February 25, 2025 • 16 mins
We’re continuing with the #LeaderSHIFT series on the podcast this week. These episodes are very direct & to the point, where we'll talk about the different challenges leaders tend to face & how to shift into becoming an influential leader who leads a healthy culture & engaged team!
In this episode, I’m sharing how you can shift from stalling on voiced problems to focusing on value proposition!
Need one-on-one help with navigating being a new leader? Schedule your complimentary clarity call with me here!
www.baproinc.com/ep167
Apply to join the New Leader, BIG IMPACT Coaching Program to level up your leadership & build an engaging team... even if the culture is toxic & without management's support! https://baproinc.com/newleaderbigimpact
Questions about this episode? Topic suggestions for future episodes? Send them to culture@businessadvocatespro.com
Let's chat about this episode on “X”: @BAPROINC or IG: @CultureBuildingPRO
The Culture Building like a PRO Podcast: Simple ways to transform your company culture... Today!
| Company Culture | Culture Building | Organizational Culture | Employee Engagement | Effective Leadership | Servant Leadership |
baproinc.com
In this episode, I’m sharing how you can shift from stalling on voiced problems to focusing on value proposition!
Need one-on-one help with navigating being a new leader? Schedule your complimentary clarity call with me here!
www.baproinc.com/ep167
Apply to join the New Leader, BIG IMPACT Coaching Program to level up your leadership & build an engaging team... even if the culture is toxic & without management's support! https://baproinc.com/newleaderbigimpact
Questions about this episode? Topic suggestions for future episodes? Send them to culture@businessadvocatespro.com
Let's chat about this episode on “X”: @BAPROINC or IG: @CultureBuildingPRO
The Culture Building like a PRO Podcast: Simple ways to transform your company culture... Today!
| Company Culture | Culture Building | Organizational Culture | Employee Engagement | Effective Leadership | Servant Leadership |
baproinc.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Culture Building Like a Pro podcast, helping
small business owners and managers lead a company culture where
employees are engaged to do their best work because they
want to and not because they have to. Now, let's
jumpstart your culture transformation with company culture strategists, leadership coach
(00:24):
and trainer Deanna Applin.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Happy Tuesday and thanks for listening to the Culture Building
Like a Pro podcast. I'm Deanna, and I'm back again
with another episode in the hash tag Leadershift series. The
series was created to talk about the common challenges that
we face as leaders, the ones that just don't get
talked about enough, but more importantly, we dive into how
(00:51):
to overcome them and how you can shift into the
level of leadership that creates an impact and influences excellent
among your team. Over the years, the one thing that
I feel has been very almost transformational for me and
I've adopted not only for myself and how I do
(01:14):
my work and how I work with others, but also
in how I help clients, and that is the power
of value and more specifically getting clear on how you
can add value to voiced problems. And that's what we're
going to dive into more today. Oftentimes when we hear
(01:37):
the term value proposition, we might think about it in
terms of sales or like a sales offering, marketing even
But we're going to in a sense deconstruct that or
reframe the way that we will now think about value
proposition moving forward and how that applies to being more
(02:01):
impactful leaders. So, in the marketing and sales world, the
definition of value proposition is focusing on the customer value
and how a product or service can solve their problem
in a new or different way. So we're basically going
to take that and shape it to how we lead
(02:24):
our team. We are shifting from dismissing the voiced problems
from our team to adding value in how we lead.
I truly believe that doing this is a game changer
in leadership because ignoring or dismissing your team's concerns it
(02:44):
stalls everything. Installs progress, it stalls engagement, it stalls productivity.
