Episode 2: How YOU Can Lead Anyone Part 1 - The Power Behind the Leader | 12MinuteLeadership

Personal power determines whether people follow you or forget you, and it has nothing to do with title but everything to do with knowing who you are and where you're headed. Clarity in vision and values allows leaders to inspire commitment rather than simply demanding compliance.

• Personal power is exemplified by Mother Teresa who, despite her small stature and lack of resources, got the world to listen because of her clear vision
• Many leaders struggle with being clear and communicating with clarity, even at the highest levels
• Signs you need to build personal power: chronic indecisiveness, avoiding confrontation, difficulty defending ideas
• Case study of CEO "Adam" who transformed an architectural firm by developing his leadership philosophy rather than bulldozing through resistance
• Creating a personal leadership philosophy includes defining your values, vision, and what you want to be known for
• Five questions to develop your philosophy: qualities you admire in leaders, your values, how you want to be described, your personal cause, and what you want to influence

Pick up my book Lead Anyone on Amazon and visit www.eliseboggs.com to learn about executive retreats, customized training, and coaching to help you level up your leadership and accelerate results.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the 12-Minute Leadership Podcast
where, in 12 minutes or less,I'll share small things that you
can put into immediate practicethat will make a big difference
in your leadershipeffectiveness.
I'm your host, eliseBoggs-Morales leadership
professor, consultant and coach.
For the last 17 years, I havehelped thousands of leaders

(00:25):
level up their influence andachieve remarkable results.
If you want to trade compliancefor true commitment and create
your dream team, you are in theright place.
Get ready for a quick hit ofpractical wisdom to increase
your team's engagement, inspiretop performance and retain your
best talent.
Ready to level up yourinfluence and get better results

(00:47):
.
12 Minutes starts now.
Hi everyone, elise here,welcome to episode four how you
Can Lead Anyone.
Since my book Lead Anyone justcame out, I thought it might be
fun to give you a sneak peekinto some of my favorite
chapters.
I love the way that this bookis set up for busy leaders.

(01:09):
It's a series of 28 short dailyreadings that introduce a skill
, tell the true story of astruggling leader who was
coached into learning that skill.
You'll hear about the resultsthat they achieved and then some
actions anyone can take rightaway some in as little as 15
minutes or less to achieve thesame result.

(01:29):
Today's episode is taken fromday three, which talks about
something that quietlydetermines whether people follow
you or forget you.
It's personal power, and it'seasy to associate this with the
loudest person in the room orthe person with the corner
office, but personal poweractually has nothing to do with
the title and everything to dowith how clearly you know who

(01:53):
you are and where you're headed.
One of my favorite examples ofpersonal power is Mother Teresa.
In my 20s, I spent some timeliving in India and volunteered
at her home for the dying.
Mother Teresa is fascinating tome in that she was so small in
stature and had no personalresources of her own, and yet

(02:14):
she got the whole world tolisten to her.
Why?
Because she had a clear visionand was able to communicate in a
compelling way to invite othersto help her fulfill that vision
.
In my work, I have facilitatedthousands of leadership 360s,
and what I have found to be acommon theme of feedback for

(02:34):
many leaders is a need for clearvision and values for others to
follow.
Being clear and being able tocommunicate with clarity is a
common struggle for leaders,even at the highest levels.
So how do you know that you mayneed to build your skill set
and personal power.
Here are three symptoms youfind yourself being indecisive

(02:55):
or overthinking leadershipdecisions, and of course, that's
going to happen from time totime, but is it a consistent
pattern?
Another one you notice that youare avoiding confrontations
with your team, even if that'swhat is needed to solve a
problem.
One more you sometimes find itdifficult to defend your ideas

(03:15):
to your peers or team and canget easily swayed by others'
opinions.
If you can relate to any ofthese and most of us can it
might not be about strategy orskill.
It might be about building yoursense of personal power.
To show you what building yoursense of personal power can look

(03:35):
like, in today's episode I'mgoing to share a real story from
a real leader that I workedwith, who completely transformed
a company culture and it wasn'tby force but by vision and
we'll talk about how you cantake those same lessons to build
your own sense of personalpower.
One of my favorite examples ofthis comes from a coaching

(03:56):
client of mine.
Let's call him Adam.
Adam stepped into the role ofCEO at a successful
architectural firm.
The leadership before him hadbeen in the role for 20 plus
years, so he had some pretty bigshoes to fill and the executive
team that he inherited.
They were mostly his senior,mostly skeptical, and they were

(04:18):
deeply rooted in a culture ofautonomy that on one hand worked
well but had also developedinto silos that were no longer
collaborating with each other.
So there wasn't a lot ofalignment at the top.
Their focus was mostly on thework and on the client, not so
much strengthening the internalculture that supported the work.

