1st Lead U - Leadership Development
This podcast, now in Season 3, is dedicated to self-development, self-awareness, and learning to lead oneself so listeners can lead others well. If someone cannot lead themselves well, it will be difficult for them to be an effective leader of others. This podcast will help listeners understand what it means to 1st Lead U and build confidence in themselves and their leadership ability. Personal Growth Coach John Ballinger has spent 35 years developing the knowledge and material he shares with individuals, business owners, and leaders from a variety of areas.
1st Lead U - Leadership Development
The Untapped Power of Appreciation in Leadership - C.H.A.R.T - Ep 322
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Genuine appreciation from leaders creates confidence, boosts morale, and improves team performance in organizations. Leaders who demonstrate care through their actions and decisions build stronger, more loyal teams who feel valued and perform at higher levels.
Here are some key questions your can ask yourself as a leader to measure your level of appreciation for your team:
- As a leader, do you care whether your team members can pay their mortgage or rent payment?
- As a leader, do you care that the decisions you make affect the team's confidence in the company and you as a leader?
- Do you care, as a leader, that you leading well means that they can feel confident in going home and leading their family well, because they're not worrying about what's going on at work or what may happen at work?
- As a leader, do you care that the decisions you make can impact the trajectory of the company from a long-term perspective?
- And finally....... as a leader, do you care if there's a succession plan in place that protects the team that helped you build the company, whether you own it or you're just a leader?
• Zig Ziglar's insight: "Your attitude (EQ), not your aptitude (IQ), determines your altitude" in leadership
• Appreciative leadership requires genuine care about team members' wellbeing and future
• Walking through the parking lot to observe baby seats and vehicle maintenance issues provides perspective on team members' lives
• Self-reflection questions about whether you care if team members can pay their mortgage or lead their families well
• Consumer confidence has declined as team members worry about private equity takeovers and job security
• Ten practical ways to show appreciation include personal thanks, handwritten notes, and celebrating successes
• Balance critique with appreciation to maintain standards while showing gratitude
• Anticipation strengthens memories - leaders should anticipate opportunities to show appreciation
• The four A's (Awareness, Adaptability, Approachable, Appreciation) are essential for effective leadership
To lead your team well, you must 1st Lead U.
As a leader, do you care whether your team members can pay their mortgage or rent payment? As a leader, do you care? The decisions you make affect the team's confidence in the company and you as a leader. Do you care, as a leader, that you leading well means that they can feel confident in going home and leading their family well, because they're not worrying about what's going on at work or what may happen at work? As a leader, do you care that the decisions you make can impact the trajectory of the company from a long-term perspective? And finally, as a leader, do you care if there's a succession plan in place that protects the team that helped you build the company, whether you own it or you're just a leader?
Speaker 2:Welcome to First Lead you, a podcast dedicated to building leaders, expanding their capacity, improving their self-awareness through emotional intelligence and developing deeper understanding of selfless leadership.
Speaker 1:Hello, america, and welcome to First Lead you where we believe selfless leadership. Hello America, and welcome to First Lead you where we believe selfless leadership is essential. America is suffering a leadership crisis. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence is the key to developing selfless leaders.
Speaker 2:Now here is personal growth coach John Ballinger.
Speaker 1:Hello leaders and welcome to First Lead you. My name is John Ballinger and I'm here with my trusted co-host, mr Douglas Ford. Good afternoon.
Speaker 3:John, how are you today? Douglas? Yes, the final A, the final A.
Speaker 1:Yeah into the future. Yeah, so the final A of the chart acrostic is today. The A's were tough.
Speaker 3:They have been yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm going to tell something at the end of this podcast, after a lot of reflection this weekend about the prep of this, that I hope resonates with leadership. This is going to be because to me it was like wow, as I studied and researched and read articles and thought about the last day, which is appreciation. Appreciative is the word. How do you as a leader, how are you appreciative to your team members? How do you show appreciation? What do you do to be appreciative? And it was tough because leaders were saying it's one of the most difficult things that they need to learn to balance, which is how do I tell them they're doing a good job without them resting on that? And then if I don't tell them they're doing a good job because I need them to do it, then they, you know it becomes a morale, a morale thing or an attitude thing. And so how do I do that?
