Loading summary
Transcript35 lines
- [00:00]
A
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 With Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today@shopify.com selling leadership go to shopify.com leadership hey there and welcome to episode 376 of the no Bullshit Leadership Podcast. This week's episode 9 Leadership Problems that you're going to face this year.
- [01:07]
B
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.
- [01:31]
A
Last week, Em and I were recording a rare interview episode in the Acast Studios in Sydney. It was an expert interview about leading in the age of AI, which you're going to get to hear next week. But at the end of the interview Em said to me, hey, look, while we're here, why don't we do a rapid fire Q and A episode? So she put out a bunch of questions from our leadership communities on school and Instagram and LinkedIn and just started throwing them at me. We ended up tackling nine common leadership issues that we've recently fielded from our listeners. And I've got to tell you, we covered a hell of a lot of ground from surviving a toxic boss, getting out of the weeds as your business grows all the way through, to knowing when checking for standards becomes control rather than support. This episode is jam packed with my practical and might I say, extremely off the cuff answers to real world problems. You're going to hear my views on how to push back on a micromanaging boss without triggering conflict. How to maintain your confidence by not overthinking a tough situation that may have Challenged you How to hold firm on your highest value priorities when your boss wants to keep piling on new tasks. How to build your strengths without ignoring the blind spots that might derail your career. How to give feedback that's going to land even with your more sensitive team members. How to build trust in your team so that you can step back from their work without losing control. And how to set your own agenda for performance and growth in the absence of any feedback from your boss. So let's get into it.
- [03:02]
B
Okay, Marty, so we have got a bunch of questions that have come through. Last week I just took the last seven days of what's come through on email social media. So I've taken some from Instagram, some from our emails, some from LinkedIn, and I just thought I would give them to you. Rapid fire style.
- [03:20]
A
Fantastic. You know I love rapid fire.
- [03:22]
B
Yeah, we've got a little bit of time, so I just thought let's just get through some of these and, you know, we'll turn it into a podcast episode because why not? So I'm gonna start with Sarah's question. Marty. My boss is incredibly toxic, constantly micromanaging, taking credit, and dumping their stress on everyone. How do I survive this without losing my sanity?
- [03:40]
A
Oh, okay. Toxic bosses. I mean, this is. How long have we got? There's so much we can talk about here, and there's not a lot of information from Sarah. But what I will say is a toxic boss is very, very unlikely to change. It's quite rare. Very occasionally they don't quite understand the impact they're having, but in 90% of cases, they're really committed to getting results a certain way, which means they don't care that much about the other people they affect on the way through. And micromanagement can just be a lack of security. They're feeling a little bit insecure about their jobs, not having visibility and direct control over what's going on, so they feel as though they have to dip into it. Micromanagement is easier to solve than toxicity and they don't necessarily go hand in hand. So let's just think about dealing with micromanagement and then as you deal with that, you're going to learn whether or not your boss is truly toxic. So in pushing back on a micromanager, I had a number of techniques that worked really, really well for me. I would just ask questions. So whenever my boss got too far into my knitting and I felt as though it was intrusive or that they didn't trust me or they were trying to get Into a level of detail that was entirely inappropriate. I would just say, hey, listen, Em, don't you trust me to do my job? I'd actually make them answer for the interference. Don't you trust me to do my job? Or I'd say, what do I need to do to get you to trust me? What do I need to do to give you confidence that I've actually got this handled? More often than not, a micromanager who's just a little bit overly concerned about not having control will back off and say, oh, look, I'm really sorry. It's not that I don't trust you. I just want to make sure everything's going well. Now, you don't have to do that too many times before they'll get the picture and either back off for good and start to learn to stay out of your knitting, or they'll double down and they'll say, I'm the boss, just do it. They become a Nike boss. So there's a whole range of outcomes that can come there. But the first thing is you've got to take it head on. You've got to front your boss with it and you've got to do it in a way that's non confrontational, that just says, I want to ask you a question. Don't you trust me? What would I have to do to make you trust me? And my favorite was an old boss of mine many years ago, Great guy, fantastic person, very bright. And he was just micromanaging me and asking me things that were way down in the depths of the team I was running. And he asked me a question. I turned around and said, robert, why would I know that? And he just looked at me and I said, I've got people like two or three layers below me that are paid to know that stuff and I don't. Why would I know it? And he immediately got that and completely changed the way he led with me. Within a day, he just completely changed the way he viewed our relationship. So that was fantastic. It can be a winner.
