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No Bullsh!t Leadership
Don't Leave Your Leadership Identity to Chance in 2026: 1 Hour to Build Your Brand
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When we started this podcast, we had to figure out a lot of it on our own, which was pretty daunting at times. When you're starting off with something new, it seems like your to do list just keeps growing and it can begin to consume every waking moment. Finding the right tool that helps you out and simplifies everything can be a game changer for millions of businesses. That tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names to brands that are just getting started. Shopify is also packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines and even enhance your product photography. Get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into.
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With Shopify, Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com selling leadership go to shopify.com leadership hey there and welcome to episode 380 of the no Bullshit Leadership Podcast. This week's episode Don't Leave youe Leadership Identity to Chance.
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Welcome to the no Bullshit Leadership Podcast. In a world where knowledge has become a commodity, this podcast is designed to give you something more access to the experience of a successful CEO who has already walked the path. So join your host, Martin Moore, who will unlock and bring to life your own leadership experiences and accelerate your journey to leadership excellence.
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Most leaders are busy, but very few are deliberate. You already have a leadership identity, whether you've thought about it or not. Your people have already decided who you are based on what you tolerate, how you communicate, and how you respond when things get tough. The question is, does that identity help you or does it hold you back? In this, our first ever no Bullshit Leadership compilation, we're going to strip away the noise and get really clear about three who are you as a leader, how do people experience you, and what do they say about you when you're not in the room? We're going to cover the Leadership User Manual, my personal favourite tool for setting expectations and removing ambiguity for your team. We'll unpack how to elevate your presence so you don't get overlooked in meetings, and then we'll give you practical tools to reinvent your leadership brand from the inside out. This isn't about polishing your LinkedIn profile or faking confidence. This is about congruence, making sure the leader you think you are is the leader your people actually see. If you commit to using just one concept out of this series, you'll show up differently, you'll be perceived differently, and you get results you could never have achieved just by working harder. So let's get into it.
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I came across an article a little while back, how to be the boss everyone wants to work for. It was an excerpt from a book titled One Bold Move a Day by Shanna Hocking. I must confess I'm unlikely to read this one because it's written specifically for women in leadership. However, Hocking introduced a fantastic concept that I wanted to explore today, the Leadership User Manual. She credits its origins to Adam Bryant, who wrote an article almost 10 years ago titled what if you had to write a User Manual about yout leadership style? This exposes the concept of developing a physical document to help your people to understand how best to work with you. What a great idea. Knowing how your boss operates and what he values could save you years of guesswork, as the only other way to work it out is through trial and error. I wish I'd thought of this years ago. Even though I'm a pretty strong communicator and I'm very open and direct, I'm sure there were times when my people weren't exactly sure where I was coming from. There simply isn't time to explain the ins and outs of every decision or the experiential elements that form your judgment. A leadership manual would be just the tonic. Now, in this episode, I take a deep dive into the concept of the Leadership User Manual. I look at the benefits and the risks, and I take you along a journey with me as I develop my own inaugural Leadership User Manual. So let's get into it.
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Let me begin by saying we're breaking new ground together here today. I never implemented the concept of a Leadership User Manual in the days when I was leading large groups of people in corporate. So my assessment of the risks and benefits is going to be an extrapolation of my experience. This is slightly different from my usual content, which I base on my direct experience in the leadership trenches, having tested to find out what works and what doesn't. But I'm sure you'll bear with me as we explore this together. Here are five benefits that I think are immediately obvious in developing a Leadership User Manual for your people. The first is that it can be an excellent tool for establishing principles. And once people understand the principles for how something works, or at least how something's supposed to work, it gives it meaning. It makes it easier to understand the why. Ray Dalio wrote an excellent book a number of years ago which was called Principles, and it does exactly that. Now, it's not an easy read, but it's a must read, so I'm going to leave a link in the show. Notes. Your principles provide a blueprint for successfully accomplishing things in the right way. Now, Most companies have KPIs to define the what, but principles allow you to speak the language of the why and the how. This is a critical step in instilling an ethical frame for the way your people operate. The second benefit I can see is that it's a referenceable record which you can put at the center of any conversation. Now, almost no one understands exactly what you're trying to communicate, and it certainly takes a lot more than one meeting to convey your expectations for pretty much everything. Many conversations, sometimes dozens, are needed using different language and emphasizing different points before the penny drops. A leadership user manual would give you a referenceable point of consistency to keep coming back to. So, for example, remember last week I said X? Well, that was based on this principle. The situation I'm talking about now is similar to that. The same principle applies.
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The third benefit I can see is consistency. It enables you to take seemingly unrelated events, decisions, or directions and tie them back to a consistent set of operating behaviors. It takes the guesswork out of what you might be looking for at any given point and why you might be looking for it. Now, the downside of consistency is predictability, and we'll get to this shortly. The fourth benefit is that a leadership user guide can extend the reach of your code of conduct. Assuming your company has a stated set of values or a code of conduct, it can help to clarify expectations even further. Your leadership user guide shouldn't contradict the code of conduct, of course, but it will enable you to put greater granularity around some of the expectations. It also allows for the individualization of the guidelines in the code of conduct for different leaders, which demonstrates that there are many different ways to skin a cat. It's an extra mechanism for describing the desired behaviours that you expect your people to live by.