Speaker 1:We're going to be talking through that. How do you, how do you actually do that and keep guardrails up or boundaries? But um, so I mean, this whole um podcast is going to be riddled with A's. I thought, well, I'm just going to start with that. I'm going to start with one of my favorite quotes by Zig Ziglar. That has a lot of A's in it. The quote is your attitude, which is your emotional intelligence, not your aptitude, which is your IQ, will determine your altitude, which is how far you'll go as a leader.
Speaker 3:That's a lot of A's, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's attitude, aptitude, altitude. Now the reality is on our show and other articles, as other shows about emotional intelligence become more popular as the words emotional intelligence become more popular, as other books are written about emotional intelligence. We know, as a leader, it's your EQ, not your IQ, that advances your leadership. Right, absolutely. Zig said this years and years ago. This is an old, old quote, and Zig was a sales guy. I mean, he ended up being a developer, a trainer, a speaker, but he was a sales guy.
Speaker 1:That far back. He said you know attitude's important, not your IQ. So it's is important, not your IQ. So it's your EQ, not your IQ, that will elevate you into leadership, which is something we've talked about for the beginning of the podcast. So I want to read the definition of appreciative, which is feeling or showing gratitude. Well, that's one, two, three, four words, but the most important word is the gratitude. So I thought, well, let's talk about what that means, cause I think it gets more into the appreciative part when you you understand the definition of gratitude, which is the quality of being thankful, readiness to show appreciation for and return kindness.
Speaker 3:So it kind of goes back and points back to appreciation, but the idea of returning kindness I think that's pretty universal in terms of people's understanding. So we kind of, by showing appreciation, you express gratitude, which is the willingness to return kindness, which is from a leadership standpoint. People are working with you for you, doing things that you've asked them to do. You've expressed that you appreciate their service in that and then they are, in turn, continue to do these things, hopefully at a high level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what somebody's looking for when you're giving gratitude sincerity I was going to say specifics.
Speaker 3:I mean they're looking for sincerity.
Speaker 1:is this person sincere about the gratitude or are they just talking yeah, are they just telling me something, trying to get me to do?
Speaker 3:something, and the more specific you can be about what they've done and what you're appreciative for, the better.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I actually made a smaller word out of gratitude with that and said what they're asking the leader to do today is actually care.
Speaker 3:Yes, To show they care do today is actually care yes, to show they. Care yeah, so they care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we want to know that our leader actually cares about us, and I said it is difficult for today's leader to care about team members. There's a numbness to leadership, this movement of speed of leadership. Now you take AI and throw it into the mix. You take remote work and throw it into the mix. I mean there's so many things that leaders have to adapt to today in order to function as a leader, and now we're asking them to do all of that and care at the same time, and that's difficult. So I actually stopped at that point and I wanted to and I've said this before in a podcast, and so if you've heard this, hopefully you'll reflect on it and if you're new to the podcast, I want you to really take the take the heart what I'm getting ready to say.
Speaker 1:But years ago, when I started with my risk management consulting business, one of the things that I just did before I walked in the door to meet with the leadership is I would walk around the parking lot of the organization that called me in and I would look for baby seats in the back of cars, and I was looking for baby seats and, most notably, I was looking for Cheerios and Goldfish and I was looking for baby seats and most notably I was looking for Cheerios and Goldfish because I knew at that point, if I did my job effectively for that organization, that child had an opportunity to have a parent that was working for a company that cared about them and they were confident in being employed there and didn't have to worry about their job or their lead or anything like that. So I thought you know that's the person I'm working for, that child in the seat. The second thing I would do is after hours, after the business was closed, I would go back and walk through the parking lot and look for oil, antifreeze or transmission spots in the parking lot of the organization, spots in the parking lot of the organization. That also told me, gave me some insight into how well that the organization was looking out for their team members. You know age of vehicle maintenance, which are all important. Are we paying our people enough where they can operate their motor vehicle safely and get it repaired when necessary? And so are we doing what we need to do, because that's a big deal right and that's actually done well for me when going into organizations and talking about those things, because it brings a perspective down to the team member every day that's in the trenches working for the leadership.