- [06:31]
B
Hopefully that helps. Sarah, let's go on to Sammy's question. I think I'm able to keep resilient in stressful situations when they happen. However, I do tend to overthink the situations after they happen. Did I do the best I could? Could I have done anything differently? How can I shorten this cycle of regaining balance after a stressful situation?
- [06:50]
A
That's great. Did you say Sammy?
- [06:52]
B
Yes.
- [06:52]
A
Thanks Sami. Great question. I think that the post mortem on anything we tend to overanalyse and let it dominate our thinking, particularly if we're a little bit uncertain of what we've done. So if we haven't got complete certainty around a decision we've made or a solution we've come up with, we'll second guess ourselves. That does no one any good. What you want to have is a level of awareness and self reflection. And so it's really important after you've gone through a very difficult situation or a crisis that you take stock of that and you do do a quick post mortem. But the biggest tip I'll give you is that it's got to be a time bounded deliberate assessment. If you just let it drift on in your head, you know, just nagging at you for weeks, it will debilitate you. So what you do instead, you set aside a finite period of time and you say, okay, I'm going to sit down for an hour, maybe I'll get my trusted adviser or someone else who is involved and we'll sit down and just go and do a quick post mortem of the events that just transpired. What could we have done better? Did we get the best result? Is there anything going forward that we need to keep an eye on? Because you know, the environment may change or the situation may shift? So doing it deliberately, you can knock it over in an hour and you'd be surprised at the end of that how your mind puts it to bed because you've dealt with it as an issue, you know that everything else is outside of your control. Anything else that happens, they're just cold hard facts. Let them go and focus on what you might be able to change next time. That should be the focus.
- [08:25]
B
Yeah, I love that. Onto Talia's question. How do you approach this situation? If your boss has agreed to what the priority projects are, but they continue to contradict themselves by adding in new tasks and saying you need to make it happen or prioritise better. We were just talking about an IQI boss.
- [08:41]
A
We were just talking about an IQI boss. So the one thing about this is that you have to have the data to support the conversation. If you and your boss have agreed on what the most important priorities are, that's got to be your bible. That's your foundational document to determine where the value is and the reason that a boss can come to you and say, I need you to do this as well. If you can't refute that and deflect it based on the logic of the highest value things that you're already doing, then that's your fault as much as it is your boss's. You've got to have real clarity around your objectives, why you're doing them, and what the ranked order of value delivery is in those objectives. And then when the boss comes and says, I need you to do this, it's very easy to turn around and say, oh, that's fantastic. Let's just see where it fits in our value rank priorities. Because something must shift. I'm either going to have to deprioritize something, I'm going to have to put one of the initiatives on the back burner, or I'm going to have to put an outcome at risk because it's going to cause distraction in my team. There's a whole range of ways it can impact the existing work program. And all you want to do is say, that's awesome. How does it fit in our agreed existing value priorities? And that's going to strike a completely different conversation than I want you to do this, but boss, I can't because I'm too busy. Well, just do it. That's a completely different style of conversation. And it's the only way you can manage a boss who is too weak to say no to their boss is by you being strong and sticking to the things that you know are the best use of your resources that will create the most value for your team and for the company.
- [10:18]
B
Yeah. The value ranking spreadsheet that we get people to do in leadership beyond the theory is such a good way to actually just shoot that down in black and white on paper.
- [10:28]
A
Absolutely.
- [10:29]
B
Got a great question from Jack. You guys are always talking about leadership blind spots. Are they really that important to fix? Don't people say to focus on your strengths and not your weaknesses?
- [10:38]
A
Yeah, Jack, when people tell you to concentrate on your strengths and improving those and to forget about your weaknesses because they'll be overshadowed by your strengths. Well, you know, that's partially true. And developing your strengths is something you should always be looking to do anyway. But sometimes your blind spots are showstoppers. Sometimes if you don't actually fix those blind spots, they're going to stop you from getting promoted if you have a fatal flaw that you're not aware of or that you're aware of it and you say it's too hard to fix. Well, just wait and see how that goes for you because you're not going to get promoted. You're just not. And so it's nice to say just focus on your strengths. But I think it's a great excuse for weak leaders to not have to address problems with their people. Let's just focus on your strengths. Then we can all have these really nice, positive conversations. We don't need to address the things that are holding you back.
