Why Your Team Doesn't Respect You (Leadership Mistakes) with Jennifer Jensen

Welcome to the Social Chameleon show where it's our mission to help you learn, grow, and transform on your path to become legendary. Today, we're taking a deep dive into one of the most significant gaps in the modern business world, the scarcity of truly exceptional leaders. Our guest is Jennifer Jensen, a leadership transformation Expert with over 25 years of corporate experience who has made it her mission to bridge the gap between mediocre and and extraordinary leadership. And I'd say that's legendary. She's the author of Developing Authentic Leaders, a practical guide for all leaders, and the founder of Authentic Leader, a business, a coaching business dedicated to transforming how leaders connect with themselves and their teams. What sets Jennifer apart isn't just her extensive corporate background, but her raw honesty about the current leadership crisis we're facing. She deserved firsthand that while mediocre leaders are abundant, truly exceptional ones are rare. And she's not just talking about it.

She's built an entire framework to fix it. Jennifer's approach cuts through the leadership fluff. Her book tackles 52 specific topics designed to challenge every leader. Whether you're stepping into your first leadership role or you're a seasoned executive looking to elevate your impact, here's what's fascinating. Her journey becoming this leadership authority was completely outside of her comfort zone. And the process transformed her as much as she's transformed others. Get ready for a conversation that will challenge how you think about leadership, authenticity, and what it takes to move from good to legendary. Jennifer, welcome to the Social Community Show.

Thank you for having me, Tyson. I'm excited to be here.

I'm excited to learn from you. So you have a book developing Off Developing Authentic Leaders, a practical guide for all leaders. It's 52 different topics. What's one story you'd like to highlight from the book? If you guys are interested in the book, I'll leave it in the show notes and you guys can get it and you guys can go through the whole thing.

It's hard to pick one item because there's 52 different topics.

Sure.

So it just all depends on what you're dealing with. Is it broken it down into sections where it's dealing and understanding yourself as an individual so that you can be more authentic at work and what those key characteristics are and then how to build and influence and motivate your team. Communication and tidbits that make or break leaders, that they're small, simple little things. And so my. I guess one of my favorites is about vulnerability and how so many people see it as a Weakness, when actually it is a strength. It doesn't, Vulnerability doesn't mean sitting in the corner and crying or. Because that's manipulation.

Sure.

But it means showing that you are human and showing that if you make mistakes, it's okay. And allowing your team to hold you accountable.

There is a lot of strength. I believe in that. And letting people know, like, I don't know everything. I, I, I'm, I'm brave enough, I'm self aware enough to, to let you know, I don't know, let's figure this out or if, you know, teach me, you know, especially as a boss and a leader, I, you know, you, I think you respect people more when you let them know, like I don't know everything. I don't know your job. I'm not there today. You know, I like that.

Well, and especially when middle managers come into their new roles, they are used to being the subject matter expert and knowing how to do their job in detail. And now they have to change their mindset and allow their team members to do it the way that they want to do it instead of them doing it the way that they, they're used to doing it and think they should be done.

Yeah, I know you talk a lot about middle management. I think we'll get to that a little bit later since I guess you didn't have maybe this one ticket story. What is maybe one of the most dismissed or overlooked, you know, areas or topics in your book that people, leaders and stuff, you know, kind of maybe overlook or dismiss.

One of the big things that I found is that the vision, mission and values for their team is often overlooked because that's the foundation and that helps your team understand where they're going and what they're driving towards and how it fits into the overall organization's mission, vision and values. Because I worked with one organization where they didn't have mission, vision, values and the foundation kept changing and I finally sat down with the CIO and said, I can't work here anymore as a contractor because I don't know where we're going. And the foundation is constantly changing and so I don't know how to drive the team to success.

Right. Because nobody knows where you're headed. We're just going west. Where's west? Where, where are we going? Yeah, so that's gotta, that's got to create a lot of chaos and whatnot. And maybe, you know, this organization or different, you know, levels of things if you don't know where you're headed, you know, how, you know, how does that kind of work within the team? Like, if they don't have a mission.

Or a vision or anything like that, the team struggles. There's no motivation, there's no direction. They don't know what they're. They're just there doing their job.

But, you know, my thought is, how do you do your job if you don't even know what your job necessarily is? How do you know what to value, what to. What to prioritize or stuff like that?

No. And you become complacent as an employee because you don't know.

Oh, right, I don't have anything to do because I don't know what to do because there's no direction. So I'll just hang out and get my check at the end of the end of the week.

Yeah. Or do busy work that doesn't achieve the end goals.

I see. So when I hear mission, vision, values, I think the first thing that comes to mind, a lot of companies, those are supposed to platitudes. You know, we start for excellence. Well, who doesn't? I mean, nobody says we just do mediocre work here. Is that something you work on with people or develop?

Yeah, definitely. Because it's not just about excellence. It's about what is the bottom line you want to achieve in the organization. And then how can we. And it could be the IT department or human resources. How do we help support the organization, achieve their mission, vision, values, and align ours with theirs and make it so that we can achieve it and roadmap that out?

How do you. How do you go about maybe sitting down with, you know, leadership or whatever it is to go, you know, maybe they do have these, and they're just a bunch of platitudes. Maybe they don't. How do you sit down and say, like, hey, that's. Let's start with whichever one you start with. Let's. That's, you know, the. The foundation of our.

Of our house. And how do you think about that? How you start building, what kind of exercises you go through? How do you think about that?

So a lot of the time it's with the leadership and the management teams and in a room, and we start hashing it out and start talking about it. And I love to use stickies. So posting those stickies on there, going, okay, so here's all the things that we want to achieve. Okay, do they fit with the mission and what is our vision and mission? And start building that out so that everybody in the room is coming up with a consensus of what it's going to look like and then how we're going to achieve it. And it's a could be two hour meeting, could be a three hour. And I always bring food because people love food. You need snacks. And then I also bring toys because sometimes you need a step away from the whole discussion so that you can play with a stress ball or whatnot and then you'll come back with fresh new ideas.

And so there's a whole psychological aspect to it.

What is the foundation? How do you start that? Which one do you like to start with? Mission, vision, values. Which one do you start with and then build from there? Which one is like you think you feel like is the best foundation?

Probably starting with the mission, where are we going? And then let's start looking at what values do we really want to have on the team. And you're looking at that for your area because usually an organization, typically the board brings down what their mission, vision and values are in a lot of cases. And the executive. But it's fitting that in and understanding what your team is going to do. Because for instance, it. We want to provide quality services to our business users. And in order to do that we have to understand the projects that are going to make them successful and how quickly we need to get them into place and getting that whole team function in there so that they are starting to drive and outlining that. But that's missed huge.

But even to push back on that statement a little bit, we want to deliver quality services. That doesn't really mean.

No, but it's breaking that down and going, what does that mean? Okay, and that could be our service offerings. We're going to respond to all the requests within, I don't know, six hours. And then from there we're going to. If it's complex, well, then we need more time to figure that out. So that could be a 24 hour turnaround time. But laying that out so that your business understands it and going into the level of detail that they need.

And so then all the employees are on the same level. This is how we conduct business. This is, you know, how we think about these things. This is how we value all these different things. Am I hearing that correctly?

Yes.

Okay, very interesting. What are the, what are like the sticky point, sticking points when you're kind of going through this exercise with leadership and whatnot, where do they get stuck on different things? And in this, I guess, this little trifecta, this maybe triangle, if you want us to think about.

It, depends on the team. Sometimes they get stuck in the Weeds. And you're trying to get them to elevate themselves up and go, let's look at the bigger picture. Because they're so used to the minute details and having to do that that they forget to look at the big picture and say, okay, so how do we relate this back?

Is it like a semantics kind of thing that gets stuck in, in that kind of.

Yeah.

What, what have you found to kind of break people out of that, that thought pattern or maybe come up to that 30,000foot view when you can look down in the whole of everything? These are techniques or structure you, you'd like to go with.

For me, I like to ask the big questions. Okay, so what does this mean, big picture wise and trying to get people to. It's simple. Just trying to bring them back up to the level that they need to be at and look at the big picture.