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Finally, the fifth benefit. It keeps you honest. Now think about this. Once a leader puts her formal user manual in place, she'd really think twice about departing from these clearly stated principles. It takes away a lot of the wriggle room. You'd have to be a bit of a sociopath to produce a formal leadership user manual and then completely ignore it.
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Okay, so there seem to be a few pretty compelling reasons for putting one of these puppies together. But like anything, there are risks. I can think of four pretty obvious risks straight away the first one is that it puts the emphasis on other people adapting to your style. As useful as it is to set clearer expectations for your people, it can naturally set the stage for a one way flow of expectations. In the interview I did with Scott Miller just a few weeks ago, I asked him what the biggest trend he was seeing in leadership. Scott's view was that post pandemic the biggest trend was the requirement for individualization. Producing a Leadership User Manual could well make a leader think their job is done and that their people will adapt to their style. This is unlikely to be effective in the longer term. The role of leadership isn't simply to be understood, but to understand your people on an individual basis. That's how you'll ultimately get through to them. The second risk is that your Leadership User Manual will be necessary but not sufficient. It may dampen your sense of urgency around verbal face to face communication, but as we know, there's no substitute for eyeball to eyeball interactions. So let's say all your people actually take the time to read and absorb your Leadership User Manual, which in itself of course is a bit of a stretch. Those who do will understand some of it, but not all of it. They'll interpret some of it accurately and much of it inaccurately. They'll believe some things you say and feel as though they have good cause to not believe other things you say. They'll agree with some of the principles and probably disagree with others. Your Leadership User Manual sets the foundation for you to have the many conversations you need to have to influence your people. But remember, it's the means to an end, not the end in itself.
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The third risk, your Leadership User Manual, might make your people feel that you're overly predictable. Now, predictability is generally desirable, but there is a downside. For example, if people feel as though they can predict what you're thinking, they'll start to make assumptions. I've seen people stop challenging the status quo because they prefer to not do the heavy lifting required to challenge it. Well, we know Marty's going to want us to do X. Or even worse, Marty says he wants X. I've been there guys. On top of that, people become desensitised to messages over time. At the end of my five year tenure at CS Energy, I was sick of repeating the same key messages over and over and over. Let's face it, if people were actually doing what they knew they should, I wouldn't have had to reiterate the point so often. But even though everyone pretty much knew that they hadn't done what they were supposed to do. I. I could still see them mentally rolling their eyes. I could see it on their faces. Yeah, we know, Marty. You've been telling us for five years. Okay? So if you know, have you ever thought it might be worth actually doing something about it?
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Risk Number four Often there's a gap between how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us. Now, this can be tricky, and it's quite a high risk. If your people see you espousing certain values or operating principles, but then behaving differently, it can be really damaging. You can easily be labeled as a hypocrite even when you are consistent. So imagine when you're not opening up the door to inconsistency is a risk. It's a risk worth taking, but a risk nonetheless.
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Alright, if you were working for me and I was going to describe how I work and how to meet my expectations, here's what I would tell you. Per Adam Bright and Shanna Hocking, I'd have the following eight categories in my Leadership user manual and the YCM team has created a free PDF downloadable, which you can get@yourcmmmentor.com Episode 257.
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Number 1 My personal style. Number 2 My leadership philosophy. Number 3 How to get the best out of me. Four things I find difficult to tolerate. Number 5 How to communicate with me. Number 6 How to be wildly successful. Number 7 what people tend to misunderstand about me. And finally, number eight, you won't enjoy working for me. If so, let's start with number one, my personal style. Here's how I describe I'm direct. You'll never be in doubt what I'm thinking. I'm open. There are no sacred cows and there's no conventional wisdom that I'm not prepared to question.
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I cut to the chase. I don't dance around issues. I speak my mind frankly and fearlessly to get to the crux of the matter. I'm inquisitive. I want to know how things work and I want to know why you hold a particular viewpoint. You need to be able to communicate that to me. I'm courageous. I've never been afraid of losing my job, and although I don't set out to offend anyone, I'm not hamstrung by the fear of not being liked. I'm quite happy to disagree with the most powerful person in the room if I don't agree with them. I challenge. I'll always push the boundaries to try to find higher performance, greater efficiency, and better results. I have a sense of humour. I crack jokes frequently. It helps me to regulate my other stylistic elements. If it wasn't for my ability to find the humour in any situation, my style would probably make me feel way too serious and intense. Finally, I'm awesome at the detail when I need to be, but I prefer to stay at a much higher level. I will always remain in the contextual space by default. Taking a view from 10,000ft. Okay, so that's my style. The second thing is my philosophy. I could have gone all day on this one, but I tried to boil it down to the essential elements. Respect before popularity. Do the right thing when it needs to be done because it's right. The standard you walk past is the standard you set. It's a leader's obligation to set and maintain high standards for both performance and behaviour. People have to be held individually accountable for their choices. If there are no consequences, there's no incentive to perform, and people just don't give their best unless they feel that weight. Optimal performance only comes when people are stretched beyond their comfort zones, their natural limits. This is also the place where they're happiest. Leaders have to differentiate between individuals based on merit. Never sink to the lowest common denominator. It's not your job to make everyone feel good about themselves. If you choose to take on a leadership role, then doing the hard work of leadership is not negotiable. You have to put your people's best interests ahead of your own fear and discomfort. You don't get a free kick on leadership work just because you're a brilliant strategist or an incredible rainmaker. I expect you to put as much effort into developing talent and building capability as you do into any other part of your accountabilities. You need to create a culture that focuses on value delivery. No blame, no excuses. Respectful but challenging, with an uncompromising focus on excellence over perfection. And finally, for the avoidance of doubt, I believe that competitive markets are the sole pathway to higher living standards and prosperity. Competition makes us all better. Without it, we become fat, dumb and happy.
