Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hey there and welcome
to Leveraging Operations in
Leadership, the podcast where wetalk about the strategies,
systems and mindset shifts thathelp leaders build
high-performing teams andsustainable success.
I'm your host, tonya D Harrison, and today we're going to be
(00:31):
talking about something thatreally should be a part of the
leadership playbook but oftendoesn't make it in.
This is the power of reflectionhow leaders grow through
self-assessment.
Now, here's the truth.
Great leaders don't just leadothers.
(00:52):
They learn by leadingthemselves first.
We have to become really greatleaders at leading ourselves
first, and this is somethingthat you hear me talk about.
When we're talking about timemanagement, when we're trying to
help our team manage their timeand be more efficient and
effective, we have to applythose things to ourselves first.
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Leadership is no different.
The first person you need tolearn how to lead is you.
But let's talk about why.
Reflection is not just somethingthat is a fluffy, soft skill,
but a high leverage habit.
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This is a strategic leadershiptool.
This is something that youreally want to be strategic
about.
It's the thing that separatesreactive leadership from
intentional leadership.
Reactive leadership is whenyou're always running around
with your air on fire, puttingout fires or responding to
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problems as they arise andmaking decisions in the moment
without the bigger picturestrategy, without taking in
consideration all of theinformation that you have
available.
The result of that is usuallyburnout, misalignment and a team
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that is just as reactive as youare, because a lot of teams a
lot of times our teams followour lead, whereas when you are
more intentional and you have anintentional leadership, it's
about being proactive.
It's rooted in clarity,reflection and purpose.
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It's about forward thinking andleading with your eyes up, not
just your heads down.
This is something that I'vetalked about before and you'll
hear me say often as leaders, wecan't just go through with our
heads down.
We have to look forward.
We have to have our eyes up.
Intentional leaders don't justreact.
(03:03):
They actually respond, but whenthey respond is with clarity
and strategy.
When you take the time toreflect on your performance,
what worked, what didn't workand where you showed up strong
or not so strong, you gainclarity, and that clarity is
going to help you make betterdecisions.
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Reflection helps you align yourleadership with your values and
your goals and, moreimportantly, it helps you to see
your blind spots before yourteam actually feels them.
This is something that youreally want to be mindful of and
you really want to takeadvantage of.
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This is a tool that you shouldbe taking advantage of.
At the end of the day, the goalis for us to grow, to become
better leaders, not be in thesame place today as we were a
year from now, a year ago.
So today I'm going to share sometechniques that you can use to
get started.
Here is where you want to goand get your pen and paper so
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that you can start to take notes.
All right, let's get practical.
If you want to level up as aleader, here are five solid
techniques for assessment,self-assessments and reflection.
The first one is a little bitmore structured, and this may
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involve tools, not may.
This will involve tools, and I'mthinking about things like the
360 degree feedback tool, whichhelps you to gather insights
from people that are on the samelevel as you, so your peers,
people that report to you,people that you report to.
Sometimes, people get feedbackfrom clients.
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If you have a heavy interactionwith clients, it's a
comprehensive tool that isobjective and often humbling,
but if you're serious aboutgrowth, you want the truth, even
if it stings a little bit.
This is a tool that I usewithin my lead ops program.
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Other leadership programs mayhave them coaching.
If you're working with a coach,you may take it, and then HR
departments sometimes have theseas a tool.
Also.
Another great tool that I useis the Myers-Briggs type
indicator.
This helps you to understand alittle bit more about your
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natural preferences Anythingfrom how you communicate, make
decisions, handle conflict.
Being armed with thisinformation is going to better
prepare you for your leadershipjourney.
And there's also tools like theDIS, the Hogan Assessment.
There's a lot out there.
Some of them you can go and youcan take online.
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Some of them, like I said, youmay need to go through your HR
department or a training programor something like that, but
those are some of the morestructured tools.
If you don't have access tothem, don't worry, because I got
other techniques that are goingto help you, but those are the
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more structured ones, so keepthose in mind, right, those are.