It ultimately just creates frustration and resistance, which leads to
a toxic or dysfunctional culture. Sure, but when we start
to actively approach problems with a mindset of being of service,
(03:08):
you then begin to position yourself as a leader who
not only listens, but responds and build trust. If you've
listened to this podcast before, you know that I'm all
about tailoring certain concepts to how it can be specifically
applied and positioned for impactful leadership. One of the things
(03:33):
that I always talk about is not just having a vision,
but specifically having a leadership vision, because that's you're guiding
posts into how you make decisions, how you lead your team,
how you model and influence certain behaviors, and ultimately where
you want to see yourself as a leader. We're going
to do something similar in this episode, and that's getting
(03:55):
clear on what a leadership value proposition is. A leadership
value proposition is simply a unique way that you create
and add value to your team through your actions, through
your decisions, and how you handle challenges. So this is
(04:16):
how you turn the challenges or the voiced problems and
concerns from your team into opportunities to solve them and
cultivate growth for yourself, your team, and ultimately the organization
that you work for. This is especially important because this
is your unique way of doing this. This is how
(04:39):
you add value or another way to think of value,
because sometimes people can look at that as something that
has a price tag associated with it. But another way
to understand how you can add value is to consider
how you add usefulness and you can do that in
a unique way way that is specific to you, how
(05:03):
you want to lead and what matters most to your team.
This is why understanding the problems that your team voice
are so important, because they're giving you the blueprint, direct
insight into the areas of their environment, the processes that
(05:23):
they use, and even sometimes how you lead, and it
gives you the blueprint of how you can work to
reshape these When you dismiss the problems that your team voices,
it sends a message that their voice simply just doesn't
matter because they are in a leadership role, and as
(05:45):
we know, that is the easiest and fastest way to
destroy the trust and the morale on your team, is
going to lead to high turnover and it's a way
to miss opportunities to improve yourself as a leader and
the team. So here are five ways, five actionable ways
(06:09):
that you can shift to adding value to the voiced
problems that you receive from your team. Number one, adopt
a solution first mindset, so when someone brings a problem
to you, resist with all of your might, the knee
jerk reaction to get defensive or to dismiss what they're saying,
(06:31):
even if you don't necessarily agree with it. So instead,
what I want you to do is ask yourself, what
opportunity does this problem present for growth? And how can
I address this in a way that strengthens my team.
These are reflective questions that will give you very actionable
(06:53):
next steps for addressing what was brought to you. Practice
responding from a place of curiosity and also open the
door for you and your employee or your team to
have further conversation about it. So simply responding by saying,
thank you for bringing this to my attention, Let's figure
(07:13):
out how we can solve this together. Let's figure out
some solutions together. This opens the door for them to
not only share their feedback, but it builds trust, trust
that they can come to you when something else occurs,
and that you want to collaborate with them, which ultimately
(07:35):
builds more buy in and engagement with your team. Number two,
Acknowledge and validate your team's concerns. Everyone wants to feel heard.
I want to feel heard. You want to feel heard.
Your team wants to feel heard, and we want to
feel heard even if there isn't an immediate solution available.
(07:59):
It may seem easier to bypass and dismiss a concern
that someone brings to you in the moment simply because
you don't have an answer, but this can cause trust
issues over time. So start practicing listening to your team
actively whenever you meet with them, whether this is one
(08:21):
on one or as a group. Summarize and repeat back
what they're expressing to you so that you can show
that you heard them and that you want to understand them.
For example, it sounds like you're saying that the shipping
lead time is causing delays. Am I understanding that correctly?
(08:43):
A very simple response, but it shows that you heard
them and that you are clear on what the problem is,
and don't stop there. Take action on those concerns. Next,
identify the root cause, not just the symptoms. As I
always say, you can put a band aid on a
(09:07):
stomach ulcer, but it's not going to solve the problem.
A band aid on a stomach ulcer would be on
the outside of a stomach, and we know that an
ulcer is on the inside. We have to dig deep
sometimes the issues that your team brings up are the
symptom of a larger problem, and as a leader and
(09:30):
as their leader, it's your job to uncover what that
root cause is. So if you have to do a
little bit of digging to figure that out, that's okay.
Sometimes your team may not be able to tell you
the exact root cause, they're just telling you the symptoms.
But you can put your discovery head on and simply
(09:52):
use a method like the five Whys. It's a technique
where you keep asking why until you get to the
source of the issue. So, for example, let's say that
people on your team are complaining about how there's a
communication breakdown. You can simply take that information, but it's
(10:15):
very broad. What they're communicating to you is the surface
of what's going on, But you can dig into whether
or not that breakdown is because the processes are unclear,
because the meetings aren't productive that you guys are having,
maybe there isn't a good way that you guys are
(10:36):
following up with each other. Asking why until you dive
deeper into the source is what's going to help you
not just hear the complaint, but truly solve the root
cause of the problem. Next involve your team and problem solving.