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Just those first two. My style and philosophy will give you a pretty good idea of what you're in for when you work for me. But let me finish off with a quick whip through the other six. Number three. How to get the best out of me. Engage. Make me part of your journey. Share your challenges and problems. I see it as a privilege, not a burden, to be given the opportunity to help you perform. If you're operating with good intent and diligence, I'll overlook a lot of other issues. Use me for my strategic thinking ability. I know that one of my superpowers is my capacity for abstract reasoning. That's recognising patterns and applying them to new problems and scenarios. If you bring the detail, you'll be able to get the benefit of my high order sense making skills and judgment.
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Number four in my leadership user manual Things I find difficult to tolerate this one simple dishonesty of any kind, entitlement mentality, laziness, avoidance excuses, sugarcoating a situation to play down its true level of criticality, hiding bad news or covering up problems. My mantra is bad news by rocket, good news by rickshaw.
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Number five in my user manual how to Communicate with me I'm direct, open and transparent in my communication style. I value that really highly in myself and others. The more straightforward you are, the easier our flow of communication will be. Don't write lengthy documents. Your written communication should be clear, simple and direct. If you can't explain something complex in simple terms, it tells me that you don't understand it well enough. Talk to me at the high level in terms of outcomes and fill in the gaps with details as we move through the discussion. Don't try to beat me into submission by bombarding me with details in the hope of convincing me about something. It just won't work.
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Number six in my leadership user manual how to be wildly successful Obviously focus on value. Understand what the biggest value levers are and focus solely on them. Fight with every fibre of your being to eliminate non valuating work. Always think and talk about results, not activity and processes.
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Do the hard work of leadership. Get comfortable with difficult conversations. Challenge and allow yourself to be challenged. Do the basics well. Performance management, capability building and accelerating talent development. Oh yeah, and don't believe your own bullshit.
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Two to go Number seven what people tend to misunderstand about me People sometimes think I don't care about a crisis situation. I'm very relaxed even when I'm under extreme pressure and I often use humour as a stress management tool for both me and my team. The other thing people tend to misunderstand about me is they think I only care about the results, not the people. That's because I focus on results so strongly. But nothing could be further from the truth. It's only people that give business meaning. Those people aren't just the employees, they're just one critical stakeholder group of many. We also have to consider customers, shareholders, suppliers, the communities in which we operate. The list goes on. I genuinely believe that superior performance is the only way to truly satisfy all stakeholders, including employees.
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Finally, number eight employees. My Leadership User Manual. You won't enjoy working for me if this is a good one, I had fun with this. You won't enjoy working for me if you aren't prepared to give your best. You won't enjoy working for me if you just want to cruise along and count the hours of the day. If that's the way you feel, you have no business being on my team. You won't enjoy working for me if you don't believe in the principle of meritocracy because you'll feel hard done by when those who perform get the rewards that they've earned and you're overlooked based on your relative underperformance. You won't enjoy working for me if you aren't comfortable with constructive tension, and you won't enjoy working for me if you aren't prepared to take unwavering accountability for your performance and behaviour.
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Okay, so given that's my first crack at developing my Leadership User Manual, I think it's a pretty good start. Now, it does need some fine tuning, no doubt, but it's a pretty reasonable representation of who I am and how I operate. I really hope you're going to take the opportunity to develop your own Leadership User Manual so that you can give your team greater clarity about how to be successful under your leadership. So to make this easier for you, don't forget to download your own Leadership User manual template@yourceomentor.com Episode 257 I've been asked many times, particularly over the last few years since Em and I started our current business, to describe my leadership style. My answer's always been pretty simple. If you want to be your best, if you're ambitious and career driven and you want to play on a winning team, then I'll be the best boss you've ever had. But if you just want to cruise along and do an average job, you will hate every minute that you work for me. Why? Because I'm not going to let you be mediocre if that's what you want. I totally understand. And without any hard feelings, I'd be happy to support you by helping you find another role and that's more suited to your aspirations in the future. When I'm asked this same question, I won't need to explain it all. I'll just hand them a copy of my Leadership User Manual.