- [11:30]
B
Love that. This one from Connor, we're talking about trusted advisors. I have someone in my mind who I think would make a great trusted advisor, but I'm not sure of the best way to approach it. Should I be direct and explain the idea so we can set up regular check ins or is it better to keep it informal and simply start steering our conversation in that direction without calling it out?
- [11:49]
A
Yeah, definitely. Option B, Connor, I don't think there's ever a time when I've said to someone, you are my trusted adviser. It's not something you verbalise or explicitly state. It's just that the conversations will change and become deeper. You'll start talking about things at a higher level that are things that impact and interest you as opposed to just their job. And it's a relationship where you'll have more and more closeness around, talking to each other frequently and about the things that really matter in terms of team performance. Now, interestingly, this sets them up as first amongst equals, which can create some issues in the team. It can make people feel as though there's been favouritism shown to your trusted adviser. But as I like to say to the team, I promise you that the only criterion that I will ever use to discriminate between you is, is merit. That's it. So if you actually provide more value, you will get more of my attention. And for some people, it doesn't motivate them. For other people, it massively motivates them. But it's the only way to run a team is to focus on where the value is.
- [12:54]
B
Question from Tyson. Tyson must be a small business owner. I'm working harder than ever and have built my team up, but I feel like the business is still dependent on me. How do I get out of the weeds without it all falling apart? This is a classic work at level, Marty.
- [13:08]
A
It is. And Tyson, you know, apart from the principles of standing back and working at level, you've got to actually leave enough space for your people to grow into the vacuum that you leave. That's absolutely the only way to do it. If your people aren't capable of stepping in, then you don't have the right people. It's that simple. So they might be wonderful people, great people, they've been with you for a long time, they know your business, the customers love them. But if they can't do the job they're being paid to do. And you're constantly being dragged down into their jobs. They're just not the right people. So it all starts with you having the restraint and the discipline to step back and leave room for them. And that means sometimes you've got to let them fall over, they've got to make mistakes. It's got to be a safe environment where you give them the room to grow, but not the fear of consequences if they make a small mistake, as long as they're acting with the right intent. So what you're looking to do is create a no blame, no excuses culture. You only do that by giving them room to do things and then helping them through the things they have to do till they learn and expecting the growth that frees you up from having to do their jobs. It's a long and involved process. If you say it fast enough, it sounds easy, but you can do it.
- [14:21]
B
Yeah. And I've got one from Mark that's kind of similar. It's a good follow up. I've got a capable team, but I feel like I have to check everything before it goes out. I tell myself that it's about standards, but I. But maybe it's about control. How do you actually start trusting your team?
- [14:34]
A
Yeah, maybe it may be about control or it may be about the fact that your team isn't doing things the right way because the accountability isn't sitting in the right place. So as long as your team knows that you're going to check something, then they know that there's another layer of review going on and they're not going to make it just right. They're not. And this happened with me when I was chief executive at CS Energy with our board papers. My executive team was loose with this stuff. Like papers would come to me for review and they were either riddled with mistakes or they missed key points, or there was stuff that didn't make sense. And I used to fix it for them and then I'd go back to them and I'd yell and scream and go, well, metaphorically speaking, I never yelled and screamed. But I'd say, look, this was pretty bad the way this paper was written. I fixed it now, but it was a pretty ordinary product. Like, who was the author? You need to deal with that. And every month it was the same for months because every time they knew I would fix it before it went to the board. And so instead I said to them, right, I'm not being your backstop anymore. You guys have Got to lift your game here. So I went to the chairman and said, I'm going to do this differently now. Like, I'm putting a huge amount of time into the board papers because the quality isn't there and I need my executives to grow and take accountability for it. What I'm going to do is let these papers come through unadulterated. So you're going to see all the crap in there that the executives are producing. And I want you to know that I'm doing it on purpose because they need to develop and they need to feel the sting of putting a bad paper up to the board and realising what the consequences are for doing that. So I'm very happy for you and the other directors to give them a touch up if you're seeing bad quality work.
- [16:13]
B
Brutal.
- [16:13]
A
Well, yes and no.
- [16:15]
B
No, it's good, it's good, I like it.
- [16:16]
A
I mean, there's gotta be consequences, right? So for the longest time it was a case of, yeah, yeah, yeah, Marty, yeah, yeah, yeah, Marty, yeah, yeah, yeah, Marty. And at the end of the day, I said, well, I'm not doing it anymore. Like, because you guys, you guys aren't changing. You're not, you're not taking on this, this with the level of seriousness and diligence you need to. And so when I started letting the papers flow through to the board, I'm sure they thought I was a real asshole for doing it. But you know what? The papers improved within three months and they were, they were ship shape. I didn't need to touch them.
