Melt The Glass Ceiling
Are you a career woman? Do you work in a male dominated workplace? In Melt The Glass Ceiling, your career coach, Lisa Liszcz, will share tips and strategies on developing the career of your dreams. New episodes drop each week.
Melt The Glass Ceiling
How Can Women Step Up as Effective Leaders?
Get the episode worksheet download here.
Check out our private Facebook Group for professional and executive women here.
Sign up for the wait list for Lisa's new online leadership course here.
Unlock the secrets to successful leadership with Lisa's latest episode, where we promise you'll discover how to align your vision with your team's ambitions for unparalleled success. Imagine leading your team with the same clarity and inspiration as Cirque du Soleil or your favorite local store. Lisa breaks down the first three of seven essential leadership characteristics, starting with the power of a compelling vision. Learn actionable steps to create and share your vision to ensure your team is on the same page and motivated to achieve collective goals.
Effective communication is the bedrock of impactful leadership, and we've got you covered. From the art of storytelling to making your team members the heroes of your narrative, we delve into strategies that foster deep connections and drive engagement. Find out how to articulate your ideas without jargon, check for understanding, and use multiple channels to reach a diverse audience effectively. Plus, we explore why sharing personal vulnerabilities can strengthen your leadership. Get ready to enhance your communication skills and lead your team toward excellence. Don't miss this opportunity to elevate your leadership game!
Get the episode worksheet download here.
Check out our private Facebook Group for professional and executive women here.
Sign up for the wait list for Lisa's new online leadership course here.
Hello and welcome. This week we are talking about leadership and I have seven different key characteristics that are so important for leadership, and I'm going to share the first three of them with you today. Now I've got a handout for you and it's a bit of a worksheet. So if you're someplace where you can write some notes on the worksheet, go ahead and get that downloaded. The link to the download is in the show notes. If you're driving or doing something with some equipment, just listen, I'm going to share all the information with you. But if you're someplace sitting down and you enjoy taking some notes and filling out worksheets, then go ahead and get that right now. Go ahead and download that worksheet for yourself and if not now, if now doesn't work for you, download it later. That's fine, no big deal, just chillax and let's talk about leadership.
Speaker 1:Why do we want to talk about leadership today? Look, I have been coaching people and teaching about leadership for over 20 years and we need more women in leadership. When women are in leadership teams do better Companies do better Organizations do better Communities do better companies do better organizations do better communities do better economies do better. We do not have representative numbers of women in leadership. We're over half of the population. Close to half of leadership should be women. Close to half of leadership should be women. Women bring their perspectives, their insights, compassion and empathy, creativity and collaboration skills to leadership. So I want you in leadership and I want you to be an effective leader, as effective as you possibly can be. When I'm teaching about leadership, I have seven key leadership skills that I talk about. I'm going to go through three of them with you today, and I'm planning to launch a course next month on leadership where I will go through all seven of the key leadership characteristics for effective leadership. Are you interested in learning all the keys? Maybe you want to start with these three, and that's great. If, after you listen to these three, you want to hear the other four and get some information on those, go ahead and sign up for my course waiting list and I will let you know first when signups are opening. The link to the waitlist is in the show notes. Just go ahead and click on that sign up, and that way I can let you know when it's time to sign up for the course.
Speaker 1:Okay, enough about that, let's get down to business and talk about key skills, key characteristics of leaders. Number one you need to have and share a vision with your team. Your team may be your family, it might be a volunteer group, it might be your work team, but you need to have and share a vision. What's a vision? Okay, a vision is a definition of where you're going. It's an aspirational definition of the organization's future, and it inspires others to work towards achieving that future together. So what am I talking about? Let me give you some examples.
Speaker 1:Cirque du Soleil has a vision. Have you ever seen one of their shows? They're amazing. It is really a best-in-class organization that delivers for their clients, for their customers, and isn't that what we all want to do? If you're on a team, any kind of team, you really want to be the best that you can be. Okay, cirque du Soleil has a vision. Here it is. The Cirque du Soleil vision is to invoke the imagination, provoke the senses and evoke the emotions of people around the world, and that's what they do. Here's another example. Let's say we're talking about a local grocery store in your community. Maybe their vision is we help families live healthier, happier lives by providing the freshest, tastiest and most nutritious local produce from local farms to your table in under 24 hours. Nice vision.
Speaker 1:Why do you want to have a vision? This sounds abstract, it sounds idealistic. What's this all about? Well, with a vision, you really build alignment with your team. Once you have that vision of where you're going, what your purpose is in the organization, team members have more clarity about how they can contribute to the vision and help realize it. So it really builds alignment. It gets us all marching in the same direction and, as we know, on a lot of teams, everybody's marching in the same direction and, as we know, on a lot of teams, everybody's marching in their own direction, and that undermines our opportunity to get things done and really make a difference. So to get everyone marching together, we need that vision and we need to talk about it regularly and we need to get people talking about it. We need to ask questions like what is the next step that we can take to move towards our vision? Where should we be right now in terms of achieving our vision? How do we get to the next step? How can we concentrate our efforts for success towards the vision? How will we allocate all of our resources so that we make sure that we are moving towards the vision? These are the kinds of discussions now that we can have with our team, because we have a clear vision, everybody understands it and we can all talk about next steps towards achieving that vision. This is when we start taking our actions, everyone's actions, and aligning them towards an achievement. This motivates people, this gets people inspired, this helps people understand that they're part of something bigger. So we need to have that vision and communicate about that vision regularly in discussions with team members.