Right. And then. I know it's tough when you're kind of in the thing and, and you're kind of, you know, you know, looking, looking. Looking down the barrel or you're just kind of looking at the assembly line. You're just looking at the workforce and you're just such a narrow thing. You just see this one thing. I know it's very difficult to kind of step back and, you know, maybe, you know, stand above and look down and say, oh, there's a bottleneck at the stop there. Which is why this guy's not doing his job.

And I'm just harping on him for not doing his job when it's because somebody, you know, farther down is, you know, not doing something or there's whatever type of bottleneck there could be.

Oh, totally. It's taking that, and that's what I love doing too, is bringing in assessment tools where people learn to understand themselves and then understand their teams and start to really analyze their teams as well. In this big picture, what is it.

About these tools that you like? How does it bring things out? How does it maybe pull people out of themselves or their. Maybe their ego or something like that?

So this tool, Lumina Learning, they have spark. And that's where we look at your colors, like at disc or insight. But then we take it down to your eight characteristics and then your 24 qualities. And in those 24 qualities, we look at what you're like at home in your most comfortable state, what you're like every day, what you present to the world and at work and then what you're like when you're overextended and what happens and how do you respond differently in those situations when you are overextended? And then we compare that. We get the whole team to do it, and then they can compare themselves to each other to understand how to work more effectively with that individual.

Do you wind up. Do you find out that maybe, like, you know, Janet, maybe she's just not good in hr? Maybe we should have moved her to this department. Is this something that kind of happens?

Not typically. It just is an understanding of who that individual is and why they are the way they are and so that you can better use their skills going forward in your department. And maybe Janet is really great with the minute details, but she's not great with the people.

So maybe you find her a different job in HR that she's more suited for instead of maybe moving her departments or something like that or whatever. Interesting.

Totally.

Now, in these different sessions you're talking about, I've heard in the past that there could. There could be some. I guess I don't know how to may say it. So maybe ambiguity or something like that. If you didn't sleep well, you're having a bad day or something like that, it can skew your results. Is that something you're finding? Like, you know, I'll take the test today and I'll take the tomorrow, and I have two different results. Is that something you're seeing?

Not typically.

Okay.

Because there's no assumptions made doing this test. So if you're an extrovert at 75%, you may be an introvert at 55%, they don't make it 100%. Where some of these assessments will say, oh, you're 80% extrovert, so you've got to be 20% introvert.

Interesting.

Yeah. And these psychometrics don't do that. And they make it so you try not to think of a situation and just answer it honestly. And the results that I've seen, 90% of it is accurate to these individuals. And they'll all say that in these assessments.

That's something I've learned recently too, is I think the old school way of thinking was either you're an extrovert or an introvert, but it's really a blend of some of the spectrums in so many different ways.

Totally. Because, for instance, with me, people are like, oh, Jen, you're an extrovert. No, I'm not. I'm more of an introvert.

Ah, interesting. Yeah. I think of myself as more of an extrovert, but I did notice over the time, I. I do need that Downtime for myself. I need that time to. Especially if I'm out at an event or apartment that I need to come home and I kind of, like, need to decompress. Whatever. I need to kind of go in a little.

I don't want nobody bothering me. I want to kind of sit around by myself. If you. In so many words, I need that introvert time.

Yeah. So you might actually be. They're coming out with new ones. Omnivert.

Right. Okay. That's the word I was looking for. I've heard of that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

When I was reading about that, I was like, okay, I think I'm more of this. Or I'm mostly extrovert, but I have, like, the introvert tendencies to, like, recharge or something like that, if I'm remembering correctly.

So you're more of an omni vertical.

Okay. Is there. Oh, go ahead.

No. And I'm more of an ambivert because I'm more introvert versus extrovert. I can do the extrovert way, but I need to go back into my introvert ways.

Okay. Is there, like, we're thinking about this. How do we maybe schedule our day or life? If, you know, once you kind of get on this way, is there patterns or tendencies that these groups that help them maybe stay more energized, stay more involved and engaged?

I think it's dayto day, and it's just doing the little things. Active, listening, participating, and just seeing how people are doing and praising them throughout. Every once in a while, you're gonna. That's gonna build your cohesive team spirit and they're gonna be more engaged.

How does that not turn into just like a bunch of, you know, atta boys and plot twos? Like, oh, you're going to a great job. You say this every day. I can't be doing a great job at this same thing every day.

No, you're not going to say attaboys every day. But you're. You need to be able to do that on occasion to. And if somebody does a really great job on a project, you need to, instead of just saying it directly to them, say, hey, team. You know, Sally here just worked her butt off doing this to make the whole team look great. Just wanted to thank you, Sally, for doing all that for us.

So you need to kind of, I guess, assess the. The situation and say, this is a big step up. This is beyond your job, you know?

Yeah.

We need to give you some praise for this. So. So. So some love and whatnot.

Yeah. And not Everybody, if you're just doing your day to day job, don't expect to get praised all the time.

Right. But you know, I do kind of feel like sometimes people are like, are like that, like why I'm not getting enough recognition. It's like you're doing the basics, buddy.

Yeah. And that's what we're dealing with in the world right now is that feeling. And this is not just gener one generation, but that entitlement of you should be praising me all the time.

How do we work with that? How do we fix that? What's the, you know, solutions there?

I think part of it is active listening. Listen to them so that they feel heard that you understand what they're saying. But you also have to put boundaries down and say, you know what? I hear that you need to be praised all the time. I get that. But I can't do that all the time for you. And you need to figure out a way to help support yourself. At the same time. I will praise you on occasion, but not all the time and just setting those boundaries.

And I think that's what's missing in the workforce a lot lately is the boundaries and being respectful of those boundaries.

So we said, we talked about, we've said active listening a few times here. I think that our default response for most of us that maybe haven't heard this or haven't practiced this is you're just listening and waiting to talk again. What, how do we active listen?

You, when you're active listening, you are sitting there and listening to what that person is actually saying, not thinking about what you're going to respond with, not thinking about what you're doing tomorrow or that you have another meeting in five minutes, you are sitting there being very present with that individual and really hearing and then repeating back what you have heard them say so that they feel like they know that you understand them.

That's something, I think it's a, it's a skill you've got to learn a bit where you've got to be able to listen enough so you can summarize and repeat back what they said to them. And like you say, is there like a technique or something like that where, where we can start practicing these things? How do you go about learning this skill?

So it's day to day practice. So when you are in a meeting and it may not be with one on one, just practice sitting there and listening to what each person has to say and not having the answers, not interrupting them, but purposefully going, I'm going to Actively listen. And I'm going to sit here and listen to what they have to say and hear them and then paraphrase back what you heard them say if there's any misunderstandings around you. Because now you're practicing it, right?

Something I noticed with myself is, as I've gotten better and better at this is I'll do that first part for a while and then maybe the conversation or something's ending. I don't know if it's just fatigue or frustration or I'm just like, okay, I'm done listening to you now. Like, I just need to get. We just need to get through this. How can I get better at that? Or somebody like me, how can we get better at that?

So instead of getting frustrated with them, say, okay, I've listened to you. So what is going to help you feel like you've been heard and that this problem has been resolved and allowing them to start to have that feedback going? Well, if we did this and this and this, and then you're like, okay, so if we do those, then this will solve that problem. Correct? And they'll be like, yes, okay. If they bring it up again, then I would say, okay, we talked about it, we did what you want these steps to help support you. What has changed? Why isn't this resolved? And sometimes they can't let it go, or it's not maybe you, it's them.

How do we coach that? How do we train that to get them also on board with that?

I think that's where you ask a lot of questions to say, hey, okay, we did these things. What else can we do? What do you think needs to be done? Because this apparently didn't work. And is this something that can actually be fixed?

So when it's not. How many training sessions, how many times we go through this before, like, listen, Bob, you got to go work somewhere else, buddy.

It might be after two or three.

Okay, is that case by case kind of basis? Situation by situation basis?

Yeah, you can't. It's not a one size fits all. You will never get that.

Well, I mean, maybe I was thinking maybe not. Not one size, but maybe there's a framework, you know, like typically we see three to five re educations and they start to get it or something like that.

