you know, I always tell people that trying to communicate in your style to your diverse group because there's just no way that you wouldn't be able to have a diverse group in any organization. And with them being vastly different than your behavioral style in most cases, unless you've hired 10 of you, which is probably also not going to work out well, you're only going to be wrong about 60% of the time, which is a really large number. When you try to communicate in your style to people that are not your style. And some of those challenges that you know, force people to operate the way that we, when we are trying to force them to operate, that we operate, that just puts them in fight or flight mode, which is in the back of their brain. It's not the reasoning part of their brain. And so if I come in and say, Andrew, you know, and you're a very people oriented person, you're not as much primarily the task oriented person. You're more people centric. So you would be the person that would want to say, you need to say, hi Andrew, how was your weekend? You would want me to ask how you're doing or how did that baseball game go last week with your son when you had to leave early? Like something that's a little more personal because it's about the people side of things in a primary relationship versus coming in and saying, Andrew, I've got three things I need you to get done by 11 o' clock today. Here they, you know, Andrew's gonna say, sure, I'm gonna do those three things, but literally that's all I'm gonna do because I don't feel like this boss even cares about me. I don't feel like I'm even, just literally don't even think he sees me. Right. And so challenges, some of those challenges, if you aren't paying attention to behavioral styles, can create other ripple effects in your business. Right. And so again, behavioral styles, how you communicate, how you problem solve and how you make decisions and those things can drastically impact a team. Whenever they're just going on fight or flight mode, you have higher turnover, people Go into burnout quicker. You know, you're talking about tangible dollars to the bottom line that it costs your business to replace that individual or to try somebody else up and running in that space as opposed to you just making a few quick and easy pivots that makes that person go into their frontal lobe, which is their reasoning part of their brain. Makes them want to create with you, makes them want to do more than what you've asked them to do. And of course the company is always going to be benefit from that because that's going to be more production that's happening, but also more ideas that are coming together. You hire smart people. Okay, I believe that we do. We hire smart people and then we don't allow them to have any creative liberty at all in terms of what they can contribute to the organization. Because we say this is our SOP and this is how we do it. But what if how we did it is the old way of doing it and the way people are now is we need to adjust to it doing the same thing over and over again. You know what that means, Andrew?
That's the definition of insanity. Why would we continually run a company on the basis of insanity? So as a leader when we force people to communicate in our style and if that fear driven way of leading is what you do, you're just going to get the smallest version of every single employee and they don't show up and give you what you even what you expect in most cases. Right. I used to tell my kids it's not hard to stand out. You literally all you have to do is just show up on time and do the job they ask you to do. That's not hard. But the little bit extra that you add to that role will look like a superstar. Because people are so tired of feeling like a number, right? And so they just go and do the, they do the thing and get a paycheck, you know. But is that really what we want from our or we spend so much money on marketing and we spend so much time trying to find good people and then we don't take care of them once they sign on the dotted line.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: What you've just said, it reminds me of a conversation that I just had last week with, with somebody and we were talking about and we were discussing how we were as, as a parent. So let's just say you, you're, you mentioned with your two daughters. So you raised them a certain way and then you went in and you started leading your the same way that you led and raised your Daughters, it's not the same thing. So a lot of parents, they are so used to telling their kids, don't do this, don't touch that, don't do that. I told you not to do that. I told you to call me. I told you your time to come home was 11 o'.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: Clock.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: So they have this mindset and then they've never been a leader before and then they go into a leadership role and then they have that mindset of this is how I have to be. When in reality, like you said before, communicating. Knowing how to communicate is so key because if, like you said earlier, if they do that, then you're going to see such a different mindset from your team rather than being scolded all the time, like, who wants to be scolded? Especially as you're an adult. I don't want to be scolded.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: No. And I think one of the things, and if I can give some parents out there with adult children some, some advice, my relationship with my kids as adults changed when I realized that I can't parent them the same as adults.