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We hear a lot these days about personal branding, and there's an expert for every occasion promising to guide us through the leadership branding maze. We're told how important it is to have a strong leadership brand if we want to progress in our careers. Well, look, that's probably true, but there's a dangerous misconception that you can construct an external image of desirable behaviors and values without actually possessing them. That approach is doomed to failure. The people in your professional sphere need to know who you are, and they need to know what you stand for. So to that extent, building a strong brand around your positive attributes and being clear on what distinguishes you from other leaders can be highly valuable. So I'm going to start today's episode by defining what leadership brand is. I'll give you a really specific example of how you can change any given element of your leadership brand, and I'll leave you with two practical tools to help you with any changes that you might choose to make. So let's get into it.
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It's become pretty popular to talk about purpose. Personal brand. LinkedIn is full of experts offering to help you build your brand, and this has now bled across into the broader culture. You know, it's a thing when Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the South park guys, decide to dedicate an episode to it. Your personal brand is just the perception that others have of you based on your personality and behavior and communication style. It's how you show up in the world. The key elements that make up your personal brand. Your values, your defining strengths and weaknesses, your communication tone and style, your external image, you know, the way you present yourself, the way you dress, your personal grooming and so on. The reputation that you've built over time based on your actions and anything else you're known for. And just be clear when what you don't want to be known for is for the time you got blind drunk at Friday drinks and declared your undying love for one of the junior analysts. Your leadership brand is just an extension of your personal brand, and it incorporates things like your values and competence and credibility, how you interact with and influence others, the consistency and quality of the results your teams deliver, and how people feel when they work under your leadership.
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To bring this concept to life. I just want to take a quick look at the similarities between brand and team culture. Now, culture, as we know, is just the way we do things around here. Every team has a culture, whether it's formed deliberately or accidentally. A culture that isn't created consciously will just follow the path of least resistance. It'll grow like weeds. You'll just get what you get unless you choose to do something different, something that explicitly shapes the culture. Changing a culture takes committed effort from the leader. And this is why team culture is determined to such a great extent by who happens to be in charge at any given point in time. Your leadership brand works in a similar way to culture. The people who interact with you each day see how you talk and act and behave. And from this they infer how you think and what's important to you. So, like it or not, you already have a leadership brand. Do you know what that brand is? If you could change one thing about your leadership brand, what would it be? If you were able to change it, would it increase the likelihood of you achieving your career ambitions?
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Being conscious about building your leadership brand is a no brainer. The problem though, is that some brand experts are going to encourage you to contrive your image to create a more positive perception. Regardless of who you are and what you stand for at your core, building a shiny facade to cover your true identity is a bad idea. And in a few minutes time, you're going to understand why.
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There's nothing wrong with working to improve your leadership brand. In fact, if you want to be successful in corporate life, it's almost essential that you pay attention to your brand. But it has to be done in a particular way. Your brand has to be built from the inside out. It can't just be a facade. You can't just throw some window dressing over the mess that lies beneath and expect it to change your underlying success equation. That's just putting lipstick on a pig and eventually lipstick wears off. Eventually you're going to be found out because you can't keep up the charade forever. The closer your brand aligns with who you truly are, the more powerful it's going to be. It'll be more consistent and compelling because you never have to think about how to talk and act. You're just. You're just you. For better or for worse.
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Those who come from the fake it until you make it school of thought will give you all sorts of advice about how you need to appear. But then in the very next breath, they'll tell you how important it is to be authentic and fallible and courageous. Now that advice is of course ridiculous. But as they get to know you better, your brand is also going to include how clearly you set objectives, how you respond to pressure, your level of professional judgment and credibility, how well you engage the team, how you manage peer relationships, your level of confidence, and how you handle poor performance and unacceptable behaviour. Understanding these things and being mindful of what you're putting out into the world is super important. But this assumes that the brand you're generally known for is consistent with what you think it is.
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The cardinal sin of personal brand is trying to be something you're not. So I just want to give you a really practical example of how you might go about changing just one of your leadership brand characteristics. Let's say you wanted to be a more courageous leader and this wasn't something that you were known for. Where would you start? What would you have to change? What habits and disciplines would you. Would you need to adopt? You can't just change your professional Resume or your LinkedIn profile to say that you're a courageous leader, because if you're not, people are going to work it out pretty quickly. Likewise, you can't just pull out pithy quotes to imply that you're a courageous leader when you're not. You know the quotes. Courage isn't the absence of fear, it's being afraid and taking action anyway. Which, by the way, is a pretty cool quote. But if you want to be more courageous, start by working out what it would look like to have real leadership. Courage. What do courageous leaders do? Well, let's make a quick list. They aren't afraid to speak out when they believe something's important, especially when it doesn't align with the popular view. They choose to do the right thing when it needs to be done, even if it doesn't align with their personal interests or it puts them at risk. They have hard conversations because they value the duty of care to their people more than they value personal discomfort. They uphold a high standard because they believe it's fundamental to a healthy culture and high performance. They put organisation first, then team, then themselves. And they don't walk away from their values when it gets hard or when it gets expensive. At any point in your life, the level of courage you have depends on the circumstances you've endured and the choices you've made. So the path to being more courageous requires that you choose to endure different circumstances and make different choices.