Each person is different and so sometimes that they'll get it on the first tie. And typically you hope they get it the first time. Second time, okay, we'll go through this again the second time, third time, we're starting to have a problem here.

And Is that, you know, is we get to that third time, let's just call it. Let's go five. Let's just say five. We gave them a good, a good amount of chance, I think. Break. Are we starting to say, like, maybe, you know, Bob, Ben, you're not getting this, but boy, I, I, on your assessment, we see you should go to a different department. You should go to a different area of this department. Is that something maybe, maybe start thinking about?

Oh, totally. And it might be time to move them right on out of the company. It doesn't mean they may be a better fit in that another team. You may not want to put that on another team, but sometimes you have to cut them out.

Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. That's something I think we all need to get better at is cutting, cutting those people out. But I'm wondering, you know, I'm thinking about the assessment. I'm thinking about Bob's skills. I see what he's struggling with. I'm like, and I start thinking like, man, how you know, I'm going to go to bat for Bob. I want to give him the benefit of that. I like the guy.

He's here, he's working hard, he's just not getting it here, you know. But I'm like, man, I think as I think about Bob, I start to think about the problems. This is one of his strengths. I'm like, we brought you over to manufacturing. I think you could do good there. Is that something we're talking about seeing, removing?

Yeah, totally. You can do that too. If there's a spot, put him there and he'll be successful. And talk to the other manager because now you're, you should be all on the same page. You understand each other. Let's bring them on and see if this is a better fit.

Yeah. Because when I, I guess it brings me back to Simon Sinek's books and stuff like that. When you're creating this nice, safe work environment, people, and then when they feel like, you know, if I'm messing up and they keep counseling me and they feel like I'm not going to get fired but they're going to help me and move me, then, then I feel like you can thrive a bit more when you're not feeling like, I only got a couple chances here and they're going to get rid of me.

Well, in some, from the ones that I've seen, a lot of the individuals, they're just being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn and they don't want to change. And it doesn't matter, right?

Yeah, no, I've seen that as well, back when I was in the regular workforce there. I'd like to circle back to boundaries. I feel like this is something like you're saying it's not just the newest generation, like we all like to blame. Everybody blames everybody's generation below them.

It's not.

And I have heard this more so from a little bit. Even my generation and younger, you know, where they don't want to have that uncomfortable conversation, they don't want to do these things. How do we start to develop that or train that? How do we. How do we get used to putting up a little bit of boundary or letting people know this is a boundary for you or, you know, how, however you want to kind of frame that.

I had to do it in my own life personally, which is much more difficult than professionally. But professionally, you can put boundaries to, and need to, because if you understand what your values are and what your priorities are, you're going to start to set boundaries of how much time you're going to actually be at work. And there are certain boundaries even at work, where you need to go and deal with the conflict. And conflict isn't always necessarily a bad thing.

Right?

It's a. It can be actually a good thing. And to sit down and calmly have a conversation with somebody about those, the. The boundaries or the issues that you're dealing with. And I know for myself, I am one that will go and deal with the conflict right now. I don't want to wait. I need to deal with it. And let's deal with it now.

Versus I have another individual who, her preference is, I don't want to get into the conflict, I want to stay out of it. And I end up dragging her into the conflict. But she is the calm in the storm. And so I'm learning to not be reactive when I'm in conflict and being the calm like she is when I drag her in.

How do you practice that? Because this, if you're not practice, if you're not, you know, like this, you know, asking for, let's say even. Let's just take it out of the work environment. You know, you're at a restaurant with that or. Or you're getting a coffee and it's. That's not right. You're like, oh, I don't want to say anything. How do you start to practice just in those little situations in life? And then to me, this is what I'm thinking about is you take those little situations and you're able to transfer them into a work environment or am I a way off basis like on this?

No, because I've had to do that even in my personal life with neighbors and saying this is my boundary. And they've actually gotten pretty upset with me because I have set the boundary, saying, no, we agreed to this. This is how it's going to be. This is what, it's not changing. And they always try and push the boundary. And even when I was dealing with trauma in my own life, with my dad going through cancer, I had to put up boundaries of personal space because I needed to figure out who I was once again.

So it sounds like it's just, it's a lot of practice, There's a lot of trial and error. It's a lot of getting out of your comfort zone. Something I like to, I like to talk about is that I think helps in a low stress, low stake situation is when you're out somewhere, ask for a discount, getting used to that confrontation that, that you know they're going to reject you most times. But I feel like it helps build that muscle a little bit where it's like, yeah, I can ask for things, I can do things and I can say no. I feel like I don't know how it is in Canada, but here in America, tipping is, seems like it's getting out of control. It's like, it's like everywhere. And I notice people, they don't want that confrontation of hitting no or zero or whatever it is and then the thing being turned back around, an employee saying, really? So they'll just do something, you know. But I think in these situations, these small stake situations, this is what I like to think about and teach is, is doing those, Is there, you know, anything else maybe you want to add to that?

I love the tipping because I, I now stop tipping. If I'm standing and you're standing, I'm not giving you a tip, right? It's if I'm sitting and you're standing and walking back and forth, then I'll give you a tip.

Oh, interesting.

And starting to set those boundaries and it may just be you doing it and they, they don't know why you're doing it, that's fine. But it's just the small, taking those baby steps and starting to do that. And I have found that a lot of individuals don't do boundaries and are afraid to do boundaries.

Right.

And to me, that's what I'm learning. And I'm almost 50 and I'm just learning how to set boundaries.

How how do you remain calm when, when, when you're in that situation, you're getting upset, maybe like your neighbor, you know, let's just say I don't know the situation, but let's just pretend, you know, you keep saying, hey, don't bring your dog on my property. We keep talking about this, this is not something I want. And they're like, I'm gonna take my dog anyway. They start getting upset. How do you stop yourself from maybe falling into that and bringing that energy into you?

So the big thing that I'm learning is to breathe and just take a breath. And you have to be very aware of this when you're in that situation is to calm yourself right down and go, I'm walking away because there's going to be a fight. And with the neighbor, there was a situation where he started calling me names. And my sister said, this conversation is now done. We are walking away. And I was ready to go fist to cuffs.

I like that expression.

I had to breathe and calm myself down and go, no, let's walk away because this is not going to end well.

Right? And that's, to me, that's self awareness there. How do we develop that? Because that seems to be something that's, that's getting tougher. It seems to do for younger people. Not, not especially, but as, as it seems as the generations go down, those things kind of start to fade away. How do you start to develop that self awareness thing? I'm getting upset right now. I'm about to say something or I've already said something that I shouldn't have done. How do you kind of bring yourself back to that and say, okay, I gotta walk away now.

So the big thing, and I love this because self awareness is huge in being a leader or a manager. You have to be self aware. That's foundational. And so that's where I do the assessments to really help people understand who they are. And then we do a whole journey to composure. So when you're overextended, let's look at your overextended quality. If that's to be argumentative, which I tend to be. And now.

And you just work on one at a time. You can't work on all of the areas that you need to, but one at a time. Okay, so for me, when I get argumentative, what do I need to do to tap into my everyday or my at home and pull those key areas that I'm really good at and bring them into the situation? And that's when I need to pull into my collaborative and say, hey, let's work this out and not get upset or uptight and start to ask questions so that we can bring everybody into alignment. And sometimes you have to walk away because the situation isn't going to turn out the way that you need to. And it may have to go to email vs face to face because that's just not going to work out. And just understanding that. But bringing in other aspects or qualities that you have that can help support you in calming yourself down and changing how you respond to that situation.

I love that phrase. Your journey to composure. That's. Is there any. Anything else on that journey we can start to think about and start to practice?

I think, like, if you haven't done the assessment, I would say start to figure out what are your strengths and tapping into those to help you in various stressful situations.

Is this one of the things that's on your website, the definite assessments? Did I. Do I remember that correctly?

Okay, yes.

I'll link people to that. And then. Are those free or small charge?

There's a charge for them. I don't have them linked on my. But they can contact me and we can. I can set it all up for them.

Okay, cool. Yeah. So there. So there we go. So I feel like. Oh, I just had this thought of like, maybe like this Buddha Zen, where you're kind of knowing yourself and learning yourself a little bit. Am I on the right track?