What I like about them is theyactually help to kind of guide
you through the process.
They have prompts, right.
They're prompted with questionsand to get you to think about
different things in differentways and, based on your
responses, you have a reportthat you'll receive the second
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type of technique that I want toshare with you is weekly
leadership retrospectives.
Now reflection has to become ahabit.
I recommend that, every week,that you go back and you do a
leadership retrospective.
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And here's how it works.
It's really straightforward andsimple.
The biggest part of it ismaking sure that you are truly
thinking out of the box andyou're consistently doing it.
Block 30 minutes at the end ofyour week.
You want to do this everysingle week.
Pick a time of day, a day ofthe week where you can block 30
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minutes and you can sit in timewith yourself Uninterrupted time
with yourself and you want toask yourself a couple of
questions what went well in myleadership this week?
I always talk about having abrag book.
You want to know what went well, if there were some wins.
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Make sure you're documentingthis.
Where did I struggle and whydid I struggle?
This is an opportunity toreally face some of the things
that did not go well and thenalso to understand why they
didn't go well.
Third question is what feedbackdid I receive, whether it be
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directly or indirectly, and onceyou document what that feedback
is, I want you to process it.
I want you to really process itand think about the feedback
that you got, whether it wasdirectly or indirectly.
And the last question is whatwill I do differently next week?
You're looking back, you'rethinking through these things
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and you are already putting aplan in place for the next week.
Here's where you're starting tobe more intentional, just by
doing the reflective assessmentright and then by putting a plan
in place for the following week.
And you basically want to keepa journal, and this could be
handwritten or you could do adigital, whatever you're
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comfortable with, but as you dothis week by week, by week, 52
could do a digital whateveryou're comfortable with, but as
you do this week by week, byweek, 52 times in a year, over
time, there's going to bepatterns that emerge and there's
also going to be some solutions.
These you want to reallyevaluate this and see what shows
up.
All right, that is techniquenumber two.
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Let's move on to techniquenumber three, and you can pause
this recording at any time Keyresults check-in.
Now, another approach I like touse is to tie reflection into
your goals and your KPIs byintegrating regular reflection
with your goals and your KPIs oryour key performance indicators
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.
This isn't just a productivityhack.
Yes, it is good forproductivity, but it's not just
a productivity hack.
It's actually a game changerwhen it comes to intentional
leadership.
Think of it as your personalGPS.
It's going to guide you towardwhat's working and highlight
areas that may need a littleextra TLC when you pause to
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reflect on your progress.
You're not just checking boxes.
It's not just something to do.
You are actively aligning yourday-to-day, your daily actions
with your broader objectives andyou are ensuring that every
step you take is purposeful.
Are you hitting your leadershipKPIs?
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This is something to thinkabout, and when you're thinking
about your leadership KPIs,think about your team.
Think about team engagement,product delivery, overall team
goals, conflict resolution, teamcommunication.
Think about all of these thingsand ask yourself, as it relates
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to your team is your teamperforming well because of my
leadership or, in spite of itand you flip that as well Is my
team underperforming because ofmy leadership?
These are some hard questionsthat you want the answer to.
Checking in on these metricsregularly, they allow you to
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course correct before smallissues turn into full-blown
problems, to full-blown problems, and that's what we want to do.
All right, number four, thetrusted advisor debrief, or what
I like to say, is aligningyourself with the truth teller.
So leadership can be lonely.
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We know that we really do.
We know that leadership can belonely, but it doesn't have to
be.
And what you want to do is youwant to set yourself up with a
mentor or a coach, and this isgoing to be your truth teller.
You want to make sure you picksomebody who's not afraid to
give you insight, but give it toyou straight, not a lot of
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fluff, not a lot of beatingaround the bush.
They are going to be truthfulwith you and it's not always
going to feel good, right, butit's something that we need, and
you want to make sure thatyou're asking them.
What's one thing that younotice in my leadership lately
that I might be missing?
Because not only is this personable to give you direct
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feedback, but a lot of timesthey are able to identify blind
spots.