Speaker 1:No-transcript. So that's where you want to start. If you don't have a vision yet, develop your vision. If you downloaded the worksheet, this is a good time to take a look at it. So this worksheet is taken from a larger worksheet, so the page numbers are a little bit off. But let's look at the first page that you have there. That's about vision.
Speaker 1:And in that second paragraph it says vision matters because it guides, or it should guide, the ends and the means of your organization, including what you want to, and there's a blank there write down accomplish what you want to accomplish. And then it says and how you want to, and write down accomplish it. Yeah, it's accomplished in both of those spots what you want to accomplish and how you want to accomplish it. So the vision includes the what and the how. Your vision should guide not only your activities activities is in that blank there but also those of your employees is in that blank there but also those of your employees. So the vision is really the structure by which we decide on our daily and weekly activities, which gives us more clarity around what we're supposed to be, what we need to be working on. And when you go to page eight, it says a shared vision for your group is beneficial because it builds alignment you can write that down. It keeps people motivated so you can write that down. And it also clarifies everyone's purpose. It clarifies the purpose of the organization or the team, so it builds alignment, clarifies purpose and motivates the team. Oh my gosh, if you have these three things, you are really setting the stage for success, because this just adds so much clarity and so much alignment. So that's what you write on those pages in the worksheet and then we're going to go.
Speaker 1:And then on the next page, page nine, that's questions that I mentioned. And really you want to ask people just to do a quick review and you can jot these down if you didn't already. But you want to ask people where should we be in our strategy for moving towards the vision? Where should we be right now? When should we be there? When should we reach our next milestone towards our strategy? Where will we concentrate our efforts? So, where do we need to get to from A to B? Where do we really need to concentrate? Where should we be putting most of our effort? And, lastly, how will we allocate our resources? So, in terms of budget, will we allocate our resources? So, in terms of budget, people, time, all of that, how are we going to allocate our resources? And by having these conversations, you will really build focus for your team. And we all know that a laser is much more strong than a dispersed light from a flashlight or something else. So we want to be focused, we want to be that laser. That is key number one. Let's talk about key number two Pursue excellence.
Speaker 1:Well, what does that mean? As a leader, it is important for you to set a good example for those around you and for yourself. You know, the first step of leadership is personal leadership leading ourselves, managing ourselves, and we want to have personal excellence, excellent so that we are an example, a role model, and through our behaviors we show people what we expect of them. So what does it mean to pursue excellence? What are the behaviors that are associated with pursuing excellence? We have a page in the workbook where you can fill out some key words in some spaces I've provided to help you understand pursuing excellence. You're going to do things right the first time. That's number one. You're also going to look for and here's a fill-in-the-blank word for you you want to look for opportunities for improvement. That's another fill in the blank word. Opportunities for improvement, however small.
Speaker 1:Continue to improve in everything that you do. Try to do everything better each time that you do it. So, for example, if you're working on a document and you're finished with it, put it away. File it in a space that makes sense for you. Maybe create a new folder in your email or on your computer where this document will be easy to find next time. Always be looking to improve your processes and your tools. Seek new ways of doing things. That's a fill in the blank there for you on the worksheet New ways. Seek new ways of doing things. That way you really engage your creativity and your innovation skills. Be open to suggestions.
Speaker 1:This is in the worksheet. Be willing to take risks. Remember we want to be willing to take small, measured risks that make sense, because this is an important part of continuing to improve and innovate. Solicit feedback from your employees, peers, customers, clients, any stakeholders, board members, family members, community members, depending on what kind of team you're on. You want to be getting feedback all the time so that you have information to base your continuous improvements on. So ask for feedback and keep improving.
Speaker 1:When pursuing excellence, look for opportunities to continuously improve. Consider these categories and you can write these on your worksheet. This is on page 12, if you're looking at the worksheet Time Is there any way to be more efficient? Ask yourself, in different processes and projects, is there any way to be more efficient? Also, cost you need to look at the cost and consider how much money it's going to cost to get to the next step towards what we're working on. Number three, on page 12, satisfaction. What will customers or employees or end users experience with the product or the service? What will their experience be? Are they going to be satisfied? And then, finally, number four when pursuing excellence, we want to look at the bottom line. Write down financial. We want to examine financial considerations and look at what the bottom line benefit of generating this product or service is going to be Go right down, financial or outcome. What is the ultimate outcome of this activity going to be? Those are the four categories Time, cost, satisfaction and financial, or whatever the bottom line benefit is going to be when we are pursuing excellence with our behaviors, decisions and actions. Those are the four categories that we want to be looking at.