Speaker 1:It puts perspective in because normally when you get up to a leadership or you know mid upper level management upper management you probably don't have as big a worry about the maintenance in your vehicle. Right, you've probably got a newer vehicle, it's under warranty, you probably don't need to worry about that. Um, you're probably not that concerned about baby seats and Cheerios and goldfish and stuff like that. That's not the perspective with which you usually look through your lens at your company every day. But the reality is, if you don't look through that lens that way, it's going to be hard for the team to see that you really care, because you're not leading for the future of the organization and putting a plan in place the one, three, five in plan in place and you're also, if you don't care about the oil slicks under the vehicle or transmission or um antifreeze, you're not really paying close attention to your, your team members either. So I think that's an important uh. You can find out your own as a leader. You know if there's other things that you want to utilize to give you some benchmarks.
Speaker 1:Those two have just served me well over the years, but it also made me stop and ask these questions.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to ask these questions, Um, and I want the leaders to write these down and actually ponder on them a little bit. As a leader, do you care whether your team members can pay their mortgage or rent payment? As a leader, do you care? The decisions you make affect the team's confidence in the company and you, as a leader, do you care, as a leader, that you leading well means that they can feel confident in going home and leading their family well, because they're not worrying about what's going on at work or what may happen to them at work? As a leader, do you care that the decisions you make can impact the trajectory of the company from a long-term perspective? You make and impact the trajectory of the company from a long-term perspective. And finally, as a leader, do you care if there's a succession plan in place that protects the team that helped you build the company, whether you own it or you're just a leader in it? That's some deep questions.
Speaker 3:It is. Those are good reflective questions, for sure, in terms of trying to assess how much you appreciate your team members.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because if you're not operating and those are just I mean, those are six basic questions, those aren't. I mean, there's a whole lot that you have to consider inside a company. But when you consider those questions and you operate your day thinking about those questions as you're making decisions, it will start showing from an appreciation standpoint to your thing. It will just naturally start like oh so John really cares that this company is going to be here after he's retired, because he's showing us. He's talking about it in a leadership meeting. You know, we know he's not going to be here in 10 years, but he's talking about what this place looks like in 10 years. He's actually putting things in place and we see it in front of us, which means he cares about this company.
Speaker 3:Yeah, your actions surrounding that is going to speak louder than your words, obviously, but it does help people to understand that you appreciate him, even if you're not always able to get around and personally individually tell everybody for any number of reasons. But your actions certainly speak to that. And you know and some of that even comes in the hard times, like when you have to let people go because the realities of the business are that that's what's required. It's like how you handle those situations are going to show people how much you care as well, and you know there's plenty of examples of CEOs sending emails out, or recently somebody just got everybody on a Zoom and said, hey, we're not going to need you next Monday. Good luck, you know. So, obviously, what's that do to the morale of the rest of the company, the rest of the organization? People automatically know, well, they don't really care about us. We're just doing a function.
Speaker 3:There's another large global company where the CEO got feedback from the employees, a lot of feedback.
Speaker 3:I mean like over 56% maybe more than that of the employees took time to fill out an engagement survey and he basically just wrote back and said, yeah, well, we're not the company that you think we are, or what we used to be, and this is the way it's going to be moving forward, because we're in a competitive market environment now and this is how we need to operate.
Speaker 3:So you've got a company where people had really lifelong jobs at this organization and now all of a sudden it's like, oh, they don't really care anymore. It's not going to be the way moving forward. So, as soon as those people leave, or have a chance they're going to leave, and the people who usually leave first are the people that you most need to stay. The people who stay are the ones like they don't care either. So it's like, hey, we, we've come to a mutual agreement, I don't care about you, you don't care about me, so I'm just going to do my job to a minimum standard and you give me a paycheck and I'm going to go home, and so that's not really advancing the organization at all either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, In our LEAD. I think there's a lot of D's out there that are doing that we were talking before we got on and started recording about. Back in 25, 30 years ago. It was quite often talked about on the evening news about consumer confidence and I can tell you the things that I read over the weekend preparing for this. There's not a lot of people that are working for companies in America that have a lot of confidence in the future, and part of it was they're highly concerned about the merger and acquisitions taking place by private equity and venture capital. Concerned about the merger and acquisitions taking place by private equity and venture capital, and we've been around this long enough to see that when PEVC money gets involved, the team member is not something they're cared about.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 1:They're cared about the bottom line.
