#41: The Ripple Effects of Underdeveloped Leadership — Part 2

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Eric:  Welcome to the Empower Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Pfeiffer, CEO of Empower. Coaching leadership isn't about titles or positions. It's actually about the influence and impact we have on our environments. This is where we get to learn how to operate well under pressure, lead with confidence, and drive meaningful results.

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Welcome back to all of our wonderful listeners as we jump into really what becomes a part two from our last episode on the Ripple effect. Underdeveloped leadership. This is a, a powerful image, John, that you and I explored last week that helps us understand that very often, the challenges, the problems, the things that aren't working in our teams, in our  organization that we see are more often than not, more often than we would expect, more often than I think we've liked to admit really sourced.

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We talked about the importance of having a shared playbook, radical minimum standards that we hold ourselves to and. Those around us so that we can have a better sense of alignment. But what happens is, just like we talked about in the kinda analogy of, of chiropractic work, when our spine is out of alignment any way, shape or form, just one little lack of alignment has a rippling impact on the experience that we have in the rest of our body.

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I just was blown away by how. I was thinking about my own leadership journey.  Yeah. And that these ripples are just as common in, in my journey as I'm sure they are in the clients and the listeners of our podcast. And so what I wanna say here at the beginning, before we jump into the last two or three ripples that we see very often, um, that if you resonate with these ripples, guess what?

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Dawn: I, yes,  I think I, I wanna add that this is not only how we partner with our podcast listeners, but this is frankly how you and I partner each other

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Development is an ongoing process, and as we achieve new levels, as our business grows and develops because of our own hard work and success, we as leaders have to continue to to develop  and level up along with our business. So what we often say to each other, to our clients is, Hey, what got you here is not gonna get you there.

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Dawn: As we go into these ripples to remind our listeners that this is often, these ripples that we are picking up in our team are often an opportunity for us to then change the lens and say,  where do I need to look at how I'm leading?

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You might see people on your team tiptoeing around issues, or you might see other emotional, what seem like overreactions situations that arise.  Eric, if our listeners are resonating with some of these symptoms. How would you coach a leader to kind of shift that internal situation so that they can change the ripples for their team?

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Is there excitement? Is everybody upset? Is it isolated? Are people communicating? Is there energy? Is there not energy? Is there good energy? Is there bad energy? Whatever the case is. More often than not, we show up. And we just become reactive and we begin if we're not careful  just to reflect the prevailing temperature of that space.

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Eric: So if I show up to an environment, and I think that environment, uh, requires encouragement or it requires some affirmation or requires some positivity, not toxic positive, but just some healthy  positivity.

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If I don't know how to shift my own temperature, then I'm only ever gonna bring what I currently have. Mm-hmm. And so if I'm stressed, anxious, frustrated, you know about what happened that morning, that's all I get to bring to the room. And so this idea of as leaders being the thermostat where we have the authority and power to shift the temperature of a space requires that we first are able to  shift our own temperature because we are the source of that shift.

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Humility and self love.  The ability to identify the indicators of, Hey, something's disrupting me. I am mentally, emotionally, or physically feeling agitated or whatever. You know? Oftentimes it's learning how to pay attention to the, the cues of our emotions and where's our mindset and how are we feeling physically, right?

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If I'm going to meet with my therapist, it is wildly appropriate that I show up ready to be completely consumed about myself 'cause that's what I'm there for. And if I'm angry, sad, depressed, exhilarated, I get to bring this kind of. Completely unfiltered version of myself to that environment.  And that's appropriate with when I go home and I'm talking to my wife and processing my day, that is appropriate for me to not be overly concerned in that conversation, which she's asking about me, she's like, oh, I've gotta control the temperature of this environment.

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Once we have self aware, self leadership. What's my temperature? I'm gonna choose my temperature. Then we get to practice being aware of the environment around us.

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Eric: Right. So if I show up and I'm like, Hey Don, what's up? I'm grumpy.  I don't want to do, this is stupid.