Yes, you're learning like you're 24 qualities. There's huge. That's a long list of qualities.

Wow, 24.

Yeah. And going through those and understanding what are your treasures? So what are you, what are you suppressing and can you pull them out? So, for instance, if you're an extrovert and you work at a funeral home, you have to suppress your extrovert behaviors.

It's not time for a party.

No. And so now you have a new job doing sales. So now you need to pull those extrovert skills out if you're in sales and you can't suppress them anymore because they're now required.

Right? Yeah. Right. I mean, I'm sure there's introverted saltmen out there, but that would be quite interesting. Like, listen, can we get some energy here, buddy? Like, I don't know if I want to buy this anymore.

Yeah. And you need somebody that has that energy.

Right, Right. What are some other of the 24 qualities that maybe are overlooked or. Or harder to develop or something like that?

Oh, it all depends because it's who you are as an individual. For me, I'm having to learn how to do the big picture thinking, the strategic picture. I thought I, I was okay at it, but I'm learning that I have to really work on that a lot more. And each individual is going to have characteristics that they have to work on that are different from others.

Now when do you decide? Like, listen, I'm a, let's just say scale of 1 to 10 as I'm a. I'm a 3 at that. And if I work my butt off and I just practice every day, the best I'm gonna get to is a five versus, let's just say writing. I'm a seven. If I work my butt off, I can get to a 9 or 10. Where do you say, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna push that to somebody else. I'm gonna hire somebody or whatever it is, you know, how do you make that distinction?

For me, it's what brings me the most passion and joy. So those are the areas that I really love doing. And there's some that as a business owner, I have to develop. I have to work on the big picture, the strategic thinking for my own organization. It's easy for me to get other people to do it, but for me, I have to work on that for myself.

When do you know? Let's just, let's just kind of continue on that Thought so. And I feel you. I'm not good at big picture. I'm not good at the details. I'm good at big picture overall, like grandiose ideas. I, I bring in, I bring in somebody to help me with the, the details because that's not my thing. And I learned that everything because I, you know, I, I spend a lot of time like, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna come to the A7 set plan I'm doing, and I'm just like, man, I'm so burnt out. I don't want to do this.

And, and there's cost. It's sometime involved in different things like that or whatever. How do you balance that? How do you kind of work through those?

So for me, I'm learning that I don't love doing the creative stuff and the social media and all that. And so I have brought somebody on to do that because I know that's going to be much more effective use of their time versus my time, and they love doing that. So why wouldn't I offset some of that work to them? And yeah, there is a fee, but it's minimal to what I would be Spending of my time. If you put a rate on yourself, let's say 150 an hour, well, pretty soon that individual who loves doing it is only charging $50 an hour. So why am I wasting my time for something that they love to do and they know how to do it? And you have to start doing that cost analysis.

Right. That's a hard concept, especially if you're a small business owner. Maybe it's just you and a small team or maybe it's just you. That's hard to say. I'm gonna shell out a thousand dollars this month for, you know, Bob to come clean the office. It's like, oh, like I could have just swept up and vacuumed. But knowing that, you know, and that's the thing, I'm sure you experienced, too, when I work with people in that situation, too, they're like, you know, that's, that's, you know, it's a lot of money. What's your time worth? Well, I don't even let you know.

And it's funny how people don't really know what their time per hour is worth or something like that.

Yeah. And when I did that cost analysis for myself for many years, and so I have been going, no, it's time to. This individual will be better suited for it because I'm going to spend four hours doing this when they will only spend an hour.

Right. And you're going to dread probably most of it.

Yeah. And I'm going to get frustrated and I'm going to be annoyed. So, so why can't I focus on the things that I really love to do and have somebody do the rest for me? And now I can actually grow my business.

How did you. Or how do you think about this? Or teach switching that mindset to saying, listen, Jack, you, you, you. You charge $100 an hour for work. You can get a lawn guy for 50 bucks that comes in and you can save that money. How do you switch people's mindset to saying, listen, I, like, I can just go cut it. I save myself the 50 bucks.

It's putting the price on what your time is worth and really laying that out with the dollars? Because when people start seeing how much they are worth, they go, wait a second.

Yeah.

And then I also go, you know what? If you can afford to pay somebody to do that, why wouldn't you support the economy and help that individual as well? And it changes your mindset. That's why, you know, there's different people that work for me, and that's because I'VE said, I'm gonna. This isn't what I love. I'm gonna pass this on to you because I know that you're gonna love this. And for me to spend three hours on a weekend to do this makes no sense.

Right. And it's funny. We're talking about this. I was listening to a podcast. A guy was talking about. Some of these things that I never really put much thought into is like, you know, you should probably hire somebody to be doing your dishes and getting a laundry service and having somebody, you know, bring food to you. And I was like, I never thought about it. I started thinking about it.

I spent a. I spent a few hours a day, you know, thinking about groceries, thinking about dinner, doing the. Getting the dishes done, getting the laundry done. I was like, and those are not expensive things to outsource, per se, and you can free up. He was talking about how many hours he freed up, and I was like, oh, wow, that's. That's quite interesting. And it's not necessarily just to work more. You know, maybe it's a little bit more of work, but maybe it's also a little bit more of leisure time, maybe some family time, maybe some personal time or whatever it may be.

Totally. It changes your priorities.

Yes.

And if you know what your priority and if your priority is your family, why wouldn't you invest in some of these other things so that you could spend more time with your family?

Right. Especially, you know, some of the things are not quite expensive. You know, say, like you're saying we make $50 an hour. You know, it's not, you know. You know, I hear where I'm at, I've seen cleaning services for, like, $20. I was like, why I'm spending an hour every morning doing this. For 20 bucks, I can have somebody come in here every day and just take care of it for me. And I could be off doing anything else.

I could be at the gym. I could be. I could be working. I could be, you know, playing with my kids or whatever it be.

Totally. And you're supporting the economy at the same time.

That's a great angle, too, to think about, too. Right. Especially as we. Yes. People start to think about these different things with, you know, maybe inflation or maybe it's AI or maybe it's whatever, you know, that's your easy way for you to support the economy. Another small business, local business.

Yep.

I like that. I know. I noticed as I was researching things for you here that when you were writing your book, you noticed some gaps in your Own leadership. How did you recognize that?

So for me, it was a lot of self awareness and some people are naturally inclined to it and are fully aware of it. And so when I was working as a project manager, there was a lot of accountability but no authority. And so I had to figure out how to motivate and encourage my teams to get the tasks when I had no authority over them. And so I started to learn how to work with individuals and recognize their body language and how they spoke and their tone of voice to understand where they were at. And then I could quickly call them out in a meeting if I needed to, because I had individuals that would push their chair to the corner of the room and I'd say, oh, no, no, no, you come sit next to me at the table here. Because I wanted them engaged and that was a way of showing that they were disengaged.

Right. Like I don't need to be this meeting. Not really part of what I'm doing anyway. Why am I even here?

Yeah. And so they didn't want to be part of it. Or they would sit back in their chair with their hands behind their head going, yeah, I'm not interested in this. And I'm like, okay, so would you like to participate or say anything on that?

So you kind of. What I'm hearing is maybe like probing a response, bringing them back in re engaging them.

Yes.

Okay.

And getting them to be part of it because they're sending you key messages and you have to be aware of that, especially when you have no authority. And even leaders who do have authority, it's good to be aware of these different body language types so that you can then engage your team or call them out on it and say, hey, let's talk about this after the meeting.

Yeah. Because that's not necessarily an effective way of leading. Right. Like I, I'm just telling you to do things because I have authority over you. You're just doing them.

Yeah. And this way it motivates a team and you're going to get by it and they're going to be engaged if they know that they're part of something bigger.

Is there some other techniques or strategies to gain influence over somebody you don't necessarily have authority over?

Totally. So one of my big tricks or strategies that I used was when doing project plans and getting all the SMEs in the room, the subject matter experts, and getting them to write all their tasks on post IT notes and then we put them up and they would put their effort in and how long they think it would take them to do it duration, and then we would move it around and it would basically build our project plan. Well, at the same time, I didn't dictate what their tasks were. They now told me what their tasks were, and now I could hold them accountable. And if they didn't do them, I could say, well, you're the one who told me you didn't come back and negotiate, so why isn't it done?