Speaker 1:Okie dokie, we have talked about having and sharing a vision and pursuing excellence. These are two of the key characteristics of effective leaders. Let's talk about one more today. To be an effective leader, it is imperative to communicate effectively. Communication is the lifeblood of any organization, team or group. Communicating effectively and often is critical to your success as a leader and the success of your team. If you have your worksheet, go ahead and turn to the page that is marked 14 and let's break down what it really means to communicate effectively.
Speaker 1:We've got six items here. First, you want to show passion. You want to show that you care about the vision, that you care and are passionate about what everybody's working on together. Voice your ideas and opinions in a clear, logical and convincing manner. I see too many people who make mistakes in their communication really just by not having a structure by which to speak, so they flounder and they go around in circles and they don't use a logical manner which ultimately would be more convincing. That's a big mistake that I see with a lot of leaders. So make sure that when you're sharing your ideas and your opinions, that you're clear and succinct. Use plain language and that's a blank. You can fill in Plain language. It's very important to really stay away from jargon, euphemisms, phrases, acronyms that are really specific to your group. Let's just keep everything plain, simple, clean, logical, clear. That way, we get information across more quickly and more effectively. People have so much information just bombarding them today through all of their devices, so when we can keep a message simple, clear, logical, it helps people to absorb it more quickly.
Speaker 1:Number four make it memorable by sharing a story. Stories are very powerful ways to help people grasp an idea, and I'm going to talk about that more in a minute because there are specific things I want you to do when you're sharing a story and check in for understanding with your listeners. Ask them if they have any questions, ask them if they're following, ask them what they think about what you're saying. Engage them so that it's not just a one-way communication so that's a blank you want to fill in. Check for understanding. The word is understanding. And then, finally, use all available channels to communicate. If you can do presentations, meetings, email, intranet, blog, etc. Use every channel. Communicate the same message. I've read that oftentimes it takes someone seeing a message eight times for them to really absorb it and process it. And we all process information in different ways. Some people like to read, some people like to hear, so share through different methods.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's go to page 15 in the worksheet. Here are the recommendations for telling a story effectively. There are six elements I'm going to share with you quickly about how to tell a story effectively, and you can write them down on page 15 if you're there. But number one know the point you want to convey. There has to be a point to your story. It can't just be a story that popped into your head when you started talking about this topic. It has to be relevant and really seal the deal on the point you want to make.
Speaker 1:Number two make others the hero in your story, because listening to someone talk about themselves and great things that they've accomplished just comes across as bragging and it's such a turnoff. So make others the hero. Number three take a risk. Share a personal story that makes you vulnerable. Vulnerability is a very important characteristic of effective leaders. You can read anything by Brene Brown to learn more, and I find, anecdotally, that women tend to be a little better about this, sharing stories that are a little bit self-deprecating, and we want to make sure we don't go too far down that path. But sharing something like a lesson learned or putting yourself in the role of you didn't know something and now you do, and how you learned, that can help make you so much more relatable. And that leads us to number four Focus on something you've learned and can share with others. Those two kind of go together being vulnerable, sharing something, a lesson learned that will benefit others and help them understand the situation and the point you're working to make, and with a call to action.
Speaker 1:I love this point. This is number five in the list because I find that a lot of people, when they're communicating, aren't sure how to wrap up the point that they're trying to make and then they get into rambling and this really undermines your credibility. So I don't want you to ramble. I want you to be clear in general when you're communicating and also when you're telling a story and end with a call to action. That's a great way to finish up what you're saying. Ask for their support, ask for their ideas, ask for approval by a certain date, ask for their questions, and this is a great way to wrap up your talk, which you want to do, because item number six on the list is keep it short, and one good way to keep your story short is by understanding how it is that you're going to wrap it up, and wrapping it up with a call to action works very well, and that's item number three effective communication Definitely a key skill of effective leaders. So we talked about having and sharing a vision, pursuing excellence and effective communication. These are three of the seven key characteristics of leaders.
Speaker 1:Next month, I will be launching my online course, where I will be going through all seven of the key characteristics with more information on each one. Please click on the link to the wait list for the course and you will be the first one notified with more information. If you have not already downloaded the worksheet I talked about today, go ahead and click on that link too and get that free download. It includes a lot of the information that I shared today, and these are the tips and resources and information that I share with my one-on-one VIP coaching clients, and I'm sharing it with you today for free. If you have any questions, please email me or send me a message.
Speaker 1:There's a link in the show notes that you can click on to send me a direct message. I also put a link in the show notes to my private Facebook group for women working in corporate. If you haven't already, I would love for you to join us there, comment on some posts and ask some questions. It's a great community. You know that it's my goal to help you accelerate your career success and to experience that success with joy. One of the big ways that we all do this is through leadership leadership in our personal and professional lives, and with each of the skills and behaviors that we talked about today, you can boost your personal leadership effectiveness, and I would love your feedback and suggestions for the show. Email me or send me a message. I would love to hear from you. Now go melt the glass ceiling.