Right. And so I started moving back more into question my questioning strategies with them instead of telling them what to do. Because it's easy for us as parents to try to save them from any heartache or any, you know, mishaps or anything that they can fall and make mistakes. We want to do that. But think about the most impactful lessons of your entire life. Those happen when you made a mistake and your parents didn't keep you from making that mistake. And they aren't meant to. Right. But what can happen is, is that as parents, we get into this mode of telling that continuing to just tell them what to do. And if any of you are out there and you don't really have an open line of communication with adult children, try this, because this works. You ask them questions and you and I usually do a pendulum question. So I'm gonna give you a little coaching here. A pendulum question is where you've got two different questions, okay. And they're opposite, usually of each other, this or this. And they're usually yes or no. But instead of asking a yes or no question, because a lot of times they'll just say yes or no. You want an open ended. Well, open ended, any question, if you put a pendulum on it is an open ended question. Even if, if it's two yes or no questions because they've got to tell you why they choose one or the other. Right? But in that, that pendulum, if you offer some Solutions by saying Ander or Abigail, did you know what, did you. What happened whenever you decided to do this? Or did you make or did you decide to do this? Well, I know she didn't decide to do either one of those because this is not in her. Her tool bag, right? As a young adult, she didn't make those. Either one of those decisions. But I just gave her two answers or two solutions in a pendulum question that allowed her as a young adult mind to make a decision. And she might say, oh, Mom, I actually didn't even think about that. Do you think? And then she opens up and says, well, what do you, if I do this, do you think that this is going to happen? Or what do you think if this is going to happen? And all of a sudden the dynamic changed instead of me saying, well, Abigail, you need to do this or you should do this. Abigail, have you thought about this? Or when, when you made this decision, what happened or what happened when you made this decision? Well, I didn't make either of those decisions. And she may not say it out loud, but what's interesting is that she was home at Christmas time and she was dealing with something and she came in and she was a little bit frazzled because it was for a new role and a new job in a new city she was moving to. And. Or she was interviewing for and she was a little frazzled. And I was super busy cooking for like 15 people. And so I just went straight into solution mode because that's my behavioral style instead of. Of her behavioral style, which is not that, okay, her. Her behavioral style. She needs to think through things, explain why it's not going to work in order to believe it works. All those things. I just gave her the answer and she comes back in the room and she says, mom, could you do that thing where you tell me about the solutions but you ask me a question and I figure it out on my own. I was like, you know that I do that.
She's like, yeah, I figured that out like six months ago. Like, you're actually telling me what the solution could be, but you're not like telling me what do. And I get to make the decision and I get to figure it out. But I'm not having to feel like you're being my mom. I can still be an adult. And I feel like that there's such a lesson there with even leaders, right? When you come into an office, no adult wants to feel micromanaged. I don't care who you are. Right. You put things into place. So that you can make sure you got checks and balances, that's okay. But micromanaging adults is just ridiculous. You know, they don't feel. They feel like they put those defensive gates up with you again. You're not getting the most creative side of them, but you're also not helping them grow. Andrew.
And our whole job as a leader is to lead people to grow the bottom line. Right. But I feel like our actual job as a leader is to create new leaders, because you're not going to be here forever. And why would you allow wisdom that you've gained the hard way to die with you instead of passing it along to another generation so they can learn and do even more than we did?
[00:23:51] Speaker B: I'm smiling ear to ear as you're talking here. So all you're talking about is something that I preach on and something that you and I have discussed in several conversations over the phone. What you just talked about there is rapport building. And so what you just did there, you didn't. So that's not just for what I call parent leadership. This is for leadership all around. You build rapport with your children and you can do that with your team. Team. So you're telling us about how your daughter is and what she's good at and what she's not. You, as a leader, can figure out everybody in your team what they're good at and what they're not and how to speak to them and how to prepare things or how to ask them particular questions. Not to get a yes or no answer out of them, but to get them speaking about what they are looking to figure out or what they really want in their career or how they want to grow or how they want to figure out how to do this idea that they have in their head that is rapport building to a T. What you just said there, Shelley, is 175 rapport building. You figured it out. And not just that she has a rapport with her, with you, and she figured out what you were doing. So the both of you have rapport. That is like the ultimate gift right there.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So now I have to get a little more creative in how I put those out there because I don't want it to be quite so, you know, like, transparent that that's what I'm doing. So I'm getting even more creative in the way that I go a little bit deeper into something.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: But that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But the thing that's. The thing is, is that I think leaders Were afraid to.
