J: Welcome to Slingshot25 Shotcast, a series of bite-sized podcasts that will feel like an espresso shot to your brain. I’m Jackie. And I’m Courtney. You sounded a little hoarse over there, Courtney. Man, this is an uncomfortable time to be able to talk. I’m ready. I’m ready. Let’s go. Okay, good, because we’ve been thinking, as we’re always thinking, and something that we’ve been thinking about just lately is the fact that the world needs more, better leaders.
J: We think there’s some really great leaders in the world. Let’s first just say that. We don’t think the world is completely devoid of great leadership. There’s some fantastic leaders out there. We just need a whole lot more of them. And because we’re a leadership company, that’s essentially what we do. We think about this a lot.
J: And we try to do our little piece for making, you know, some better leaders, I guess. We like to say better people make better leaders. And so we teach a lot of people skills and we try to make better leaders. But we don’t, we always get a little bit nervous, I guess, when we start talking about these ideas of the world needs better leaders.
J: It sounds very idealistic. And we don’t like to leave our listeners dangling in this space of idealism. Because idealism doesn’t do very well in the world. So we like to bring it down to size and get a little more practical. So that’s what we wanted to see if we can put something around that today, Courtney.
C: So two things come up for me around that. First, like it’s not the world that you need to fix. It’s your world. Your world. Who are your people? Who are your customers? Who are your, where’s your family? Like, define your world and make a difference in that. Because if everyone said, What can I do in my world?
C: There can be a significant impact so that the world will change if you change your world that things are interchangeable. But sometimes I think people get in that idealistic space, you’re like, Oh, the whole, you know, something has to be grand more grandiose than it really is. Just what’s your world?
C: Who are your people? Who do you see every day? And how do you show up in a way that makes their life, their time, their goals better, right? Um, so that’s the first thing that comes to mind. And the second thing, like we’ve been saying a lot, like be a leader, the world needs more than just be one.
And that’s simple statement of “Be One” means that we each have a choice to step up, like it’s your turn. The world needs it. You have a lot more power than you think to demonstrate good behavior, to take an extra minute and care about someone, to ask the next question, to demonstrate trust. Right, to believe in someone and, and challenge them to, to do more than they can see in themselves.
C: Like that, all those moments are leadership moments. That’s all leadership is a moment, a moment, a moment. And so I think to be one just means embracing those moments. And we’re doing a lot of leadership coaching right now, and it’s just interesting. Like it’s scary. Even a tiny thing to say I’m gonna be that leader.
C: It’s my turn. Mm hmm. Yeah, we see people kind of pause and go Me. Yeah, you do this.
J: Yeah, I agree with all of that of just this idea of be one to see those leadership moments and take it it is your turn One of the things that I’ll just add, because we like to strike some nuance in these conversations, we, again, we don’t want it to seem too idealist, is, um, is to think about how you show up in doing that.
J: It’s, um, and so we end up talking a lot about humility in this line of work. Uh, we actually talk about humility as being the most indispensable of all the skills that a leader could have because it has to begin and end with not being self-absorbed. And that is different than, um, being Right. That’s right.
J: It’s different than being right. You know, when I say sometimes to, to people like to show up with a sense of humility. It, I’m not saying to them, don’t show up confident.
C: Quite the opposite. It’s
J: quite the opposite because confidence in leadership, I’m sorry, confidence and humility are, are hand in hand.
J: You, you can’t really have one without the other. And when, when you show up with confidence, you are far less likely to be hijacked by all of your worries and fears about not being good enough, you know, making a mistake, not being right. Uh, and when you get hijacked by that stuff, you miss all these leadership moments.
J: And so I think one of the messages that we always like to include in this conversation about being a leader. Is to show up with humility, to show up ready to serve others, to put your work into the world with humility and to see other people and understand that that’s what leaders do.
C: Yeah, it’s such a delicate; the example that’s coming to mind for me is when people talk about servant leadership.
C: And any strength or good idea dialed up too high can become a weakness, right? So I’m being a servant. So now I’m giving more. I’m not good at setting boundaries. I’m uh, I’m, I’m not making other people do their own work because I, you know, I don’t want to deal with the fallout and have to, you’re, you think you’re being helpful,
J: right?
C: But what your team needs from you is expectations. What your team needs is support. What your team needs is you to step back and let them be accountable for their own work. And so it’s just one example. And there’s a lot of them in leadership where we’re close, but we kind of step over the line and get it wrong.
C: Yeah. There’s a lot of nuance iin being one. And so we’ll continue to explore that with you, um, and as we continue to think about it and, and think of ways that we can make that real for you and, and help you to find your way in being one of those great leaders. So that’s all for this episode of our Shotcast, but we always, oh my goodness, we always have so much more to say.
J: If you want more, you can certainly drop us a line at Slingshot25. com. Until next time.