Speaker 1:What's the bottom line?
Speaker 1:How do we roll up five or six companies and then sell it off after we've after we've consolidated, we've taken the best out of it we want, you know, and then, and then sell it off after we've consolidated, we've taken the best out of it we want, and then we just sell it off, and that doesn't give team members a lot of confidence in their leadership.
Speaker 1:That's why that succession planning is so important, because if you're talking to your team members about it, especially as a founder of an organization and your kids are not going to take it over and you don't have any plan, usually your default is to sell it off to a VC or PE company and they're just going to do what I've seen in the past they're just going to break, pillage and plunder it and then leave it for dead, which means probably 50% of the people are not going to have a job anymore. So now, what are they going to do? So as a dead, which means probably 50% of the people are not going to have a job anymore. And so now, what are they going to do? So, as a leader, even setting down, even if you've got 10, 15 years left. Start now planning, because that's going to be confidence and and it's really an it's a show of appreciation to the team that you're planning that far out, to what's going to happen to the organization, that they'll have a job in the future.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, if you go back and answer those questions that you you asked earlier and you carry those out like the actions that you take related to those questions and the answer to those questions is going to show appreciation and going to garner appreciation from the team as well, because they see that you are invested and you care about what's going to happen long-term.
Speaker 1:So before we go on break I want to read this to you. So I was kind of got all that kind of process it myself, ask those questions to tell this to the leader, and you can write this down and really process on this too. An appreciative leader will foster a positive work environment, boost morale and improve team members' performance. Say that one more time An appreciative leader will foster a positive work environment, boost morale and improve team members' performance. You have to think about those four A's in chart actually will help you do that as a leader in the organization. We're going to take a break and come back and we're going to be going through the 10 ways to make a team feel appreciated. We'll be back.
Speaker 3:Hello First Lead U listeners, Douglas Ford here. I want to take just a few seconds during this break to say thank you for spending a few moments with us as we discuss the challenges and opportunities of being a leader. We hope that in every episode you find some bit of information that will help you on your own personal leadership journey. In order to reach more people and to improve our positioning on all the podcasting and social media platforms, it's important that you subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcasting platform, like Apple, Spotify or any other platform where you listen to First Lead you. We would really appreciate you clicking on the subscribe button to help us reach more people and expand the message of First Lead you. And please take time to visit the First Lead you website. That's the number one S-T, the word lead and the letter Ucom Firstleadyoucom. Number one S-T, the word lead and the letter Ucom. I hope you have a great day as you continue to learn to first lead you. So welcome back to First Lead you.
Speaker 3:Today we are talking about the A's in our chart acrostic.
Speaker 3:We're on the last A, which is appreciation, and we've also covered the first A, which was awareness.
Speaker 3:The second one was adaptability and the third one was approachable, and so today we're talking about appreciation or appreciative, and, let's say, the first half of the podcast was a little heavy. There was a lot that we talked about that. It's like here's what you need to do as a leader to show appreciation, here's why you need to show appreciation to your team members and what you can expect from your team when you show appreciation or not. But for the second half, we're going to talk about some of the things that you can do to show appreciation and start moving in the right direction, Because we know from the great resignation and the information that we got from those 30 plus million people who resigned during the great resignation that a lot of the reason they left is because they did not feel appreciated 43 million 43 million people, that's a lot of people, that's a lot of people, and so I I did start looking because I felt like I know what it takes to be appreciative, um, but I thought how do?
Speaker 1:how do I explain this to people that are confused about it? Because there were a lot of articles where leaders are saying how do we set boundaries, how do we say thank you but not backfire on us, and all these things. And so I looked for an article that I could reference you, the leader, to, and you could read it and the processes. This article is from Forbes magazine and we reference Forbes quite a bit. This article is from Forbes magazine and we reference Forbes quite a bit, and it's 10 ways leaders can make their teams feel appreciated, and this is a four-plus-year-old article.