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Eric: the temperature that we want, and this is how we're going to  this, is that what we're gonna bring to the table? Now all of a sudden, there's nothing you can't change. There's nothing you can't change.

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And over time, guess what? The entire arena, the temperature shifts  to the, the desired temperature, and that's how you transform environments and culture.

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Eric: Okay. Uh, I'll throw out a few things if you want to add or double click on anything. Number one, we believe that our  leadership capacity. Begins with recognizing that we and only we can control our internal temperature. Oh, we love to blame the world around us. We love to blame people. We love to blame circumstance.

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So we need to stop blaming everybody else  and remember that we get to choose who we are now. Number two, we will be in an environment where if we fight to bring the appropriate temperature, it will influence people. And sometimes people will realize, you know what, the temperature that you're fighting for is so much better than the temperature that I'm fighting for.

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Someone had pulled up their car to load their golf clubs in the back of their car as they were getting ready to park. And as I'm walking by and I, the older guy, I looked at him, I  smiled that way. I said, Hey, good evening, sir. Have a great rest of your day. And as I kept walking, he goes. Aren't you just a happy one?

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It doesn't mean we can, it doesn't mean we have enough power in ourself to  change the complete environment of a team, an organization, right? This is what we're talking about. Your car, your personal space versus the home. Now you got a lot of other people involved versus an arena where you've got thousands of people involved.

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We're in Diego, we don't really have to turn our AC units on most of the year until it gets right about August and then all of a sudden it just, the heat spikes and you turn on the AC for the first time in months and what happens? Well,  right? And so there are moments in which we have to say, you know what?

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Dawn: Yeah. That's good. That's good. All right. That's really help I think. I think that's really helpful for people. I hope it is. Okay. The next ripple that we  see frequently is what we call cultural drift. Now, this is what happens when we as leaders are inconsistent, maybe in follow through, maybe in our standards or communication, maybe in our own clarity.

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Okay. I'm, I'm just, I'm trying to, in  my, in my brain. 'cause I, I, so everything in me, I'm thinking about all these people we've worked with are currently working with, and I'm trying to like, honor every possible scenario that our listeners could be experiencing. And I know we can't do that. So I'm gonna just touch on a few that are probably most common that I've, I've seen a cultural drift happens for a few key reasons.

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We're waiting till next year when we do our big offsite team to really deal with this stuff. Uh, 'cause we're just trying to get through the day. So I think one part of, one, one source of that drift is we have had clarity and then we lose it in the midst of that kind of hustle and bustle of, of the daily activity.

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Like it's not intentionally that they're trying to cause a cultural drift. They will just operate out of their own understanding of how things should be. And there you will experience a cultural drift. So, so sometimes just introducing people, building, you acquire a new  division, you suddenly, you're sales team has grown.

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Eric: that all the way down to. Um, the, the loss of a spouse, a child, a loved one of, for somebody who's high up in leadership, it could be the, the unfortunate discovery of somebody's, you know,  has cancer and has to fight cancer. It could be, I mean, literally as simple as I was working with A-A-A-C-E-O of a company whose assistant got pregnant.

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Some of these cultural drifts that we're  experiencing.

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So being able to identify where's the source versus the symptom. I would say that's the first thing. Secondly, a, we, we  correct adrift the same way every single time we reconnect. To the, the way in which we want to operate.

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In my younger years and having worked with multiple professional sports organizations, I'm very aware that oftentimes what happens in with for a lot of athletes is right in their younger years, they learned what we call the fundamentals, like the building blocks of their activity. That's what our  leadership operating system is, right?