You don't have all of the answers. I don't either,
(11:01):
But when we have a team, we can actually utilize
their expertise, their competency, their ways of thinking, their unique
ways of thinking at that to help solve problems, because
after all, they're doing different work than you're doing. So
don't assume that you have to be the one to
(11:22):
solve every problem on your own. Utilize your team and
their great ideas to help determine the best solution for
the problem at hand. So even if your team is
coming to you with their voice problems or concerns, you
can get in the habit as a leader of asking
(11:42):
for their input, so helping them go a bit further
and asking questions like what do you think we can
do differently to address this? Or you can ask if
you had the resources, how would you fix this problem.
This gets the ball rolling to get in towards the
end goal solving the problem, and you don't have to
(12:04):
do it by yourself. And the last way that you
can shift from dismissing voiced problems from your team to
leaning into your leadership value proposition is to follow through
one solutions. If there is one thing that helps kill
the morale of your team faster and create a dysfunctional
(12:27):
and toxic culture. It's leaders who listen and don't act.
Once a problem is brought up, make it your not
only responsibility but priority to follow up to make sure
it's resolved. If you struggle with this, or you find
yourself maybe losing sight of whether or not something is
(12:50):
off of the action item list, you can practice following
through on solutions by setting clear timelines for action to
take place and minding yourself not by memory, but by
your calendar, by your schedule, by your planner, whatever means
you feel are necessary to provide updates to your team.
(13:12):
This creates accountability for you and it shows your team
that you are serious about addressing what they voice to you.
So let's say that Ashley, an employee on your team,
has come to you and she feels that the job
roles are confusing and it's causing some contention with the team.
(13:34):
If you identify together that the solution is to work
together and draft a clearer job description for her and
her team members, don't stop there. Create a schedule for
yourself and to work with Ashley to follow up, confirm
that the draft has been read, that you agree with it,
(13:57):
that it is clearer, and have a me with everyone
who's involved to confirm that everyone understands what the roles are.
It's about the follow through that makes a difference. If
you've listened to this episode and you realize that there
are some ways in your leadership where you just don't
(14:20):
know how to identify your value, let alone act on
it and be of service to your team, and you
want help with that. This is something that I help
my coaching clients do in my new Leader Big Impact
Coaching program. And if you're interested in learning how you
(14:41):
can make leadership more effective for you and your team
and intentional, you can apply to be a part of
the program by going to be a pro inc slash
EP six seven and that link will be left in
the show notes. And I look forward to from you
and hopefully working with you soon so you can be
(15:04):
the impactful leader that you desire to be. Remember that
your leadership value proposition is rooted in how you respond
to challenges. When you make it a priority to listen
and validate and act on the concerns of your team,
you help establish yourself as a leader who prioritizes solutions
(15:27):
over excuses. As I always say, words reflect ideas, feelings,
and thoughts, but actions reflect intention and you can take
the first step by being a leader who adds value
by acting on the problems that your team voices and
(15:48):
doing so in a productive and progressive way. Have a
great week.
Welcome to the Culture Building Like a Pro podcast, helping
small business owners and managers lead a company culture where
employees are engaged to do their best work because they
want to and not because they have to. Now, let's
jumpstart your culture transformation with company culture strategists, leadership coach
(00:24):
and trainer Deanna Applin.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Happy Tuesday and thanks for listening to the Culture Building
Like a Pro podcast. I'm Deanna, and I'm back again
with another episode in the hash tag Leadershift series. The
series was created to talk about the common challenges that
we face as leaders, the ones that just don't get
talked about enough, but more importantly, we dive into how
(00:51):
to overcome them and how you can shift into the
level of leadership that creates an impact and influences excellent
among your team. Over the years, the one thing that
I feel has been very almost transformational for me and
I've adopted not only for myself and how I do
(01:14):
my work and how I work with others, but also
in how I help clients, and that is the power
of value and more specifically getting clear on how you
can add value to voiced problems. And that's what we're
going to dive into more today. Oftentimes when we hear
(01:37):
the term value proposition, we might think about it in
terms of sales or like a sales offering, marketing even
But we're going to in a sense deconstruct that or
reframe the way that we will now think about value
proposition moving forward and how that applies to being more
(02:01):
impactful leaders. So, in the marketing and sales world, the
definition of value proposition is focusing on the customer value
and how a product or service can solve their problem
in a new or different way. So we're basically going
to take that and shape it to how we lead
(02:24):
our team. We are shifting from dismissing the voiced problems
from our team to adding value in how we lead.