To do stuff because we're old. They're gonna figure me out. That's not what we're there. We're there to help you out as long as we are able to help you with your issue or solve your problem or help you to move up in a company, or like you said, you're helping your daughter with her interview process and. And potentially her getting this job and helping her through that process. That's all we're looking to do here. And if we can do that, then we have the right answer here.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Agreed.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: Agreed.
So I know we kind of start. We talked about it a little bit, but I wanted to ask you, do you think that leaders struggle to effectively lead different personalities?
[00:26:12] Speaker A: I do. I see it every single day. But I think there's a couple key factors as to why that is, and I think it's important for us to recognize. And one, I think that leaders are juggling so much that they are. They are leading in burnout, and they don't even know that they're leading in burnout, meaning they personally are burned out. Right. One exercise that I do with leaders, sometimes that, especially if you're in an organization where it's not just you, I mean, as an. As an entrepreneur, you might have a small team and you to wear a ton of those hats, right? There's just not a lot of. There's not a lot of, you know, revenue to be able to support having other supporting people. I get that. But for a lot of the leaders out there, you have resources within your own organization or within your team, and you can actually utilize this tool. I. I have people draw two lines down the middle of a paper long ways and vertically. And on the first column, I have them write things I have to do. And have to is like the underline, what are the things I have to do do me as a leader? What do I have to do? And then the second column, I have them say right out of that list of things I have to do, things I want to do. An underline, want, what do I want to do? Right. Because sometimes there's things that you don't have to do, but you want to do it because you enjoy it. So that we need to identify those because we don't need to be in conflict internally. And then I usually have them make that list on one session and then come back on the second session. And the second session is now for the homework. This week is within the team that you have, knowing that your job is to lead or to grow new leaders. What can you take from the things you have to do and move over to the column of things other people can do? You can grow them and teach them to be a leader, but you can take some of those things off of your plate that you can. You can delegate. And I'm not talking about pushing off responsibilities of things that they can't do. We have certain things as leaders or as entrepreneurs or business owners that we have to do. Our employees cannot do that. Right. And those are not going to. Those are going to stay in column one. But there are always things that other people can do. And so in order for us to really pay attention to burnout as a leader, we have to be able to delegate those things in a way, but do it in an intentional way that helps somebody else grow into a leadership role that is hitting two birds with one stone, in my opinion, because you are growing a new leader, but you're also removing some tasks that maybe are just consuming some time within. Within your day where you could be doing the things that other people can't do. Right. The other thing I notice is that people just don't have the tools. We've never been taught. Yeah, but you were in sales, Andrew. So you were as a salesperson. You probably saw somebody who was a rock star salesperson that got promoted to be a sales leader. Well, just because you're a great salesperson does not make you a great sales leader. We don't give you any tools to support you as a sales leader. We just say, go teach them what you do. Well, that's not a tool. That's also not understanding how to lead. Right. There's a difference between, in my opinion, managing and leading. If you're managing a group, you are managing them to tasks. If you're leading a group, you're leading them to understand the things that they can grow into and the things that they can help the business grow into as well.
That's a different way of looking at it. It's not managing. And I, and I never use that word ever in my coaching sessions because we don't manage. We need to lead. And leading is having the emotional intelligence to understand your people and to adjust to the individual that we're communicating to and the things that we need to accomplish in that day. The other thing that I notice a lot of, Andrew, is that what they struggle to effectively lead different personalities is that that they feel the need to take credit or always be right, despite the cost that that has on the employee. We have to take the ego out of leading because A leader is really somebody who's a servant. They serve as they're a servant to those people that they're leading. And if you look at it more as it's not that you are doing what they tell you to do, you're looking at it as I'm pouring some things into them. I'm going to help them grow.