Yeah. Giving them buy in. Giving them ownership over what they said they were going to do.

Totally. And in one case, it was hilarious when they had the aha moment that Jen just got them by doing this is three weeks into the project after doing that, they were like, jen, I didn't get this done. And I said, well, you're the one who told me that you could get this done. And so why didn't you get it done? And why didn't you come and talk to me? And we could have renegotiated the timeline then. And he was like, oh, crap, I didn't do that. And his manager sat there laughing, going, she got you.

Yeah. And how do you get them to continue to take ownership and responsibility for that?

So after that, we were a few weeks later, we were about five weeks behind on all the tasks. And so the big challenge was, how do I get them to get on top of it and complete their task? Quickly. Quickly.

Okay.

And efficiently. And so I gave him a challenge and said, I'm gonna give you until two more weeks to get all these tasks done that aren't done and your tasks that you need to get done. And if you do it, then I'm gonna buy you lunch. The whole team. I'm buying the whole team lunch. And I didn't think they were gonna make it. They did. They got it done.

And one gentleman even said, well, Jen, I've done all my tasks, so I'm fine. And I said, well, this is the time to be a team member and go and help your colleagues who are behind so that they can be successful as well, because it's going to impact the whole team. And boy, did they love their pizza that week.

How do you motivate that guy that said, like, I'm done with my stuff. I don't need to do anything else here. How do you get him to buy into that teamwork and that team mentality?

It's just by calling it out and saying, hey, you know what? Your buddy here is struggling. Do you think you can help him, or is there anything you can do to support him by taking on some of his work so he can get his tasks done, his day to day work. And the individual is like, yeah, I think I can. And I said, well why wouldn't you? Because nobody wants to be the last man standing or the one reason why there's no pizza that week. He totally got into it.

Yeah, let, let me, let me, let me play, maybe play the other role and say, Jen, listen, I don't give a about him. He didn't do his work. He said he was, I'm done. I saw my responsibility. I'm not, I'm not doing anything. I, I, other things I'd rather do. I don't care if he fails.

Then that's the attitude you can have. But what happens when you need support and you need help getting your task done? Do you think he'll be able to come in? He'll want to come and help you. He now owes you if you go and help him.

Ah, reciprocity. I like that. Yeah, I, I'm sure it's worse. I'm just trying to think of, you know, maybe scenarios where you get somebody that's maybe he's maybe tired of helping. He's like, or something like that where it's like I'm always helping. I'm always the guy that gets my work done. And these guys are always slacking. I always got to come and pick up the slack.

You know, maybe they're feeling underappreciated or something like that.

Totally. And they should be going to their manager. And I will typically go to the manager and say, hey, just so you know, this individual has been really working hard and trying and he needs to be acknowledged for that. These ones, they aren't pulling their weight and they need to. And because I had no authority over them. Yeah, I can easily go and have that conversation because I have built that relationship with that manager too.

How would you like maybe pull somebody back from, you know, that's kind of gone down, that they're just, they're just tired of it. They're just burnt out from it. They're just like, I'm always picking up the slack. I'm always doing this stuff. I'm not doing it anymore. I'm tired of it. I'm putting my foot down. I'm setting my new boundary here.

How do you pull them back in?

I think it's okay for them to have that boundary, but that's where I think the manager needs to step in and say, I hear you, I see it too and acknowledge it. And if you don't acknowledge it, they're just going to become resentful and walk away. And you don't want them to because probably they're one of your best employees.

Yeah.

And so you need to go and acknowledge that with them and then start dealing with the other two who aren't or the other individuals who aren't pulling their weight and saying, guys, I need you to pull up. Pull up your socks here. You got to start bringing more to the table. We're a team here. But Joe can't keep doing this for you.

Now, let's say switches are over a little bit. I'm the leader. That hurt. That hurt all this. And I've got problems with confrontation. And I'm like, I'm not going to go to the team. I don't want to deal with them. And yeah, I told him I was going to do it, but I'm just going to just maybe let it be.

That's the totally the wrong way to deal with it.

Oh, yeah.

Because you're not going to gain respect from your team. You'll actually gain more respect from your team if you go and deal with it. And I've watched too many leaders not deal with it.

Oh, yeah.

And their teams, they have high turnover. Their teams don't want to work for them. They don't want to be a part of it anymore. So morale goes down. Is that really what you want for your team? And I would say pick up your pants and let's go and let's get the job done. Because you have to deal with it. It's not the. You are a manager.

That's one of the not fun parts of being a manager.

Yeah, but, Jennifer, I don't want confrontation. I don't want to deal with this. I don't like this. I don't want these guys mad at me. What do you say?

There's a point where you can't be friends with your employees.

But I want to be friends with everybody. They come to the birthday parties.

No, because now you've crossed the line of I don't. That friend and my. The boss. That line is now crossed. And yet you can associate with them, but you can't be their best friends. And I've seen that because it clouds judgment big time. And I still see leaders who do that and it clouds their judgment and their ability to deal with situations. And you have to be the boss at points.

And this is one time where you need to be the boss and deal with it directly. You can't be friends.

Now I've been that guy that's been. Been your friend, so I know you ain't going to make me do anything. How do you, how do you come back from that?

That's a tough one because you have made that relationship and that's where you're going to have to set the boundaries. We go back to the boundaries and you're going to have to start to go, listen, I. We're friends, but I'm also the boss. And so we have to separate the two. Personal and professional need to be separated here in this situation, because I do know people that have barbecues and they have their, their friends with these, their subordinates. It doesn't work well. No, you're going to have issues and you can't do that. And so this is a boundary setting where you're like, sorry, you're going to have to do some tough love because he's now to Jovi.

And is that really the kind of boss you want to be known as?

So, like, like, personally, I've done that on purpose and I, I know now I got you, you know, and, and then. So you come to me and say, we gotta stop hanging out. Mark, come on. I was just with the wife and kids. I was babysitting kid. Come on. No, not me. The other guys.

You'd be a little harder than them. But we're, we're still, we're buddies. Don't worry about me.

Yeah, you gotta start setting the boundaries and say, no, sorry, I have to do this.

And a little, A little at a time, you know, maybe one. You know, just start building it up.

Start building it up and setting those boundaries because the other guys aren't going to respect you. And do you want to have that one friend that only respects you because you and he's crossing the boundaries? Is that okay? Or do you want to have the respect of your team?

I mean, it is for me. I leave early, I come in late.

Yeah, it's good for you, but not for the rest of your team. And they feel like he gets away with everything.

I think we all know that person at work that seems like they get away with everything.

Yeah. And I think that's where the. Once again, back to boundaries. You need the boundaries, especially if you're a manager. You've got to have different relationships.

I think what I, what I think about when I hear this is, I think it all comes back to, like, the beginning conversation. Your. Your vision, your mission, your values. When you have those set, then you have a framework to say, these are my Values. I don't do X. You know, this is the mission we have that we're going to Mars. This is what we're doing. You know, even personally and professionally.

Right, Totally. And some of your personal will impact your professional because of family and different situations that happen.

Now something I seen throughout your stuff is leadership without ego. How do we work that out?

That's a tough one for people.

Yeah.

Because we all have ego to a certain degree, but it's removing that ego to a point where we're not arrogant. You don't want to be arrogant. You need to be confident in who you are. And ego driven leaders are bottlenecks.

Oh, okay.

And authentic leaders are going to develop systems and people that function independently instead of being a bottleneck. And real leadership strength comes from empowering others to exceed your own capabilities. And so if you're leading without ego, it's you're surrounding people that can be smarter than you and in the end they're going to make you look better.

Yeah. What are some common bottlenecks that you see? Maybe we can start to recognize either as the leader or as the subordinate.

Common bottlenecks are those when a leader is used to being a subject matter expert in a certain area and so they know that area very well and so they want to have control over it. And because they don't feel like they have control or understanding of all the other areas that they're now managing a.

Little micromanagement kind of thing.