They're able to help you seesome blind spots that you may
have things that you didn't seeor didn't take into
consideration.
And let me warn you, when youare working with a truth teller
because I'm a truth teller,because I'm a truth teller
anybody that I coach I make sureto let them know I'm a truth
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teller.
You want to make sure that youare listening with an open heart
.
Don't defend it, don't justify,don't make excuses.
Just take it all in and beginto process it.
This is somebody that you cantrust.
This is somebody that is goingto give you feedback from a good
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place, because they want to seeyou do better.
So just take it all in andstart to process it.
And let me tell you somethingthis is gold.
This is gold.
This is gold.
This is real feedback fromsomeone who sees a bigger
picture.
Remember, you're in it.
You're deep in it, day afterday after day.
You're deep in it.
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This is someone that has takena step back.
They're not in the day-to-daylike you are.
They're seeing it from a biggerpicture, a wider angle.
Just take it all in and if youhave questions later, you can
ask those questions likefollow-up questions.
But it's not coming from aplace of trying to defend it and
justify it.
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It's just for betterunderstanding.
All right, technique numberfive, and this is the final one,
and this is really where a lotof what we talked about comes
together Every quarter, you wantto take a deeper dive.
You got your weekly reflectivemoments that you're doing 30
minutes tops, but every quarteryou're going to take a deeper
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dive and you're going to look atthe last 90 days of your
leadership.
You're going to refer back toyour weekly journal.
You're going to refer back toany meetings and feedback that
you've received from your mentoror your coach.
You're going to think about anyfeedback that you got, whether
it be directly or indirectly,from your team, your boss, your
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peers.
All of that is going to beconsidered and you're going to
ask yourself again a couple ofquestions.
And when we're talking aboutreflecting, you're really asking
yourself some deep questionsand sometimes some difficult
questions when have I grown?
Because we should be makingprogress, so you want to be able
to identify where you've grown.
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Where have you coasted?
We all have those momentsyou've grown.
Where have you coasted?
We all have those moments andthose things.
Where have you coasted?
You just gliding along?
What areas can I improve?
Because we want to get better?
And here's a big one what did Iavoid that?
I need to face head on that.
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I need to face head on.
And when you are early inleadership this happens more
often than we talk about wherethere's just some things that
you just put off, whether it's aconversation with your boss or
a team member.
There's just some things thatwe put off, but what are some
things that you absolutely needto face head on?
This gives you space to zoomout and reconnect your
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leadership practice with yourlong-term goals and the needs of
your team.
After you have all of youranswers now, you can start
planning the next 90 days.
Okay, all right, and so that'sthe five tips.
Those are the five things thatyou could do right now in order
to really start to be morereflective and more intentional
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when it comes to your leadershipjourney.
All right, go back, review them, make sure you are implementing
them.
You can start now.
I know we've passed the first ofthe year, but it doesn't matter
.
The goal is to start, andreflection is operational, it's
strategic and it's one of themost underutilized tools in
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leadership.
So we have a lot of informationright at our fingertips.
We just have to be willing toset aside the time and ask
ourselves the tough questions.
When you commit to a regularself-assessment, you stop
running on autopilot and justbeing reactive and you start
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leading with intention and youhave more clarity.
So here's my challenge to youPick one of these techniques and
commit to it for the next 30days.
Just one to get started.
If you're new to this, pick oneto get started.
Whether it's a weeklyretrospective or a mentor
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debrief or, like I said, a truthteller debrief, put it on your
calendar and honor it like anyother leadership priority,
because this is important toyour growth.
Your team deserves a leader whois learning and evolving, and
you deserve to be that kind ofleader and you deserve to show
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up in a way that makes you proud.
All right, so thanks forjoining me today on Leveraging
Operations and Leadership Inthis episode.
I hope I sparked something foryou.
If I did, be sure to like it,leave me a review and share it
with a fellow leader.
And don't forget.
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Don't forget until next time.
Keep leading with purpose,reflecting with courage and
operating in excellence.