Think about your favorite mentor that you've ever had in your life.
Remember, think back to how patient they were with you. Think back to the things that they told you. They could have smashed you in a situation and said you did something wrong or that you should have done it this way. But the best mentors that you will remember in your career are the ones that didn't do that. It's the ones that said, andrew, do you think there might have been a different way we could have handled that?
Right? Because there's a difference between somebody who's a coach. Okay. A coach gives you coaching tools. That gives you tools. A mentor is somebody who already knows that you have some of those tools and they ask you to figure out how to use those tools instead of telling you how to do it. A coach tells you how to do it, hold you accountable. A mentor asks you what you would do and then benchmarks it against what they would do and helps you understand the difference. That is a big difference to me. Right? Really? Whenever you are in the business of smashing your people from taking credit to making them, you know, feel like they are not doing something right on a day to day basis, that's a low emotional intelligence level to me. Because that means your awareness is so internal. It has nothing to do with the things around you. And I don't say that to get on anybody that's listening on the call. I say that because sometimes that's a wake up call to somebody that says, you know what, I need to be a little bit more aware of what's going on outside of my immediate role. And when we're juggling all the things that we're juggling as a leader and we feel like we're in burnout, it's really difficult for us to do anything outside of what's in our immediate circle. So what do we have to do? We have to address the thing that's causing our burnout first. Can't address being a better leader when we're in burnout. Right. So we got to look at how we need to take care of this. And then it has to be intentional. How are we being intentional every single day to show up and be Better leaders.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: I just hurt. Love everything that you just said there, Shelley. I just love it. You're talking about individual contributors. Yes. People who are good at what they do, but they may not be good at leading people. So they can do the tasks. They can go and they can enter stuff on a spreadsheet. They can do that. But when it comes to leading somebody or managing somebody, as you say, because there is a difference managing them and leading them, they have trouble with it because they've never been taught. And. And the other thing that I love when you talk about is the word that comes to me is humble. Because there are a lot of leaders out there that are not humble. And I think you have to be humble in what you do. And like you said, if there is somebody that you've helped and you've taken them under your wing and they've worked under you and they're moving up or you've helped them move up, there's no need to go around the building and saying, oh, well, I had Shelly on my team and now she, she's. She's there with you. Well, I was the one that helped her. Like, there's no need for that. We all know what happened.
You don't need to go out and say it. Just go with it. Be happy, keep it in self inside you and be happy for that individual and just move on to the next person. But there's going to be so many people out there that are going to need help. But if you're wasting your time of making your head swell because you did this for one person, you're missing out on the opportunities of helping out somebody else or helping them grow and move up within the company.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it has to. This is a service, and being a leader is a service role. I mean, I can't. There's nothing more I can like, I can't say it any simpler than that. I mean, you are service. You're being a service to somebody that, you know, you. You're investing in them. And what's so interesting is that we, you know, as leaders, we want to make an impact. That's why you became a leader. Right? You want to. You want to make an impact in a bigger way than just as an individual contributor. But we forget or we get lost in the sauce, as I call it, we get lost in the sauce about what it is that we're doing as leaders, and it starts to become more reactive than proactive leading. And proactive leading means that you have to take the time to journal and you have to Take the time to know the things that you need to work on, the things that are not related to somebody else, they're related to you. What can you do better?
Is it that you can, you know, make sure in your one to ones you identified what their behavioral style was and you try to frame a conversation, practice framing a conversation around that behavioral style. And instead of just showing up and saying, here's a list of things and doing it the way that you would communicate, trying to be intentional about those individual conversations. And you know, I don't pretend to know all of the answers, Andrew, about anything, but I can tell you that over the years, you know, my own personal interaction as a leader, I have been in and out of those different categories of things and I've learned them the hard way. I've had those moments where I thought as a young leader I needed to take the credit. What I didn't realize was that building my team up set me up for way more wins than just that individual win that I needed to get credit for in that moment. There's a lot of things that can contribute to you as a leader that will get you that recognition in different ways. It just doesn't have to be at the, the expense of the employee that actually had the win.