I truly believe that doing this is a game changer
in leadership because ignoring or dismissing your team's concerns it
(02:44):
stalls everything. Installs progress, it stalls engagement, it stalls productivity.
It ultimately just creates frustration and resistance, which leads to
a toxic or dysfunctional culture. Sure, but when we start
to actively approach problems with a mindset of being of service,
(03:08):
you then begin to position yourself as a leader who
not only listens, but responds and build trust. If you've
listened to this podcast before, you know that I'm all
about tailoring certain concepts to how it can be specifically
applied and positioned for impactful leadership. One of the things
(03:33):
that I always talk about is not just having a vision,
but specifically having a leadership vision, because that's you're guiding
posts into how you make decisions, how you lead your team,
how you model and influence certain behaviors, and ultimately where
you want to see yourself as a leader. We're going
to do something similar in this episode, and that's getting
(03:55):
clear on what a leadership value proposition is. A leadership
value proposition is simply a unique way that you create
and add value to your team through your actions, through
your decisions, and how you handle challenges. So this is
(04:16):
how you turn the challenges or the voiced problems and
concerns from your team into opportunities to solve them and
cultivate growth for yourself, your team, and ultimately the organization
that you work for. This is especially important because this
is your unique way of doing this. This is how
(04:39):
you add value or another way to think of value,
because sometimes people can look at that as something that
has a price tag associated with it. But another way
to understand how you can add value is to consider
how you add usefulness and you can do that in
a unique way way that is specific to you, how
(05:03):
you want to lead and what matters most to your team.
This is why understanding the problems that your team voice
are so important, because they're giving you the blueprint, direct
insight into the areas of their environment, the processes that
(05:23):
they use, and even sometimes how you lead, and it
gives you the blueprint of how you can work to
reshape these When you dismiss the problems that your team voices,
it sends a message that their voice simply just doesn't
matter because they are in a leadership role, and as
(05:45):
we know, that is the easiest and fastest way to
destroy the trust and the morale on your team, is
going to lead to high turnover and it's a way
to miss opportunities to improve yourself as a leader and
the team. So here are five ways, five actionable ways
(06:09):
that you can shift to adding value to the voiced
problems that you receive from your team. Number one, adopt
a solution first mindset, so when someone brings a problem
to you, resist with all of your might, the knee
jerk reaction to get defensive or to dismiss what they're saying,
(06:31):
even if you don't necessarily agree with it. So instead,
what I want you to do is ask yourself, what
opportunity does this problem present for growth? And how can
I address this in a way that strengthens my team.
These are reflective questions that will give you very actionable
(06:53):
next steps for addressing what was brought to you. Practice
responding from a place of curiosity and also open the
door for you and your employee or your team to
have further conversation about it. So simply responding by saying,
thank you for bringing this to my attention, Let's figure
(07:13):
out how we can solve this together. Let's figure out
some solutions together. This opens the door for them to
not only share their feedback, but it builds trust, trust
that they can come to you when something else occurs,
and that you want to collaborate with them, which ultimately
(07:35):
builds more buy in and engagement with your team. Number two,
Acknowledge and validate your team's concerns. Everyone wants to feel heard.
I want to feel heard. You want to feel heard.
Your team wants to feel heard, and we want to
feel heard even if there isn't an immediate solution available.
(07:59):
It may seem easier to bypass and dismiss a concern
that someone brings to you in the moment simply because
you don't have an answer, but this can cause trust
issues over time. So start practicing listening to your team
actively whenever you meet with them, whether this is one
(08:21):
on one or as a group. Summarize and repeat back
what they're expressing to you so that you can show
that you heard them and that you want to understand them.
For example, it sounds like you're saying that the shipping
lead time is causing delays. Am I understanding that correctly?
(08:43):
A very simple response, but it shows that you heard
them and that you are clear on what the problem is,
and don't stop there. Take action on those concerns. Next,
identify the root cause, not just the symptoms. As I
always say, you can put a band aid on a
(09:07):
stomach ulcer, but it's not going to solve the problem.