(04:38):
Also, they had experienced acertain level of success.
So why change?
One compelling reason was theneeds and desires of the new
millennial workforce, and manyof you leaders will relate to
this.
They want a culture of purposebeyond the work, a strong sense
of community with those theywork with.
They want mentorship and careerdevelopment opportunities.

(05:02):
So Adam was at odds, with twodifferent cultures, needing two
different things and having twodifferent philosophies.
The former was kind of a sinkor swim attitude and the other,
the new workforce coming inwould need a lot more hands on
engagement to be able to succeed.
So to bridge that gap, adamneeded to have a strong sense of

(05:24):
personal power.
Adam knew something had tochange, but he also knew this
that if he tried to bulldoze hisway through long-held tradition
, he definitely would lose sometrust, so we had to think of a
long-term strategy that wouldallow Adam to establish himself
as the new leader and wouldalign the two cultures.

(05:45):
We did several different things,and I'm going to highlight one
of those things today, because Ibelieve it was the most
important thing that laid thefoundation for everything that
was to follow.
The first thing that Iencouraged Adam to do was to
build his personal leadershipphilosophy, and I'm curious how
many of you out there have donethis.
A personal leadershipphilosophy includes your values,

(06:09):
your vision and what you wantto be known for as a leader.
When Adam did this, thatclarity gave him the footing to
build trust, not only withhimself in terms of confidence,
but also with his team, not bydemanding it, but by living it.
His philosophy served as aguide for decision-making,

(06:31):
establishing priorities and alsoinformed some difficult
conversations that needed to behad.
With the clarity that hisleadership philosophy provided.
We then got to work, buildingrelationships and rapport with
both groups.
We did a series of engagementinterviews, got really valuable
data that helped us get a clearpicture of where things were at,

(06:53):
where people wanted to seethings go and how Adam could
find both common ground and fillthe gaps with new ideas for the
future.
Inevitably, he encountered someresistance, but he stayed true
to his values, true to hisvision, and over time things
started to get into alignmentand 10 years later the firm is

(07:15):
thriving.
In fact, it's the model officethat so many other offices in
the company look to fordevelopment.
That's the power of personalpower.
So how can you get the samekind of results that Adam did?
Here's what you can do Createyour own personal philosophy.
Here are some questions toconsider when you're putting

(07:37):
that together.
It's typically one to twoparagraphs, short, succinct but
clear.
Number one what are thequalities of the leaders you
respect and admire the most?
Two what are your ownleadership values?
Three how do you want others todescribe you as a person and
leader?
Number four what is yourpersonal cause?

(08:00):
And five what do you want to beable to influence through your
leadership?
Here's an example of aleadership philosophy based on
those questions.
I lead a team that achievesremarkable results.
I inspire others with a clearand compelling vision and
empower people to use theirstrengths and pursue their

(08:22):
passions.
I make myself accessible tomentor and guide my team, and I
am intentional about creatingmore leaders.
I set lofty goals and create asense of excitement to achieve
big things.
My hope is that you areinspired by Adam's story.
Maybe you're stepping into anew leadership role or you just

(08:44):
don't feel aligned with yourteam.
Maybe it's about getting clear,and one of the first steps that
you can do to get clear andincrease your personal power is
to create a personal leadershipphilosophy.
The amount of time you spenttoday listening to today's
podcast is about the same amountof time in reading a chapter of
my book.
As I mentioned before, each dayis a series of short daily

(09:09):
readings packed with practicalleadership wisdom and action
steps you can take right away.
I hope you enjoyed today'sepisode.
Join me next time for part twoof how you Can Lead.
Anyone See you then Like whatyou heard on today's episode and
wanna go deeper?

(09:29):
Subscribe to this podcast soyou never miss an episode.
You can also pick up my bookLead Anyone on Amazon.
Then go to my website to checkout ways that we can support
your leadership goals.
From executive retreats tocustomized training and coaching
, my team of experts will helpyou level up your leadership and

(09:50):
accelerate your results.
Go to wwweliseboggscom for moreinfo.