Oh, micromanagement is huge. And it's usually based on fear and that fear is usually based on not knowing where are comfortable where they're at because they're not used to it. And so as a subordinate you're going to see them wanting to be cc'd on all the emails, reviewing every single document, having to be part of every single meeting. And if you as a leader in every meeting you have a problem.

That's for sure. Yeah, I, I work for people like that. It's like I don't need a CCU on this email. It's nothing to do with you actually. And I was like, and I think in my head I'm like, what does your inbox look like you're getting every single email we all send?

Yeah, it's probably at a thousand a day at least.

That depends on the size of the organization. It can, it can just swell out of control. Yes. That was a, honestly military, that was a, like a, almost common practice. And people would, you know, my subordinates would yell at me like, oh, you do ccms emails, like what does it have to do with you? Well, I want to see it for what I don't understand what, what do you possibly need to know about every little thing that we're doing? It's like I was like, this is not your focus, you know, at all. You know, but it's like you're saying, I never thought about that coming back to like the Micromans, that fear of whatever it is that they're fearing and not knowing what's going on, not having a pulse on the things or, or maybe they're like you're saying a subject matter expert and they're like, I would have done it this way and they did it that way.

Yeah. And all it does is create distrust on your team. Is that really what you want? I'd rather have a team that I trust to do their job and do it well. And I'm only getting the information that I actually need.

Right. The high level things that you need to handle that maybe only you're suited to handle.

Yeah. And if they need to bring me in that, then they bring me in. But I shouldn't have to deal with all the little intricacies that are up that they're going through. I don't want to know that. I don't have time to know that.

What are some maybe specific behaviors or mindsets that mediocre leaders consistently exhibit?

Big thing that they're consistently exhibiting is that they're not changing their mindset from the subject matter expert, but they're now the business architect who sees interactions across functions. You need to start seeing the bigger picture of how it all works together. And I think also they need to be comfortable with ambiguity and navigating that and understanding their stakeholder ecosystem that they're now in as well.

That's tough to change your mindset, especially when you've been in a job for sometimes. A lot of times people wrap up their identity as an I'm a this. How do you help them navigate through that?

It's baby steps. And it's that constant talk of okay, so that individual did it differently, but did you get the same outcome or.

Close to the same outcome?

Yeah. And if they got the close to or the same outcome, what's wrong with what they did? Do you think that maybe you need to let that go and allow them to do it the way that they want to do it and everybody's going to do it differently, but if they come out with the same or similar outcome, then why wouldn't you want them to do it? The way that they want to do it.

So it's like you were saying earlier, you get that buy in and that accountability. Right.

Yeah. And if they can do it the way that they know how to do it, it might actually be better than what you did it.

Yeah. Who knows? Because they're on the front line now. It could be faster, more efficient, more effective.

Yeah. They've got new ideas and you want to create that environment where you have that innovation coming through.

Right. And it sounds like you would. The stagnation wouldn't be as high and. And you can kind of adapt and move and. And be more of a nimble business.

Totally. And you've got different perspectives. It really helps a team and they become more profitable.

Oh, yeah. And everybody hear that word.

Yeah. Because you're not going to have the turnover because the cost of turnover is insane. If people actually sat down and looked at it.

I know. I had a guest on a. It's been a few years now. At that time it was. He was. He was estimated about a hundred thousand per employee per year. And I can't imagine this could be more.

It's actually more now.

Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. With new managers, if they don't get training or support leadership training, you're looking at 60% failing within the first 24 months.

Wow. And that's the thing too. I think we don't think about the whole process. Right. Of getting the job posted, interviewing candidates, training candidates, getting them up to speed and whatnot. And then if they're leaving, if they're.

Leaving, you got your knowledge base that's leaving. And what if they take other people? Ah. And so you're looking at, per individual, 300k to $2.1 million. Because they could be taking all that with them. Wow.

Yeah. Like the subject matter expert leaves, he's like, listen, Acme Blue, they're paying the same, but they leave us alone. They're getting stuff. They got cutting edge equipment now. And you just take this whole crew with you. Oh, my gosh. I didn't think about that.

Yeah. That's a $2 million mistake that a lot of CEOs and CFOs are making.

And they're just eating that from the bottom line right there.

Yep.

Wow. That's something to think about. You got. But I think this goes back to what we talked about earlier. Right. If you were above and you were looking down the situation, that sounds like something you're going to be able to start to see, right?

Yeah. And if you're having huge turnover, you need to start evaluating what you're doing. So even with your middle managers and receiving no training, do you know what the costs are now in the US alone is? 960 billion to 1.2 trillion annually that are being lost because middle management is not being trained. Wow.

That's more GDP than most countries.

Yes.

My goodness. That is insane. Wow. It's hard to wrap your head around such large numbers like that and people. It's part. I can imagine it's not easy to see necessarily either. Right. Just things are kind of coming and going and you're just humming along and you're wondering where you're not growing and where's all this money going.

Yeah, it's insane.

So is this why you focus on that middle management trap?

Absolutely. Because they're the ones that are our succession plan and they're the ones that are going to determine how effective a company is going to be.

What is, what does the training look like, what does the scenario look like when we start to get these middle management people out of this trap?

So the training is just walking alongside them, providing them coaches or advisors to help them grow and hold them accountable and really give them the skill set that they need to be authentic leaders and be true to who they need to be and to be effective at building teams. And when you start to do that, that's when you're going to see the profit change in your organization as well as innovation. It's going to be a much more innovative organization too.

What's the maybe like one to three biggest impact things when you're doing those trainings that you're seeing?

Biggest impact is the team culture changes. Drastic, drastically. Like there's total different culture that happens there. You've got a much more cohesive team. You've got a leader that is more confident in their abilities and now truly understands what they need to do to get to the next level. And they also know themselves and their team. And it's so fun to watch and see the light bulb moments happen. And it's not just one per person.

It's almost like you could see a Christmas tree light up as you're going through this constantly it's flashing because they're having aha moments that they hadn't thought of. But it also creates a loyalty to the organization because now they feel like they invested in me and they've given me this opportunity and look what we're doing right now. That they're willing to stay and keep fighting for that organization because they feel valued.

As you're talking Something else that popped in my head was, I could imagine sick. Time goes down, maybe health and wellness goes up and on all these kind of ancillary things. You don't think about when people are coming to work more, they're healthier, they're slept more, not stressed out, they're productive. Right, Right. Because if you're sleeping well and you're taking care of yourself because you're not stressed out, you can be more productive without necessarily more effort.

Exactly. And you're going to see teams start to do projects that you are thinking could never be done.

Wow.

Because they're gonna find. They're gonna find creative ways to get it done.

Right. Because. And this is how I think about things. When you're. When you're well slept and you're take care of yourself, your brain can work good. So you can be creative. You can mull over these different solutions. You can, you know, have that brain power and a capacity to think about these different things.

Totally.

Autonomy, too, to solve the problems.

Right, Exactly. And you've got a team that gels together and they're like, yeah, we want to work, really. And Bob's having problems here. Let's all go help Bob, because we can help him. We know what could fix this problem.

Yeah. And I can think about when I've. I've experienced this. When you have that trust and that camaraderie and it's like, you know, Bob. Oh, that's a great idea, Janet. Oh, my God. It's a great idea. Yes.

Okay, let's bring all this together. And you're just like, everybody's so excited and everybody's just pumping. You're like, yeah, let's get it done. And you just have this, you know, three or four, five minds together, you just come up with such a grander thing.

Totally. And how exciting is that? Because it could be cutting edge above any other organization that is similar in that area.

But even if you're just. Just more effective and efficient, there's an edge right there.

Totally. You've just increased productivity and profitability.

Right.

Why wouldn't you invest in it?

Not to mention the turnover is down, which you just said, how massive a cost that is.

Totally. And when you can spend 15k to 50k per person and you're gonna have a huge ROI on that, like over a thousand percent. Why wouldn't you?

Yeah. Especially whenever it's hunting for like 10 ROI. Right. You're like, listen, never mind. That is small peanuts. We can get a thousand over here.

Yeah. It's almost A no brainer.

Yeah, I'll take that. Every day of the week, Twice a week.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So you know, how do we start to recognize our team and our leaders for signs of like burnout and is there maybe habits or things that we can, you can recommend.