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Why are you putting 153 footers in a row still at this point in your career? Oh, those are the fundamentals because when we lose the fundamentals. Yeah. When we, when we get derailed from that row, those radical minimum standards, that little, you know, that trajectory shift, like just a slight departure in angle from our original  direction over time

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Dawn: yep. Because what do we always say? You can't change what you can't see. And oftentimes as leaders, we are moving at breakneck speeds and we feel like we can't slow down,  we, there's no option. I have to keep going. Yeah. But if you're going fast in the wrong direction, that's not helpful to anybody. So ultimately slowing down long enough to notice what's going on, assess whether you are still in alignment, and then figure out a plan for how you're going to orient the team back to those initial vision and values.

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It is communicated that people are equipped  and supported and partnered as they move in that direction. That there is a clear accountability structure and development structure. And inevitably, because we live in this world and we're human beings, we are going to over and over experience things that will derail us, that will get us slightly off track, that will get us moving in the wrong direction.

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Yeah.  But really the actual journey is like a zigzag. We're we're moving on the line and then we get derailed and then we come back and then we, and then we get derailed, then we come back, and then we get derailed, and then we come back and we get derail. And so what we essentially do for leaders is equip them to have the ability to not only understand what that line is, that lane.

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In any other area of our life, because guess what, my wife and I have spent almost 25 years now, and I'm sure this is true for you and your husband, drew, that we, we, we kind of have an idea of what that line's supposed to look like for marriage, for our finances, for raising our kids. But my gosh, I tell  people, I don't know.

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Dawn: Yeah,  totally. This happens long after the earlier warning signs. Right? So you can even think of like these previous ones as.

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Dawn: Yeah. But when it comes to our bottom line.  This is the point where leaders are finally like, oh no, I need to start paying attention to this. Yeah. So this is often a space where leaders finally come to us. Um, what do you, how do you coach leaders who are experiencing this significant result and performance gap?

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Effective leadership training, like the, the, like the systems, the building  blocks of how we operate as an increase in asset, as how we mitigate against the, the insecurities and deficiencies and toxicities of our life. It's just, I'm just like struck by like, this is so common.

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Eric: They're at the end of their road, what, whatever they feel that is. And I respect that and I appreciate it, but it, it grieves me. I'm using the marriage because I think that's where, what happens to us in  life. I don't know what to do with my kids. And so we just settle for what is, I don't know what to do with my team.

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Just a sense of like, really, is this who I am? Is this what I'm struggling with? Is  this, what I'm bringing to the table is this, is this all I got? But that is, that is part of the pathway to growth and transformation.

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Eric: And, um, yeah, I, no, I, I really appreciate what you're saying. I think, you know, I wanna just, I wanna verbalize this, uh, we're having a, we're having a kind of a, uh, a  little off script moment here in this podcast. I wanna try to verbalize this because. Here's what I, I don't think it's because people don't want the change, right?

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And all we can say to clients is, Hey, give us a little bit of time. Just give us three months. And if, if the needle hasn't moved significantly,  then please we'll be the first people to bow out and say, we can't help you. But here's what we find, like 99.999% of the time, as people say, holy crap, we have moved the needle more in three months than we did in the last three years.

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I need a system. I need a  simple way to help me operate more effectively. So anyways, I just, I wanna say that because for what it's worth. I just wanna say to our listeners, our system works.

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I, but I'm so, like, I'm getting to the point where I'm like, I'm more passionate about getting this operating system into the hands of more people. And if that means me kind of  eating my ego and my pride to brag about, I'm not bragging about the system. I'm bragging about the results. Yeah, I'm bragging about the impact.

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Dawn: like. We want to come alongside you. This is why we show up and do this podcast  just so we can get this out into the ether. Um,

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Like end of story. Yep. We know that it's a guarantee, like money back  guarantee. Anyway. Okay, so I know we need to jump into our outro, so why don't, why don't you just jump in there and then we'll finish up and, and let these people rest.

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Just  know that we love being on this journey with you. And guess what? You are not alone. You're a part of this beautiful tribe called the Empower Coaching Tribe. Uh, and we wanna change this world, but that begins with, um, changing ourselves. So we'll see you next time. Hey, thanks for tuning into this powerful episode.