Speaker 3:So this isn't… so kind of coming out of the.
Speaker 1:Great Resignation Coming out of COVID, out of the Great Resignation resignation and saying that they understood that what people were doing and saying in exit interviews is we do not feel like we're appreciated and we're cared about. So this article references simple ways that a leader can learn how to be appreciative, and the first one is very simple it's at a personal touch, by actually verbally saying the words thank you to your people. I mean first one, just simple Learn how to say thank you to people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that goes back to something you said earlier about sincerity Like it has to be sincere, it can't just be oh, thank you, Great, Appreciate everybody. They have to feel like you honestly mean that and have a reason for saying it.
Speaker 1:Now this second one plays off of that one. They said do it in person, don't send an email. Go to people and actually look them in the eye and you know when somebody is being sincere or not, or if somebody is just giving you lip service just to give it to you.
Speaker 3:So do it in person with team member and that will make a difference, or maybe a handwritten note if you're not going to be there with them, douglas, you're still in your thunder, am I still in your thunder? Yeah, I'm just saying I'm trying to practice my appreciation.
Speaker 1:Third is do handwritten notes but actually deliver it to them. Don't send it through the mail or anything like that, just walk up to it and hand it to them. I have used, for I mean years, the process of gift cards. Walking around with gift cards in my pocket when I would see somebody do something or it was appreciative, I would just go up and say you know what, take your wife to dinner on Friday on us. You know it was appreciation for an act you saw or something they did that was beneficial to the company.
Speaker 1:And the way you do that is this next one, which is know your people, know how they like to be communicated to. Some people would appreciate out of eye contact, with verbal. Some people will truly appreciate a nice note. But know your people and be prepared. And the author of this said that doesn't mean you have to walk around with a pocket full of thank you cards. You know, just walk around, observe, see what's going on. You can make a note in your phone or on your, on what I call my Palm pilot, which was, remember, the old Palm pilot when I first started learning how to do this. That's how. How far back is that?
Speaker 3:that's gotta be. Oh, that's uh mid 90s yeah the palm pilot.
Speaker 1:I would make a note on it. So I when I got back to my desk so be prepared, show understanding. Not everybody's going to have a great day every day and if somebody has a bad day and you know that's just not typical that's always a great time to go up and say you know, is everything all right. That's showing appreciation, because that person's off quotation mark off and somebody recognized, saw it, came up, talked to him about it.
Speaker 3:It was certainly showing awareness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and one of our A's right, right, remember the bigger picture. It's easy to forget about the lives of people outside the job that could potentially be impacted inside the job, which I think is one of the big things that came out of COVID. When people went home and were having to deal with all this stuff and work from home and navigate all that, they realized that, hey, somebody really cares about my personal life. All they care about is what I can do for them at work. Celebrate success when somebody has something that they've done inside the organization, I don't care how far down in the company. Celebrate that success with the team, make mention of it. And I think that's also important.
Speaker 1:And this is the tough one, because in the articles I would read how do you balance that and not give that person like kind of a get-out-of-jail-free card because, well, the boss gave me a handwritten card or he gave me a gift card or whatever? Balance critique with appreciation. Make sure that if you see something in the future that that person needs to work on, that, you also communicate that, because that keeps that balance out there, that you're still aware of what's going on, but instead of this time of being just so totally appreciative of it. Go up to him and say I would appreciate you if you would work on this, because this is something I see it's kind of challenging. So, balance critique with appreciation.
Speaker 1:Learn how to have a two-way conversation with your team. I can't believe like that If you read that it's. One of the toughest things leaders are challenged with is how to have a two-way conversation with people inside their organization. And last, increase your own sense of gratitude. Appreciating your team isn't just about making them feel valued. It also has an effect on you as a leader. It also has an effect on you as a leader. Practicing gratitude will help you with your own sense of resilience, will alleviate stress and bring a new level of positivity to your world. It becomes a win for you and the team. So those weren't difficult to do. Those 10 things weren't difficult items. It's just how do you incorporate them into your daily leadership style so that people know that you truly care about what's going on, uh in in their department, in their world, in their position within the company yeah, and it shows a level of intentionality.