So that's a huge crisis right now that organizations need to be aware of because a lot of organizations are trying to do much more with fewer individuals.

Right.

And you're going to see sick time go up. You're going to see people that look frazzled and they're not productive. There's going to be a lot of conflict, huge amounts of conflict because people aren't really engaged. Your morale is going to suck. It's not going to, it's almost going to be non existent. And so with that, even as an individual you need to be aware of, are you burnt out, are you tired and exhausted? And what do I need to start to do to change that? And that may be a conversation with a manager to say, hey, I need this to change because I am exhausted, I am killing myself on this. And if there's no response from them, it may mean you need to find another job that will actually help you and you will not have that burnout because it's not worth it.

Is there, I don't know, maybe like an early warning, early signs that you can start to see maybe yourself or others. Because I think as human beings we get used to things, right? You know, my leg is hurt. Eventually I just start limping in a way that it's fine now.

Yeah, you're over exhausted. You're tearing your family apart. Like you're just getting mad at a drop of a hat, right? Because you're so frustrated and tired. You'll see a lot with your family because they're going to either back away or point it out to you, but it's going to be because that's where your safe place is. That's where you're most comfortable being who you are. And when you're frustrated, that's where you're going to go. But if you aren't even being effective at work. For me I, when I was burning out, I could see that I was short tempered with my family.

And when I was at work I had no passion or drive for it anymore. I didn't want to do it. I hated my life. I even said that I hate my life and I'm like, okay, time out. This is a whole bunch of warnings that I need to start to deal with this.

How do you, if somebody's struggling with this, maybe the ego saying, listen, I can handle this, I got this. This not bothering me. This is who I am. You know, they start maybe a little bit backlash where people are saying something or maybe they're recognizing in themselves. How do you kind of tamp that down the ego a little bit and say, listen, nobody, we need to handle this.

I think it's just having that conversation saying, hey, you're not okay. Because let's look at all these things and there's nothing wrong with that, but let's identify it and then let's start moving forward and figuring out how to deal with this. And maybe you need a break. Maybe you need to take a week or two off and just decompress and figure out what you want to do going forward.

And yourself saying, listen, I need a break. And also the organization maybe saying, hey, I think you need to take a break.

Yep. The organization may have to step in and say, hey, you know what, you're doing great, but you need to step back, take a break. Because you can't keep going the way that you're going. Because I know even in high stress projects, when I was working on those, there are times when I would look at the team and say, guys, here's a good time to take a break. Let's take a break because you're going to be stressed out because we've got a huge push coming. So let's take a break.

I'm not sure how it is in Canada and even other parts of the world, but I do, I'm a little bit of aware that in America, like vacation time and that stuff is down a lot. Is that something you see elsewhere as well?

Yeah, in Canada especially, depends on what province you're in. In Alberta, we are known as one of the hardest working provinces where people take a minimum, well, maximum usually of one week, when you're supposed to take anywhere for three to six weeks, depending on how. Yeah, but a lot of Albertans won't take vacations and so that's a problem.

Is it an ego thing, economic thing? What are we, what are we thinking about? What are we saying?

A lot of it is economic, but Alberta is a very rich province. I think it's partially. They're just. That's our grassroots. We're known to be hard workers and we have other people that come to the province, let's say from Quebec, who have said, I can't work here and have left because they work too hard because they're putting in more than 40 hours a week. And we're used to 36.

Is that where the oil fields and stuff and whatnot are?

Yes.

Okay. So that's a, that's a hardworking job, a hard working mentality. Something to be prideful too. I think a lot of people are prideful of that as well, right?

Totally. And we're very much farmers and ranchers. And so you're used to working long hours. And so then as kids of farmers and ranchers, we come into the workforce. Course we're used to working long hours. And so that's just how we do it. That's our drive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How do you, how do you kind of say, I can be a hard worker, I can put in 16 hour days and I can get this done, But I also know I need to recharge a little bit. I need to take maybe it's three days here, maybe it's five days there, maybe it's whatever. How do you switch mindsets or just kind of recognize that I need to take care of me so I can take care of my. My province, my community, my village.

So for me, I've had to learn the hard way. Burnout. But now I have set boundaries where I go. Nope. At this point, I shut everything down because I need time to deal with my family or to have some downtime so that I can relax and recharge so that I can be effective tomorrow. And doing 20 hours is not going to help me in any way, shape or form. So if we shut down at 5, that's it. Everything goes off.

And it's just knowing that and being purposeful of how you handle your stress levels and your boundaries.

Now, how would you deal with this? Maybe criticism. I. I guess I want to say, Jennifer, listen, no, we work hard here. You don't work hard anymore.

I won't say what I would really think.

Here's the PG version.

Yeah. Do you know what? I am working as hard as I need to be effective at what I do. And that doesn't mean that I need to follow the Industrial revolution hours where we've been told that you have to work so many hours. I can work six hours or five hours and still be effective. Because when I work those hours, there's no distraction. I am focused. I'm getting the job done and then going to do it effectively. And now I can then be okay taking a few extra hours to go and do other things that I need to do.

I think something in there is key that you said is being not distracted. It's amazing how much you can get done when you have good blocks of focus time, deep thinking, deep work.

Totally. And that's why I also recommend putting it in your calendar.

Absolutely.

Put in a couple hours a day in your calendar where you are not disturbed, you are not on social media, you do not have your phone on and it's focused time.

Yeah, I personally, I like that time in the morning. Do you coach? Maybe different things like hey, listen to how you, how your body is and how your brain works. Do you, how do you think about that?

Totally. It depends on the individual. For me, I work best in the morning so I have block time in the morning where I have purposely put in there walk time. So I, when I get up, I go for a walk to clear my head and get ready for the day. Then I also have block time for work that needs to be focused on. And I have my list and I go through them. Other individuals, they can't be like that. I have a friend who, she works better in the evenings so I've challenged her to start to put block time the evenings to get the things that she needs to done and to focus at that time.

Yeah, I like that.

There's so many cyclical things to that. Right. Where you work better. Some people work better in different times.

Yeah. And it's just setting yourself up to be successful and that's it, the key.

Right? Setting yourself up for success?

Yes.

I'd like to go back to I guess the basis of everything here. So you talk about authenticity. I feel like that's a kind of overused word. Could you first define how you think about authenticity? And then maybe, you know, some people think of that word, maybe oversharing or lack of boundaries. How do you kind of define that word and how do you kind of think about that?

So for me, authenticity is being true to who you are as an individual and knowing what that means. And it doesn't mean the same thing for everybody else, but it's knowing your priorities, your values, who you are, why you respond the way you do. Having that self awareness in order to be successful at home and at the job. And so that's key and understanding that because you're going to be much more effective professionally if you understand who you are. And then. I'm sorry, what was the other question?

It seems like people use that as an excuse sometimes this is my authentic self and they overshare or they have lack of boundaries or you know, different things along those lines.

No, authenticity is having those boundaries. It's not over sharing, it's understanding the situation. And be able to differentiate what you need to do in that situation. And each one is different. You can't just do copy and paste for everything. And you have to evaluate that. And so over sharing. Yeah, that.

That's not being authentic. That's just over sharing.

Yeah.

And it can be manipulation at times, too. And you have to be aware of that.

How are you coaching leaders to kind of develop this with themselves and also within their subordinates and in their organizations?

So for coaching them, we go through it very personal to understand who you are and why you are the way that you are. And then we try and bring that to the team and understanding the team and why they're responding the way that they are, and then it ultimately will impact the organization. And as the organization sees the changes that you're making and the team is making, they're going to go, wait a second, something's really working well here. And let's copy that and do that elsewhere. And sometimes organizations won't. They don't care.

Interesting. What does that come from? They don't care.

It's the culture and it's the mentality that they have. And so. So it's usually from the top down that that comes in. And then you have some key individuals who really want to grow and really want to change that and they want to lead by example.

Are these like typically large legacy kind of organizations?

Yes, typically. And then sometimes it can be the smaller company because the entrepreneur came from that larger organization and that's what they know and they saw. So trying to break that and show them that there could be a different way of doing things to be more successful.