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Once you have a pretty solid idea of what being more courageous might look like, it's time to put a plan in place. Nothing elaborate, just a commitment to act differently. Now, here's a big tip, right? Don't be overly ambitious. You're not going to feel more courageous all of a sudden. But don't worry, you just need to take baby steps. I would start by putting three things in your calendar every day and to make the commitment that you can't stop work for that day until you've done at least one of those three. For example, your Three things might Number one, I will speak up in a meeting where I have an alternative view from the majority. Two, I will have a one on one feedback conversation to help one of my people improve. And three, I will make a decision that I have subconsciously been putting off because I'm afraid I'll get it wrong.
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This is going to take a little conscious thought and planning. You have to look for opportunities to make it happen. But it doesn't have to be a big deal. The one on one conversation could be a 30 second sidebar in a corridor to make an observation about something one of your people has done. It could be a highly positive and affirming interaction, or it might be a critique of something they need to improve. The point is, don't make too big a deal out of it. The object of the exercise is just to get used to acting. Just get into the habit of doing it before you think too deeply about it. If you follow your plan and choose one of those three actions every day, you'll feel completely different about your level of courage in no time at all. Now obviously this is just one example of how you might approach it, so I think it's useful to deconstruct the critical parts of this process. First thing is you have to know what good looks like in our example. What is it that courageous leaders do? Next, you have to identify the specific actions that you're going to take that are going to enable you to move from where you are to a more desirable place. Then you have to make a written plan that you can look at every single day. After that, you have to commit to taking deliberate action. And most importantly, you have to congratulate yourself for doing the hard thing when you could easily have avoided it. And in 90 days you will have changed your leadership brand from the inside out.
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Now that we've covered a practical example of how to change something that's going to improve your leadership brand, I want to give you two tools that are going to make the process more predictable. This will exponentially increase your likelihood of success. The first tool is is my rollout methodology. If you're trying to make a change, no matter what it is, you'll find that you're much more likely to be successful if you declare your intentions publicly. This one move, in and of itself is going to set you up for a potential brand boost. If you just decide to make a change and quietly try it out to see what happens without telling anyone what you're doing, there are two risks that are going to potentially derail you the first risk is that you're leaving the back door open. If no one knows what you're trying to do, it's really easy to slip back into your old habits. You'll try it out and if it doesn't feel good, or if you don't see it working straight away, you'll just quietly go back to your old ways and no one will be any the wiser. Now, clearly, that's the safest way to make changes and it involves the least personal risk. But it's certainly not the way to set yourself up for a lasting, positive change to your leadership brand. The risk that sort of flows on from this is that you can't expect people to work out what you're doing differently unless you tell them what you're trying to do. Now, as an example, I've seen leaders decide to raise the standard of performance in their teams without giving their team any rationale for what they're trying to do. So it looks like they've simply become more demanding and less tolerant of their people's missteps. The team generally won't see this as a positive. Most people are going to think to themselves, geez, Marty's in a bad mood today. I wonder what's got him all bent out of shape. This is why you have to be open with your team about any changes you decide to make. People need to know what you're trying to do, especially when if you're changing something about your own leadership behaviour and approach that requires different expectations on them. So you'll need to communicate your intentions first to the team and then to each person individually so that they understand their specific context. Let's stick with our courage example for now. The first thing I would do is to call my direct reports together and tell them what I'm trying to achieve and why. I'd probably go with something like this.
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Look, I realise that I've been holding the team back. I've been too cautious in my approach and I haven't been representing you as well as I should have. I need to be a little bolder in how I approach every situation, especially the broader company issues. I want to be more decisive and I also want to do you the courtesy of setting out my expectations more clearly. I'd really like you to help me by letting me know if I'm slipping back into my old habits.
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This lays the foundation for every future conversation. You've announced your intention and you'll be able to point back to that line in the sand conversation whenever you feel the need.
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After the team conversation, of course. You then hold individual meetings with each of those direct reports. These meetings have a dual purpose. The first is to remind people of the messages and to let them know what you expect from them in light of your own change in approach. The second is it gives you an immediate opportunity to tick off your courage goals in the first week. If you were to do one one on one meeting a day over the course of a full week, that should cover your direct reports and get you in the habit of meeting one of your three commitments every single day.
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I go into this methodology in a lot more detail in our Leadership beyond the Theory program, but that just gives you the bones of it, set the tone for the people around you, enlist their help and be clear on where they fit into the picture.
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The second tool I want to leave you with is our Habit Tracker. I've been using this for years to keep myself honest when it comes to the personal habits that I know make the most difference to me. And let me tell you, when I'm not on point, it becomes really obvious really quickly. My Habit Tracker gives me a visual record of my personal performance over a daily, weekly and monthly period. It's just a simple Excel spreadsheet that you can use to define and record and track pretty much any habit you'd like to adopt. The magic number seems to be 90. Of all the research that looks into the formation of sustainable habits, 90 days seems to be the threshold that prevents backsliding. If you can keep up your intended habits for 90 days, you'll be much more likely to make them stick in the long term. You can set up a habit tracker specifically to cover the things that you most want to build into your leadership brand. But just remember, the simplicity and focus principle really applies here. Don't try to change too much at once. You're looking to get the biggest bang for buck from any dedicated effort that you might choose to apply.
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As a bonus for this episode, we're going to give you access to a free Habit Tracker spreadsheet template which you can download@yourceomentor.com episode 352. We'll leave a link for you in the show notes too, to make it easier.