[00:35:33] Speaker B: People see it. So when people see you doing good things, not just for yourself, but for others, people see that. So you don't really have to get out there and speak on a rooftop. If they see it, they will believe it and they will talk about it. Two people will be in a room, you're not in that room, and they're going to be talking about what you did or how great of a leader that you are. That's what you want. That's the type of things that you want as a leader, for sure.
[00:35:58] Speaker A: Yeah, agreed.
[00:35:59] Speaker B: Shelley, why is it so important to understand the diversity between personalities?
[00:36:04] Speaker A: Well, I believe that being a leader comes with an awesome responsibility. It's not about a title, it's not even about a paycheck increase. Right. Because sometimes when you go from being an hourly employee to a salary employee, all of us that are listening out there know what this means. It means you're going to work way more hours than you did for that hourly check. Right. But it's not so much about, you know, just having the title. It's about being you have a responsibility to listen to your people and provide them with guidance and support and help them grow. And so it's important because when they feel like you are close minded or that you just are Going to communicate in your style, then they don't open up to you. They don't bring the best version of themselves to the organization. They also don't feel like they can contribute. And if you are cutting off the knees of the contribution that you have from all areas of your organization, you're leaving money on the table. I say this to my leaders all the time. Whether or not you think that's tangible or not think about, you know, the best ideas are not necessarily the ones that come when there's abundance and things are going amazing. The best ideas usually come from when something is hard or frustrating or is not working right? And so instead of just clenching down as a leader whenever things are hard in the business or things are not going well, why don't you take a different approach and pull back and try to create it in an environment, you know, in the area where they can feel like they're contributing. You don't have to take all the ideas that they, that they have. But let me just tell you, if you do run with an idea, you make sure that they know that you contributed that and that other people know that because you want to encourage that blossoming inside of them. Those ideas. People have ideas all day long.
They might be an out in the room processor and you might hear more from the team members that are out in the room processing than you do the team members that are internal processing. But those internal processing team members have just as much, much to say and are, have as many thoughts as that team that, that team member that's out in the room processing. Give them the opportunity to share those thoughts, right? And then if you are able to, you know, to have this kind of dialogue and communication that's going with that and they start providing these ideas. Can you even imagine what the, what the limitations are for your company? There's no limits, right?
And again, you can listen to those ideas even if you don't want to listen to them in a meeting. Do an idea box, do some kind of like, you know, survey on Google, you know, on a Google form. Like do something where you can have that happen. I remember one time, Andrew, I worked for a very large distribution company and they actually gave out Visa cards for ideas that they ended up using and running with. So they, they got these ideas and there was a ton of ideas, right? I think Google did this too. Like they got a ton of ideas and they had those ideas for potentially even later. It's assigned to an individual if they wanted to put their name on it. But they rewarded people if they decided to use this idea and they rewarded them in front of the entire company, think about what that does for an employee that's contributing not just to the accountant or the person that's doing, you know, the receptionist over here, that receptionist could be listening to things all day long that are challenges and has come up with a solution that you, the executive who's behind the closed door, did not hear all that was going on in that day and did not realize that that's a problem to the extent that she did. Right. And now she's coming up with a solution that now makes the front of the office run smoother for you. It's a win, win everywhere.
[00:39:41] Speaker B: Yeah. It doesn't matter how tall you are, but if your ideas are spoken of or if they use your ideas is you're going to feel like you're 10ft tall walking around in the building. And we talked earlier about being humble. You don't have to go around and talk about your idea or that you came up with that idea because everybody's going to know about you and that, that they used your idea. So you're just going to feel so like confident and, and happy and engaged with everything that's going on. And you'll probably see other people coming to you and saying congratulations and how did you come up with that idea? Or what was your thought process there? And so you're trying to get your input because they might be trying to come up with the next idea. So they're going to be coming to you for importer ideas or some motivation type thing. So, yeah, I love all that.