A band aid on a stomach ulcer would be on
the outside of a stomach, and we know that an
ulcer is on the inside. We have to dig deep
sometimes the issues that your team brings up are the
symptom of a larger problem, and as a leader and
(09:30):
as their leader, it's your job to uncover what that
root cause is. So if you have to do a
little bit of digging to figure that out, that's okay.
Sometimes your team may not be able to tell you
the exact root cause, they're just telling you the symptoms.
But you can put your discovery head on and simply
(09:52):
use a method like the five Whys. It's a technique
where you keep asking why until you get to the
source of the issue. So, for example, let's say that
people on your team are complaining about how there's a
communication breakdown. You can simply take that information, but it's
(10:15):
very broad. What they're communicating to you is the surface
of what's going on, But you can dig into whether
or not that breakdown is because the processes are unclear,
because the meetings aren't productive that you guys are having,
maybe there isn't a good way that you guys are
(10:36):
following up with each other. Asking why until you dive
deeper into the source is what's going to help you
not just hear the complaint, but truly solve the root
cause of the problem. Next involve your team and problem solving.
You don't have all of the answers. I don't either,
(11:01):
But when we have a team, we can actually utilize
their expertise, their competency, their ways of thinking, their unique
ways of thinking at that to help solve problems, because
after all, they're doing different work than you're doing. So
don't assume that you have to be the one to
(11:22):
solve every problem on your own. Utilize your team and
their great ideas to help determine the best solution for
the problem at hand. So even if your team is
coming to you with their voice problems or concerns, you
can get in the habit as a leader of asking
(11:42):
for their input, so helping them go a bit further
and asking questions like what do you think we can
do differently to address this? Or you can ask if
you had the resources, how would you fix this problem.
This gets the ball rolling to get in towards the
end goal solving the problem, and you don't have to
(12:04):
do it by yourself. And the last way that you
can shift from dismissing voiced problems from your team to
leaning into your leadership value proposition is to follow through
one solutions. If there is one thing that helps kill
the morale of your team faster and create a dysfunctional
(12:27):
and toxic culture. It's leaders who listen and don't act.
Once a problem is brought up, make it your not
only responsibility but priority to follow up to make sure
it's resolved. If you struggle with this, or you find
yourself maybe losing sight of whether or not something is
(12:50):
off of the action item list, you can practice following
through on solutions by setting clear timelines for action to
take place and minding yourself not by memory, but by
your calendar, by your schedule, by your planner, whatever means
you feel are necessary to provide updates to your team.
(13:12):
This creates accountability for you and it shows your team
that you are serious about addressing what they voice to you.
So let's say that Ashley, an employee on your team,
has come to you and she feels that the job
roles are confusing and it's causing some contention with the team.
(13:34):
If you identify together that the solution is to work
together and draft a clearer job description for her and
her team members, don't stop there. Create a schedule for
yourself and to work with Ashley to follow up, confirm
that the draft has been read, that you agree with it,
(13:57):
that it is clearer, and have a me with everyone
who's involved to confirm that everyone understands what the roles are.
It's about the follow through that makes a difference. If
you've listened to this episode and you realize that there
are some ways in your leadership where you just don't
(14:20):
know how to identify your value, let alone act on
it and be of service to your team, and you
want help with that. This is something that I help
my coaching clients do in my new Leader Big Impact
Coaching program. And if you're interested in learning how you
(14:41):
can make leadership more effective for you and your team
and intentional, you can apply to be a part of
the program by going to be a pro inc slash
EP six seven and that link will be left in
the show notes. And I look forward to from you
and hopefully working with you soon so you can be
(15:04):
the impactful leader that you desire to be. Remember that
your leadership value proposition is rooted in how you respond
to challenges. When you make it a priority to listen
and validate and act on the concerns of your team,
you help establish yourself as a leader who prioritizes solutions
(15:27):
over excuses. As I always say, words reflect ideas, feelings,
and thoughts, but actions reflect intention and you can take
the first step by being a leader who adds value
by acting on the problems that your team voices and
(15:48):
doing so in a productive and progressive way. Have a
great week.
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