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If you take nothing else out of this episode, I'd like you to think about one core principle. You can't change your leadership brand. With a new suit, a photo shoot, and a few AI generated blog posts, you have to change yourself from the inside out. If you're setting out to reinvent your leadership brand, you have to accept that Nothing changes unless you do the work to change it. But if you commit to making a change for 90 days, you'll discover that even the most elusive qualities can be built into your permanent leadership repertoire.
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All right, so that brings us to the end of episode 352. I really hope you enjoyed it. But as I'm sure you know, listening is easy, leading is hard. That's why we created Leadership beyond the Theory, our flagship program that turns insight into action and action into results. This is where we unlock the secrets of elite leadership performance and give you the strategies and tools that you need to overhaul your leadership brand. Imagine where you could be in 90 days after leadership beyond the Theory.
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There are a number of elements that contribute to your leadership identity. Many leaders just let their identity form organically without much conscious thought or planning. And look, that's fine, but there's an enormous amount of upside to be captured if you choose to be deliberate and methodical in your approach. For every leader, regardless of level, industry, company size or location, there are a number of foundational aspects to leadership that require some level of competence. But of course, only if you want your people to thrive and perform. Because every individual is different, the way you interpret and apply these fundamentals may also be vastly different. The best leaders understand how to apply their unique style, personality and and values to a framework of strong leadership that's guaranteed to produce extraordinary outcomes. How deliberate are you in crafting your leadership identity? Are you thoughtful about how to integrate your own style into the tried and trusted foundations of high performance leadership? Or are you, like many other leaders, just happy to leave it to chance? Joining me today so that we can handle this in Q and A format is chief executive of your CEO mentor and Em. Great to have you back front of Mike.
- [39:21]
B
Yes, I am so excited. And we're actually doing this in the ACAST studio. So this is probably the first episode that we've ever done a Q and A in person.
- [39:32]
A
We've really been in the same city together at the same time. So yeah, it's fantastic. And thank you to acast. They're our podcast host. Great company and really good studio here. We love it.
- [39:41]
B
Yeah, we're going to be coming back here a lot, I think. Now this episode, Marty, this is one that we've had for a little while on the chalkboard, all about crafting your leadership identity. We get a lot of questions about it. We've done a bunch of different episodes that touch on bits and pieces, but we're going to dig a little bit deeper today.
- [40:00]
A
Absolutely. And there's a few things that are going to contribute to this. So there's the underlying framework that every leader needs to have in their kit bag, but. But there's individuality. And we talk about your leadership fingerprint, that uniqueness that you bring to the role, and also about your personal leadership statement, your user manual, which is an awesome way to let your people know what to expect from you. So we're going to cover all of that in only 20 minutes.
- [40:25]
B
Let's see how we go. Okay, let's start with why it's so important to have your own leadership identity. Why do we want that as leaders?
- [40:37]
A
I think probably the most important thing is that it's hard to do it any other way. Every individual is different. Everyone has different experiences and upbringings and preferences and personalities, and all of this feeds into who you are. And so whereas you're going to need some really strong fundamentals for how to lead people, by the same token, you've still got to be you. And people talk a lot about authenticity. We'll go into that a little bit later. But it's really about being who you are and still being able to be a strong leader within that. If you're not, people are going to pick it.
- [41:09]
B
Is this something that you naturally have? Like, is this natural talent that gives you this leadership identity, or is it something that people typically learn?
- [41:20]
A
I think it can only be learned, to tell you the truth. Now, there are people who are more predisposed to leadership than others, and we know that. The difficulty is that if you just go by your natural instincts and you don't have the framework for strong leadership, a lot of the stuff is actually counterintuitive. Now, let me give you a little example, right? I played a lot of team sports when I was growing up, and in team sports, leading from the front means a completely different thing than it does in business. And so you've got to be aware of the fact that the context of business is slightly different. When you're leading people on a football field, for example, leading from the front means you're putting the most effort, you're doing the most work, you're showing people how to rise up in times when you're going through adversity and everyone follows you because you're setting the example for them in what they need to do. In business, the concept is, okay, you still need to lead from the front, but you do it a completely different way. You don't do your people's work for them. You're not the captain of the team with the same job as the other players. You're the coach on the sideline. You're helping people to lift, to be their best. And the only way you can do that is by stretching them and letting them do their jobs. So in that context, leading from the front means something totally different. It means you're demonstrating the right attributes, the right characteristics, the right values. You're showing them commitment to the job. You're showing them a standard of excellence. You're showing them that you're accountable for what goes on, but still in the context of your own role. And that's just one of the subtleties that doesn't translate well between the natural leadership of someone who's come through, you know, as a captain of a sporting team, and someone who's got a lead in a corporate environment with many layers of resources below.
- [43:01]
B
And so I imagine if you've got natural talent and a framework, that's dynamite, right?