So in closing, what is the one takeaway that you want our audience to get from this episode?
[00:40:39] Speaker A: You know, I was thinking about this one, Andrew, and I think there's a lot of little nuts nuggets that I feel like, you know, I can give people. But the one that kept coming back to mind this morning was find a mentor.
You know, in most cases, you know, you want to find somebody that's a little more mature than you, has a little bit more wisdom, has kind of been there, done that. Right. And ask them to mentor you. I mean, I don't care how, no matter how old I get, no matter how wise I get, I always have mentors. I always have the people that I take, take the really hard questions to or that I feel safe enough as a leader to go and talk to somebody about that and ask, and I ask questions, you know, how would you handle this? So it's so. And a good mentor will say well, how would you handle it first and then offer some suggestions that maybe might be a little bit more, a little different or a little, you know, a little, you know, shift here or there with a couple of things. But most mentors are going to build you up, up without needing to, you know, have any kind of recognition like we just talked about. And so, you know, being vulnerable and having that space where you can talk to somebody as a leader, but even as somebody who wants to be a leader, you know, find yourself a leader that you really respect, that you feel like has really treated you well, and ask them if they would mentor you Sometimes, you know, whenever I'm coaching my coaching clients, Andrew, I don't just. With leaders, yes, they need to coach to their people, but I expect that my coaching clients that are teams, they need to coach up, coach up to your leader. Tell your leader. Don't just expect your reader leader to read your mind. Tell your leader what it is that you need. Right? I don't feel like I'm getting enough X, Y and Z. Right. I need more training in this because I just feel like I'm just not as solid as I need to be in that. How is that. How is that leader supposed to know that? Unless you come to them and say, I kind of struggling here and people have a hard time doing that. Right. But if you're willing to kind of say, I've got some things I need to work on or even fall on your sword, My best tip for anyone, whenever you go and you say you mess up on something, the best thing you can do is go to your leader, let them know you messed up on that. Here's the three ideas I had to solve the problem of what I just did. What's the solution that you think would be the best one?
Asking the leader and the leader will be so impressed that you came up with, like, you thought through it. It wasn't like you avoided getting in trouble and avoided even saying that something had happened. Right? This was, let's head this off. Let's be proactive. That is a leadership quality that they will. They will, you know, want to inspire inside of you if they see that spark like that. So I just tell people, like, you know, people are looking for you to be authentically you more now than ever.
But being authentically you and intentional is a powerful combination. Authentically is great. Also mirroring the person that's in front of you and being intentional about showing up for them is a. Is a huge, compounded, powerful combination that I feel like is part of that equation is always missed, right? People are like, well, I have to be someone else in order to be effective. Not being authentically me. One, two, not not seeing somebody else as a different to you or being diverse to you and showing up in a way that that means something to them. And those two things together I think are incredibly powerful.
[00:44:07] Speaker B: Shelley, my call to action today would be to like, share Follow this episode I want to take the time to thank you for coming on today, Shelley. You have just an undeniable work ethic. I think you're such a consummate professional and I just admire your commitment to making people, people feel simply special.
That's how you made me feel the first time that you and I spoke over the phone. And it's continued. And it's continued to be that way. And that for me is something that means a tremendous amount to me. And I mentioned rapport building and that is the essence of who I am as an individual. It's one of my core values. And you made that very easy for me and very simple for me and you continue to do so. So thank you again for coming on today and thank you for having this amazing conversation with me today as well.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: Andrew, thank you so much for having me. And I'm just really glad that you're, you know, being a leader out in a space where I think people need to have an awareness around diversity. So thank you for what you do as well and I'll. I'll continue to watch and see how things grow for you. Thank you.
[00:45:12] Speaker B: Well, I appreciate that and I appreciate your kind words on behalf of myself and my guest Shelly, like to thank you all for listening today. Today and until next time, be safe and remember everyone that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything you.
[00:45:27] Speaker A: Have been listening to. Let's be diverse with Andrew Stout to stay up to date with future content. Hit Subscribe.