46 - How To Be a Truly Great Leader w/ Scott Miller

Welcome back to the Instant Impact podcast with your host, Elyse Archer! Today’s episode is a little bit longer—and for good reason. Elyse is sitting down with a leadership powerhouse. His name is Scott Miller, and he’s the Executive Vice President of Thought Leadership and the Chief Marketing Officer at FranklinCovey. He’s a best selling author of multiple books and all-around guru when it comes to leading a team. Scott and Elyse are sitting down to break down 6 critical practices for leading a team, including what it means to be a leader and how we can motivate, mobilize, and create a culture of success within your team. Scott and Elyse first dive into today’s topic by talking about how we find ourselves in leadership positions. Often times, it’s accidental. In fact, Scott mentions that some people shouldn’t be leaders. Not everyone is always prepared for what comes with the role—things like confrontation and confidence can be hindrances preventing you from showing up as the best leader you can. But, he says, there are 6 key practices that can help you lead your team. The first practice, Scott explains, is developing a leader’s mindset. This means assessing paradigms that exist within your team and transitioning, empowering, or phasing out practices or behaviors that aren’t conducive to your team’s success. It also means asking yourself important questions like ‘What kind of leader does my team need? Secondly, holding 1 on 1 meetings is critical to keeping your team feeling heard and understood—to massively important aspects tied to happiness. Think about how you can become a better listener, how to get your team engaged, and how you can adapt when leading a virtual team. The third practice is setting your team up for success. This may seem obvious, but it’s not as simple as it may seem. Scott and Elyse discuss working in the system vs working on the system, the different types of leaders, and the framework for delegating tasks effectively. Fourth on the list of practices is creating a culture of feedback. Feedback can exist on two ends of the spectrum—too much courage and too much conversation. The key is finding a balance! Elyse and Scott also talk about reinforcing feedback and the stats that come with it: high performing teams are 6x as likely to provide reinforcing feedback than average teams. And low performing teams share nearly 2x as much negative feedback as average-performing teams. Fifth is leading your team through change. Change is inevitable. What we can do as leaders is prepare, guide, and support our team as it happens. Scott breaks down the best ways to do this and what it means when we do so. Meet people where they are. Finally, managing your time and energy is absolutely essential for the betterment of your team. If you can’t show up for yourself, how can you for your team? You can’t pour from an empty cup! Links Google Scott Miller at FranklinCovey--it’s hard not to find him! Request a free Brand Strategy Call: http://thebrandbuildersgroup.com/callelyse