And then I would imagine if I'm. I'm in that organization and I'm noticing that stagnation, I. I need to find.

An exit plan sometimes. Yeah. Because if they're not willing to change or they don't support you, then you may have to evaluate if this is the right company for you because you deserve to be treated well.

And how you start thinking about that, preparing your cv, your resume, looking for something different. How do you start thinking about that?

Yeah, you start preparing your resume. You start looking at job sites to see what's out there to get a better understanding. You may go with headhunters to help because they may have contacts that you don't have and can get you in.

How do you evaluate maybe the culture or the environment so you're not getting sucked into something similar that you're leaving?

Big thing is if you can go and do research on that organization if you know anybody who's working there or have connections there through friends, then you can find out what kind of environment it is. Here in Calgary that's not a problem to do because it's such a, it's a big city, but there's, it's a small community when you get to know different individuals. So it's making those connections with other individuals and finding out and getting their feedback.

What about sites like is it Closed door, Open Door or something like that? Things like that where they evaluate these companies and kind of anonymous things from inside organizations. People leave reviews and stuff like that. Is that something helpful?

It can be, it can be. I never trust the reviews on that because it can be very disgruntled in individuals or it could be pay individuals that are trying to prop up the organization. And I think that's with anything. You need to go do your research on them to figure out what is the culture truly like.

You know, maybe if you're looking at maybe these things or whatever, is there something like you said, okay, there's a bunch of bad, there's a bunch of good. Let me find the middle. Maybe there's something there that you're missing. Maybe, I don't know. I'm trying to think about how, how we can go out there and think about this and look at this. If maybe like I'm looking at a job in another city or another state or maybe somebody. I don't have the ability to go there. How am I going to evaluate, you know, moving or, or, or interviewing.

Yeah. And how do you know you're going to actually get the job?

Yeah.

Other than trying and put it out there. Go. You, you got to take risks in life.

Yeah.

And can't play it safe all the time. And if you're willing to move, go and check out houses on the realtor sites to see what the cost of living is going to be like and go and evaluate what the company is doing and what the area is like. You've got to understand that you can't just sit there and go, oh, maybe I'll do it, maybe I won't. You gotta start making steps to move forward and try. Who knows, it could probably be the best thing that ever happened to you or it may not, but you have to go and start testing the waters to see what's out there.

If we could put our, maybe our futuristic cap on here and we're looking ahead, what emerging leadership challenges do you maybe foresee with this rapid changes of technology like AI, hybrid work environments, different things what are we looking at?

I think there's a lot of challenges that we're facing and we'll continue to face because we've got gender differences that we have to deal with nowadays. We've got AI technology. It's moving at a speed that we've never seen before. You've got generational diversity. We've got five generations working in the workforce now. Like, how do you deal with all those different individuals? Which, by the way, I love this is reverse mentorship.

Oh, say more.

Where you've actually got the younger generation mentoring the older ones on different areas that they're really good at, like with technology. And then the older ones can mentor the younger ones on dealing with people, skill sets and soft skills.

I can see the camaraderie you can build doing that when you guys start working together like that. That's a great idea. I love that.

Yeah, that's one of my favorite things, is reverse mentorship, especially with gender diversity. And then you also have neurodiversity now, too, with adhd, add, autism, and just changing your viewpoint on them because they bring so much to the table that we don't recognize. And so those are some of the huge challenges that we're facing.

Yeah. I think in my experience, I, you know, when. When I see, like, especially autism, I'm like, boy, there's something that person, they're going to be so world class at. And I think we dismiss those people too much.

Definitely. Because I had the honor of working with one individual who had autism and was just diagnosed with it, and she asked some of the most brilliant questions I'd ever seen or heard. And her boss hated her because she asked the questions. But she came onto our project team and we loved her because she was asking the tough questions that we hadn't thought about. And we were like, this is fantastic because it's giving us new perspective.

Sounds like he needs to get his ego evaluated.

Very much so.

Yeah. Yeah. People feel. Feel insecure. Right. When they're asking all these questions and they're. They don't know the answer and they don't feel comfortable saying, I don't know, or something along those lines. Right.

But I love brings so much to the table, and it's so much innovation and thought process that you hadn't thought about. And you're like, that was brilliant. Do it again.

Keep going. Yeah, where's your list? Yeah, even, I mean, dyslexia and all these things. Like, I mean, something like a quarter of all billionaires are dyslexic. And so I think we got to take a step back and reevaluate some of these different things. Like I, I knew a kid, he was autistic and back in that back and forth was really a thing and he was just like so font at electronics. It was like unreal. The things he could come up with is just like mind blowing. And if you just kind of put them in a box and maybe put them to the side, you're missing out on that, that sub botan like attributes and qualities that are there.

Totally bring them to the table because you don't know what they can do.

Yeah, yeah.

It's changing our mindsets on that as well.

Very good. Fascinating things here. So we have your, your company website, authenticleader. Cat. Do you also do American stuff or you mainly Canadian stuff?

No, I'm doing American stuff. I'm trying to break in more and more into the American economy there because I love it there.

Perfect. And then so we have that and then there's some great resources. I'll link to these things for you guys to check them out. We also have your book that we talked about at the beginning of the show here. Developing Authentic Leaders, A Practice Guide for all leaders. Is 52 different high topic, high impact topics in there to go through. And like we were talking about before we started, you're saying one, one a week going through that and a lovely little year long exercise.

Yeah. And the whole point of it was to do one a week because I had to cut off how much I wrote. So 52 topics seem like the perfect amount and they're all easy to read.

Anything else you want to talk about the book real quick before we start the wrap here?

No, go get it. Because you might actually love it and use it as a reference guide going forward for all your leadership.

I'm excited to read it. I haven't read it yet, but what I've read about it, it's definitely, I think, my speed and I'm going to love that. I'll link to Your Instagram, your LinkedIn, your company's LinkedIn if people want to get a hold of you, see more what you're about, different things you're sharing.

Definitely please do.

And then on a social media show, I like to do a weekly challenge to help our listeners implement either an idea or concept we discussed here today or maybe something we didn't at all. And what I'd like to do is I'd like to have you issue this week's challenge.

So this week's challenge is just start Small. But start analyzing yourself when you're stressed and figure out how you can respond slightly different to be more impactful with the people around you.

That's a great challenge. Thank you so much for that. And then one last question here. I'd like to know, what does becoming legendary mean to you? Or maybe said another way, what does living a legendary life mean to you? And it doesn't have to be a grand thing. It can reach me however you want to think about that word and that phrase.

I would say evaluate how, what legacy you want to leave behind for those around you. And for me, that's helping change how managers are viewed and how they're respected and how they are trained.

And of all the things we talked about today, there's so much there with all the different topics. I mean, I can't imagine the staggering amounts of money we talked about and the morale and innovation and so much things in there that seems to be such a huge key to. I feel like a lot of unlock in so many areas of business and even personal life.

Totally. And there's so much that you can get from all of that.

Well, Jennifer, this was fun. I've got a ton of notes here. Like I said, folks, I'll link to different things we talked about and all the different resources. Anything else you want to talk about before we wrap up here?

No. Thank you very much for having me on the show. It's been fantastic.

It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much. Wow. What a fascinating conversation with Jennifer. I am still stuck on and love this concept. I'm Dig Morse Mentorship. What an amazing concept. My first time ever hearing about this.

I. I'm in love with this. I'm gonna. Jennifer, after we were talking, after we wrapped, we were talking, she's gonna say she's working on a blog post and what not to come out on this. It should be out by the time this you guys are seeing this, it'll be in the show notes. And as always, you guys know there's no paywall, there's no premium content, there's no social community. And plus, all we ask up front from you is if you found value from this episode, share it with at least two other people. You can connect with us on all our usual places.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube or your favorite podcast player. For past episodes and links to everything we've discussed here today, you can head over to the SocialCommelion show. Until next time, Keep learning, growing, and transforming on your path to becoming legendary. Connect On Social This podcast is available on… You can listen to all our episodes on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Overcast , Pocket Casts , Castbox , YouTube Music , Amazon Music , Audible , Substack, or your favorite podcast platform .