- [43:06]
A
Yes, but they don't just automatically integrate themselves. There's got to be a lot of work done to actually practice the skill of leadership. It takes repetition, like anything does. You know, you've got to do your 10,000 hours of work if you want to be expert at anything. And the repetition is what helps you to consolidate the principles that you need, the foundations of leadership, and then to build that into your own personal, individual uniqueness. And that's not easy to do. It takes a lot of thought. It takes a lot of deliberate, methodical planning about how you want to incorporate things and whether they're consistent with who you are. Because, you know, if you don't have that level of congruence between who you are and the way you're acting, people will see that, and it results in lack of trust.
- [43:53]
B
So how do you pick the right framework? How do you pick the framework that is going to, you know, feed into those natural tendencies?
- [44:01]
A
Well, the difficulty, Emma, is that a lot of the frameworks out there aren't actually implementable, if that makes sense. There's a lot of stuff that is aspirational and motivational and can be useful, but not practical enough to really do something with it. So when we talk about practical leadership tools, what we're talking about is the things that you can take and use every single day to get better at a particular element of leadership, whether it's working at the right level, whether it's becoming more resilient, whether it's handling ambiguity better, whether it's making your decisions in a more rapid but methodical way. So there's a lot of things that you can work on depending on what you need to incorporate at any given point.
- [44:42]
B
So I guess it's a really natural way for me to, you know, bring in leadership beyond the theory, which is our framework. You know, how do you think that LBT supports people in creating their own leadership identity?
- [44:58]
A
Well, I think regardless of where you are in your leadership career, Leadership beyond the theory is going to give you that bedrock, the foundational stuff of if you do these things using these tools, you will be better at leading in this way. But everyone's going to apply them completely differently depending on their unique personality and experiences, as I said before. So, for example, working at the right level, some people are going to be more nurturing, naturally more nurturing. Some people are going to be more challenging to their people and expect them to step up and fill that vacuum that they leave and be more challenging in terms of what they expect from their people. And so working at the right level will look different based on how much support and nurturing that leader is prepared to give and wants to give to the people who they're trying to coach and mentor through the process. And so, as an individual, when you try and work out how you're going to incorporate that, it's all about, how do I do this in a way that's natural for me, that's consistent with who I want to be as a leader that supports my value set. But the principle of working at the right level is identical. No matter who you are, no matter what level you're operating at, no matter what industry you're in or where you live, the principles are the same. So understanding the principles enables you to then incorporate them into your own style.
- [46:19]
B
Yeah, I love that. I want to switch gears a little bit, so talk to me about how the leadership identity can impact your team and the dynamics of your team and your people. How do. How does that all fit together?
- [46:36]
A
Yeah, well, the leadership identity really is about being able to drive your team to get the right results. Remember, leadership's all about getting results. So you've got to deliver value no matter what you do. And different leaders with different identities will do it a slightly different way. But more than anything else, you need to establish trust. As I said before, you can't establish trust unless you have a level of congruence. But you also need a level of competence and skill. And you also need to apply some of the principles that are absolutely necessary to get outstanding results, like driving accountability through your team and having that single point accountability, not having an autonomous collective that basically makes all their decisions by consensus. So having those fundamentals and then working out how you leverage that is really important.
- [47:25]
The object of the exercise is to build trust. You can't do the hard work of leadership without building trust. And to do that, you need to have some empathy for your people. And I'm not saying you need to be sympathetic and get down in the hole with them and complain about what's going on in the world. What I'm saying is you need to be able to see the world through your people's eyes. You need to be able to show them that you understand them and you can talk to them on their level and you can relate to them. And once you start relating to people, they'll start to trust you. Now, of course, they won't fully trust you until you show them how you respond when things go badly. Because every leader can sail in a calm sea, right? It's when things go badly that people look to you and say, well, what happens now? Am I going to get hung out to dry or am I going to be supported? And those critical moments either really consolidate trust, they're the icing on top of the cake, or they destroy everything you've built prior to that.
- [48:20]
B
Yeah, there's so many situations where a leader will say something and then in the heat of battle, they do something completely different.
- [48:27]
A
Absolutely.
- [48:28]
B
That dissonance is so unnerving. It just makes you think, you know, I don't know what to expect from this person. And it's. It's tricky.
- [48:35]
A
Yeah. It's also incredibly common though, Em, because, you know, leaders revert to type when the pressure is on. We all do. You know, our natural tendency is to go back to what we know best. And so even though we might be very controlled and methodical about how we present ourselves to the world and our teams, when we're at work, everyone has their game face. They put their game face on. And what is it that makes that game face crack? What is it that makes it impossible for the leader to continue in a calm and rational way, but instead to give in to and cave with the fear that comes from when things go wrong? And so people are always going to want to know that you're good under pressure. This is why we talk a lot about in leadership, beyond the theory, the concept of grace under pressure. Complete congruence between what you're showing on the outside, that calm, rational, logical, supportive type of attitude and approach to problems and what's going on in the inside. You actually feel that you don't feel stressed or pressured or anxious. You feel as though you're in control.
- [49:36]
B
Okay, so I'm a leader. I've been leading for a little while. I want to create my own.
- [49:43]
A
You've been leading for quite a while. You're pretty good at it, actually. If I don't so myself.
- [49:46]
B
Thanks. I want to create my own leadership identity. Where do I start?