- [16:46]
B
Yeah, I love that. What a great story. Alfie, do you have any advice on how to give feedback to someone who's really conflict averse? So if you sit them down for a conflict conversation, they shut down. My concern is giving them feedback might cause them to disengage rather than encourage them to do better.
- [17:03]
A
Well, you know, when you've got someone like that, if you're worried about them disengaging, I think that ship's probably already sailed. Like, they won't be a high performer in any sense if they can't handle the tiniest bit of conflict that puts them on the spot. They simply won't be able to do their job properly. I don't think there's too many jobs that you could function in productively with that type of, you know, personality anxiety and fear that would make it very, very hard to function. So I wouldn't be so worried about disengaging them. You obviously have to care for them as individuals and you've got to be empathetic to their situation, but it doesn't mean you need to treat them with kid gloves when that would result in you lowering the standard for what you're expecting. So you've still got to be very, very prepared to go in and say, hang on a minute, this work isn't the right standard. I just want to make it really clear to you what my expectations are. And I want to show you what the gap is between what I think a good job looks like, like and what you've produced. And I think until you can do that with any level of confidence, they won't have the opportunity to improve and show you that they can do better. Now, interestingly, with a lot of people who are like this, you've got to make a judgment call about whether or not that's going to push them over the edge, because some people are extremely fragile, you know, emotionally and psychologically, and in those sorts of situations, you really have to try and get them to see. So unless you're a clinical psychologist, which I'm certainly not, then someone else needs to be able to provide some support for them outside of the work context. A lot of larger companies have EAPs, you know, where you've got access to counselling services, and those are really useful to refer people to. But you want people to get the right guidance and the right support when they need it. It's not your job as their leader to fix everything in their lives or to tiptoe around them just because they're especially sensitive or, you know, finding things difficult at work.
- [19:06]
B
And last one from Joe. How would you handle requesting feedback from a manager that's too busy and provides a little information on performance?
- [19:14]
A
Oh, well, I'm like, when I have a leader who I'm working for who keeps their hands away from me and doesn't give me feedback, it's Happy Days. It's, oh, wow, that's open slather. I can do what I think's best. So when I was working as a corporate executive, I loved the boss who just left me alone to get on with it. And then I could determine the pace so I could work out exactly what my team was going to do to create the most value they possibly could. And I'd go to my boss and say, okay, here's the plans I've got. Here's what I think I'm doing. Here's what our targets are, here's what I think is going to be an exceptional outcome. Are you okay with that? And if my boss said, yep, that's fine. Off you go then. I knew what I had to do and I had massive amounts of freedom in how to do it. So I absolutely love that situation. And sometimes you can feel a little bit insecure because you're thinking, ah, I wonder how I'm going because I haven't heard anything and it seems like things are going well, but I don't know. And you just get this little niggle in the back of your mind and.
- [20:14]
B
You probably feel like you're not growing as well.
- [20:16]
A
Yeah, we see. The thing is you can create growth with without getting your boss to grow you and you should be always looking to grow yourself. So I would always set really challenging targets. If I set low ball targets and really soft goals, then, yes, I wouldn't be growing. If my boss was stretching me, that would be even better. It'd be more likely that I'd challenge myself and grow. But I sort of worked out how to do that for myself and for my team because I was always this guy who was going to say, we can do more, we can do better, let's go. And I think that was sort of a trademark of my personality more than my leadership. My dysfunctional personality has really come in handy on those occasions. But yeah, so I used to like the freedom of not being hampered by a boss who was looking over the fence all the time. By the same token, it's good to get feedback occasionally where they'll say, actually, you've done a really good job on that. So I had to really calibrate my suit internally about what a good job looked like, what a stretch was, how to challenge myself and my people and how to constantly be trying to be just on that edge of, you know, the best performance we could produce on an individual and a team basis.
- [21:25]
B
Love it, Marty. That is our rapid fire for this week. Some great answers there. We should do this again sometime.
- [21:32]
A
Thanks. Some great questions, Em, let's do it more often. It's great. All right, so that brings us to the end of episode 376. 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 tools you need to master even the toughest situations. I'm really looking forward to next week's episode where we're going to air the interview that I did with expert guest James Killick, who's going to help me unpick the pressing topic leading in the age of AI. Until then, I know you'll take every opportunity you can to be a no Bullshit.