Speaker 3:I would say, if you had to pick one or the other, I would say most people do not naturally fall on the side of appreciation. There's a lot of people who do and there's a lot of people who are gifted in that. But I would say probably over 50% of the people who are in leadership positions are not naturally gifted with the gift of appreciation. Gifted with the gift of appreciation because a lot of times they're looking for where's the problem, where we need to improve, like their mind's just not focused there, and so it does take that extra effort of intentionality to show that appreciation and communicate that in a way that is sincere to your team members.
Speaker 1:Right, Once you, as a leader, reflect on this, how do I show appreciation better? I'm going to make this statement that once you recognize how to do this and implement it in your team life, in your organization's life, it becomes untapped growth potential inside your organization life. It becomes untapped growth potential inside your organization. Here's the statement Appreciation is an easy and enjoyable thing to implement into our work. It has far-reaching benefits. The untapped potential of being appreciative is something that we should always be aware of, particularly for leaders and managers. In today's world of remote working and new business practice environment, there has never been a better time to put appreciation protocol in place in your organization.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know that there's quite a few companies that have started putting chief people officers in place, and maybe they're in charge of human resources, maybe they're in charge of some other things, but I think a lot of times what they're there for is to help people feel appreciated Because, like I said earlier, it's easy to not show the appreciation. There's got to be some intentionality on the part of the leader to make sure that that balance is there I have one more A, one more A, one more A.
Speaker 1:I mean this has been a bunch of A's.
Speaker 3:It has been Right.
Speaker 1:So we're going to add one more A and this is my personal A that I'm adding to all four of our A's plus all three of Zig's A's. So we've just got A's abound. And this letter A and this word the word starts with A is anticipation, and I wrote this after reading the articles and reading what I wrote and just kind of reflecting on the all eights. I said awareness of anticipation creates and strengthens and solidifies memories for you and the team member. Research shows that the more you anticipate something you desire or anticipate to happen, the stronger your memory will reflect it in the future.
Speaker 1:A lot of times I talk about creating that, a database in your head that when you see something going on, you've said you've seen it before, you've dealt with, before, you've made a decision on it, and it just brings it to the forefront. We talked about cookies in our in um in one of the podcasts. How do we create cookies that when you see it happening, like it automatically oh, I remember that here's. Here's the, here's the decision I made, here's how the decision did or did not work, here's the adjustments that need to.
Speaker 3:But you have to have anticipation in order to do that you're talking about digital cookies earlier, not chocolate, not, not chocolate chip. Not chocolate, not chocolate.
Speaker 1:It's not even oatmeal raisin which is really my favorite yeah. It's not those either. Now here's the difficult part of the A's we've talked about.
Speaker 1:If you, as a leader, can't embrace the A's and improve on the eights. It's going to be very difficult to actually move forward with the R and the T, and you'll find yourself being stuck in one of the C's that you're most comfortable with not all four of the C's that you should be comfortable with. You're most comfortable with, not all four of the C's that you should be comfortable with and it will diminish your ability to understand the human aspect. So let me paint that picture again Not embracing the A's.
Speaker 3:Which are awareness, adaptability, approachable and appreciation Right approachable and appreciation right.
Speaker 1:And and anticipating all those four a's all the time in your your leadership journey limits your ability to understand how to truly effectively lead as a leader. So when we said that the a's are the most important, they are the most important. So when we said that the A's are the most important, they are the most important because not embracing those A's means that you're going to limit yourself as a leader, which will mean you'll limit your team from their growth and the organization standpoint. So I want you to reflect. So the homework for the leader is those questions that I ask early in the podcast. I want you to reflect on those questions. We'll put these out on the website, but I really want you to reflect on these questions and ask myself do I care about my team members enough to actually incorporate those questions into my daily thought process so that the team members know that I'm showing appreciation for what's going on inside the organization? And remember this in order to lead your team well, you must first lead you.
Speaker 2:Thanks everyone, We'll see you next time you.