- [49:52]
A
You start by knowing yourself right now. Now, introspection and self awareness are some of the really key things that leaders need if they want to improve. You can't work out how to get better if you don't know where you're weak and you don't know where you're strong. So it's really important to know your strengths and weaknesses. Not just, you know, what are you good at, but also, you know, what is it that really lights you up, what do you enjoy doing? So that strengths being the combination of what am I good at, what do I like doing? And then your weaknesses being the areas where you should be able to perform but you actually can't for one reason or another. And I think there are, you know, varying degrees of weaknesses. Some leaders I've seen have weaknesses that are what I would call showstoppers. So until you resolve that weakness, I can't promote you to the next level because the next level requires X, Y or Z. And if you don't have that, that's not going to work. And I've had many of those conversations. But you know, by and large, that. That self awareness lets you think about, okay, if I were to improve, what area would give me the most bang for buck? Where would I start if I wanted to get better? What's. What's the thing that prevents me from being my best when I'm leading? What's the thing that scares me or that I can see clearly? Isn't getting results and serving my team the way it should? Start there. Start simple, start small, and get your confidence.
- [51:15]
B
And then as I get more experience, how do I make sure that my leadership identity is going in the direction I want it to? Not just what feels natural, you know, like, have you been leading for 10, 15 years? Is there a way you can kind of check in and go, what is my leadership identity morphed into? Is it what I want it to be?
- [51:37]
A
Yeah, look, there's many ways to check in. One is to just look at the scoreboard. Am I getting results? The acid test. For any leader, you've got to get results. Are my results the way I want them to be? If they're not, think about what you're doing, like think about the inputs, think about the front end of what you're doing, and are you doing the things that should make you successful? Logically that's a good place to start. The other thing is that if you're doing something that isn't consistent with your value set or your approach or the way you want to be as a leader, it will feel that something's off. It'll feel like, you know, this isn't quite right. Now this happens all the time in business. A leader is asked to do something by their boss. They don't feel like it's the right thing, or they don't feel good about it, or they feel as though there's a better way. And those are those critical points where you either say, look, you know, I'm not up for this, I don't think this is the right way to treat people, or I don't think this is the best thing for the business. And you have that out with your boss. Many leaders who are a little bit conflict averse can't do that. And so the boss says, I need you to go away and do this for me. The dutiful leader says, sure boss, I'll do it. And then finds himself in a conundrum. I know I've agreed to do this, I know that the boss wants me to do this, but I don't feel as though it's something that I should do. And this is the gradual deterioration of leaders confidence and self respect is through doing too many of the things they know aren't right or don't feel as though is consistent with who they are. And this happens, you know, to all of us to some extent. Like, you can't walk out of a job. The first time your boss says I want you to do something, you say, I don't agree. You know what you can do with your job, boss, that's not the way that normally rolls out, that's not the way to do it. But there is a real strength and a real power in being able to have the conversation with your boss where you say, look, I just don't agree with this for these reasons. And to be able to stand on that line and have the discussion and if you push too far away from where your value set is, then you only have one option, which is to vote with your feet.
- [53:53]
B
Yeah, I love that. Okay, we've covered quite a bit here. We've got a few resources from past podcast episodes that I think would be really useful in helping people to work out their Leadership identity and just get the cogs turning a little bit. We've got the personal leadership audit which is a great one to work out where your blind spots are so that one talks to that self awareness that, that you were speaking about. And then in episode two.
- [54:21]
We had a really good downloadable there as well, your leadership user manual. So you'll see your mentor.com forward/Episode 2, 5, 7 is where people can go to get that. And we'll leave the links in the show notes. But Marty, can you just do a quick wrap on on that, everything we've just gone through?
- [54:39]
A
Sure, absolutely Em. So talking about leadership identity, you will have somewhat a level of uniqueness to how you behave and perform as a leader. But despite that you still have to have the foundational elements of what good leadership is. So if you want to be a strong leader and get results, there are certain things that are predictably useful and have huge benefit in bringing to your team. They're good for the team, they're good for you as a leader and they're good for the organization you're leading in. So that's a really important factor. Having that self awareness to know who you are, to know what's important to you, to know your strengths and weaknesses is really important. And I did mention before, but when you mentioned the personal leadership audit, I think that the value of a trusted advisor also can't be overlooked. So if you've got someone around you, particularly a direct report you can trust to tell you what they're observing in your behavior because they get to see you every day in the field of battle, that's a really important way to get the feedback that you need, not the feedback you want, the feedback you need. We covered a lot of stuff. The nuances and differences between the natural leadership style that you might have learned as a child and what's required in a multi layer organization where you have to lead other people. So there was a lot of, lot of conversation around that. And then of course trust, empathy and congruence. How do your people see you as a congruent leader who sticks by your values and principles when times get tough and when the pressure's on.
- [56:08]
All right, so that brings us to the end of episode 380. I really hope you enjoy this compilation. There's heaps of value there. But as I'm sure you know, listening is easy, leading is hard. That's why we created Leadership beyond the Theory, our flagship program that turns insight into action and action into results. This is where we unlock the secrets of elite leadership performance and give you all the tools that you need to operate at executive level. Until then, I know you take every opportunity you can to be a no bullshit leader.