Latest / Daily Influence / 668. The Influence of Leadership. Define Leadership. (Rerun)

Transcript

668. The Influence of Leadership. Define Leadership. (Rerun) · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Greg Kleeneau, partner at IA Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Be sure to follow, subscribe, and share Daily Influence with someone who could use a little extra positivity today.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And make us part of your Daily routine, whether it's during your commute on a walk or an quiet moment just for you, because you're influenced matters.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And today we're going to talk about what it is or what we believe is a leader who is a leader and individual responsibility and what it means to be responsible as an individual self individual or if we find ourselves in an area of influence where there's a group of us moving in the same direction that group is individual what is that groups responsibility as an individual group of people.
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Leadership to us means that all of us can be leaders.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And to define that, I mean, if you have influence over somebody else, you are leading them.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that influence can be good and bad.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: It could be a positive influence or a negative influence.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: You could be a good leader or a bad leader.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to define good leadership and bad leadership, per se, in the understanding of what we lead for,
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: and the responsibility that it has.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of the best examples that I have of leadership is in our organization where we have a team member who is responsible for warehouses.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for the inventory and the production of that inventory within their area of influence in that warehouse.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there was a conflict between the office staff
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: and it eventually got to a point where one person was saying to the other, I'm not your boss, you're not my boss.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to answer to you.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was all over different areas of influence that each of them have.
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what was missing was a clear understanding of what their roles were and how to clearly define those roles.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's where structure comes in and as leaders.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have a responsibility to create that structure because it creates expectation, it creates understanding, it creates levels of communication that can be clearly defined so that the work can still get done.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we, I, as the owner of the company and the leader of the company, had not done the best job of setting these individuals up for success.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I went out into the warehouse and had a meeting,
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: with the office staff and with the warehouse staff and included in that meeting where warehouse employees and office employees from different parts of our company.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we got to the root of the cause where the warehouse person just feels like the office people are trying to dictate things to them and the office people feel like the warehouse people are trying to dictate things to them that are out of their areas of influence yet they were.
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the best definition I have is that
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: to the warehouse person, I said, I own the company, but when I am here in your area of influence, when I am here in this warehouse, talking to you, being around you, working with you, in this warehouse, I defer to you as the leader.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know the rules that you've set for this area of influence, this warehouse.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know where the safe passages are.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know what needs to be done.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know how inventory is to be ordered.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know how what inventory is to be ordered.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know how it's used, where it goes, what sequences it's put together in, what these products do, you know all of this.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: The office staff supports you, but they have their own set of rules.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Those rules are what information they need to create purchase orders to get product in.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: What information our vendors might need to make sure,
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: that shipping is done correctly or for our customers one orders are done that those packages are done correctly and the two of you need to communicate but when you go into each other's area of influence and you start talking about tasks that influence their day-to-day activities you need to let them guide that conversation and if you have
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: something to add.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you need clarification, if you think something can be better, you should slow down and listen to each other and find where we might be contributing to or creating conflict or problems with it with any other area of influence.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I said to the warehouse manager, don't ever believe that when you are in this area of influence, this warehouse that you're not
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a right to come in here.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yes, I'm the owner and tell you how to do your job, because I don't do your job every day.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: My understanding of this person's job is at a very high level, and it's not at a high level where I can start telling people what they should or should not be doing in the context of their day-to-day tasks and the understanding of those tasks.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: A leader is somebody who has that understanding.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't care if you're a ditched digger, and you know the proper way,
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: to start a whole, dig a hole, shore up a hole, and keep everybody safe.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: If somebody jumps down into your hole like myself and they do something wrong, they could put everybody at risk.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: They could put people at risk, they could put a job at risk.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: They could put themselves at risk.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would defer in that hole to the ditch digger, who understood exactly what was happening.
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And these analogies might be extreme, but they simplify the understanding of,
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: when you are a leader and when you should be respected as a leader, you should also be respected as a subordinate.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Understanding the ignorance that you might bring into an environment, not arrogance but ignorance.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And oftentimes ignorance turns into arrogance when we are leaders or we think we're the leaders like the owners of a company or something.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: We walk into a warehouse and say, I own this place, I can do what I want to do.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: You are creating liability when you do that.
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: where your ignorance openly, fill that gap of ignorance with understanding by listening to the people you've trusted to lead that area of influence that warehouse or that whole or that job.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Listen to them and defer to them when it's proper.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you need to lead from outside their area of influence, if you need to give guidance, create new policies and procedures.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: change the way communication is, include them in that so that you don't inadvertently create some type of problem for them or yourselves in the future.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's teamwork.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's leadership and do it in a positive way.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Finally, when you must correct people and make changes or point out and hold people accountable, do it with respect.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: dual without judgment, be factual, be smart specific.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: If there's measurements involved, give them.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Make sure remediation's attainable.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Be realistic about your expectations.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you're not, hold yourself accountable for not being realistic or specific.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Be a part of the solution.
• 8:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you're part of the problem, own it, and move past it together.
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what leaders do.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to continue down this path.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope you all have a great day.