The Living Your Learning Podcast
Exploring all things leadership, learning and everything in between; The Living Your Learning Podcast is THE place for top chats, awesome insights and a splash of inspiration that will light the way to awesome leaders, amazing teams and even a better you!
The Living Your Learning Podcast
Episode One - Leadership, Learning and So Much More
Summary:
In this first proper episode of the LYL Podcast, hosts Craig McHugh and Lisa Butler delve into the essence of leadership, learning, and personal development. They explore the concept of 'living your learning' and its significance in both personal and organizational contexts. The conversation highlights the importance of taking responsibility for one's learning journey, the characteristics of effective leaders, and the role of vulnerability in leadership. They also discuss the impact of historical leadership models, the necessity of communication, and the value of behavioural profiling in fostering effective communication and teams. The episode concludes with reflections on great and poor leadership experiences, emphasizing the need for courage and understanding in leadership roles.
Takeaways:
- Living your learning is about integrating lessons into daily life.
- Leaders should inspire and radiate positivity.
- Courage in leadership often manifests in everyday actions.
- Effective communication is crucial for team success.
- Feedback should focus on actions, not personal attributes.
- Understanding historical leadership models can inform current practices.
- Vulnerability is a strength in leadership, not a weakness.
- Behavioural Profiling can enhance leadership, team dynamics and understanding.
- Leaders must be aware of the impact they have on their teams.
- Creating a culture of learning requires active participation from all.
Sound Bites:
- "If you're not 100% in, I'm 100% out."
- "Leaders are radiators, not drains."
- "Courage is about everyday actions."
Get In Touch:
To find out more about Colour Behavioural Profiling for you or your team visit:
https://www.livingyourlearning.com/c-me-colour-profiling/
Alternatively contact Lisa Butler for information on DiSC Behavioural Profiling on:
lisabutlercoaching@gmail.com
And if you would like to develop your communication and emotional intelligence skills so that you can truly Communicate With Impact visit:
https://lyl-online.thinkific.com/courses/communicating-with-impact-masterclass
Hello and welcome to this first proper episode of the LYL podcast. The place for top chats, awesome insights and a splash of inspiration that lights the way to awesome leaders, amazing teams and maybe even a better you. And on this episode, a really special episode, we are introducing our co-host and we are talking about all things leadership. learning, communication, and so much more. We hope you enjoy it. Hello and welcome to this first proper episode of the LYL Podcast. And this is a very special episode today because today we are introducing our brand new, well not brand new because you haven't been here before, but our co-host for the LYL Podcast, the amazing Lisa Butler. How are you Lisa? Alright, thank you. How are you? I'm very, I'm very well. And thank you for being on the show and thank you for being a part of this crazy thing that we're doing. How are you feeling about it? I've never been on a podcast before, so I'm very, very excited and nervous and I'm feeling really... excited about where it's going to go and privileged to be here. that's really nice. And yeah, I'm really excited as well. So I think what we'll do is I'm just going to start off with throwing a couple of questions your way, and then we'll learn more about you. And then we'll just see what comes up and what we're going to chat about. But predominantly, as you know, the Living Your Learning podcast is all about leadership, which we both care a massive amount about. It's about teams and helping teams to be better and to develop teams. But it's also about learning and helping people to learn. and whatever else comes in between all of that. So there's loads and loads of stuff that over the coming weeks and months, etc, that will crop up and we'll be able to talk about. But the first question I want to throw your way, and I asked this to Pam on the pilot episode. And if anyone hasn't watched that yet, go and check it out. It's absolutely amazing. But the podcast is called Living Your Learning. So I want to really get an idea from you. What does the phrase, living your learning mean to you. So I have done a lot of courses in my life and there are courses where I have made copious amounts of notes and then I've left them the shelf. And then I've gone back and gone, man, that was a lot of money that I wasted. And there was an opportunity there to have embraced what I did know. So my learning is about taking the lesson. reflecting on how can I integrate that into my own life and then deploying the lesson into my everyday. I don't do it all the time. I am a 1 % better every time kind of person. And I have a long way to go with a lot of stuff, but I think it's about the integration and the willingness to try something different. Wow, I love that. And you're a qualified accredited coach. You run leadership programs and you provide leadership coaching. I know you work with a lot of organizations. What do you think that phrase should mean to all of those people? I think when we put it into an organisational perspective, living your learning is not, let's not just tick the box. Let's not get to the end of the year and go, shit man, I haven't, we haven't done leadership training, we haven't done health and safety, god right quick, find someone, you'll do, brilliant, well done us, we're all trained. there's nothing worse. really shows when people turn up as well because they're just not, they're not into it. The person who's booked it has booked you because they had to, not because they want to. And so I think the whole piece about choosing to live the learning is a active decision and choice to make a difference with the information that you have. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think it's certainly my years within learning and development, you know, training, coaching, etc. And one of the biggest things that I've come across with a lot of people and organizations and I get there sometimes reasons valid or not for it is that there's just a sense that learning is done to people. Me and Pam spoke about this last week as well, but it's done to you and people like us. are the people that do it to you, so the responsibility lies with us. But actually, in order to live your learning, you've got to take the resources that people curate for you, i.e. your coach or your trainer or your facilitator, and you then have to take responsibility to do something with that so it leads to something different. I always remember, and this was one of the reasons that I started LYL, my business. and left the corporate world full time and went on this crazy journey of being a business owner was I was working as part of a big people team, did this really great workshop or series of workshops on coaching skills, delivered it to the people teams, the HR people, etc. And one of my colleagues, a HR manager came up to me and went, your course wasn't very good. I went, why is that? Well, because they're not using it. And I went, Well, why is that my fault? And what, as a manager and a leader, are you doing to help them with that? What are you doing to coach them? And also, I've offered follow-ups and check-ins and catch-ups, and they haven't come to me to book those in. So how is that my responsibility? Do you find that as well? Because that really used to bug me a lot. So as you were speaking then, you said the word responsibility and I've sort of put three little arrows, one self, two to others, three to the organisation. Sometimes I'm wondering in those situations, where is the responsibility here? Is it to that tick box or is there a greater vision? Like what is it that you're working towards by doing what we're about to do? And the, choose my words carefully. I feel like sometimes people are too quick to blame the trainer rather than to take a mirror and look at themselves really hard and say, did I come to this with the right attitude? Did I come to, I come to this with the right approach? Are we considering the impact of this? And honestly, I wish that people would have, maybe we should like send out some pre-questions to people who make inquiries. to do those things because unless you really sit down and consider the impact of what you're about to invest in, you're actually wasting your money and you're wasting people's And you've said just then about offering people the opportunity, you know, for feedback and more help from yourself. Like people do the course. and then they go back to normal jogging. There's no opportunity in the working week to just take five minutes to reflect on what went really well, what have we done differently, what's going really well and where do we need to adjust. Like that's missing. And it's a key part of learning, isn't it? Being able to do that. And I think, and I don't know, sometimes there's a sense that if I do this course or have these coaching sessions, all of a sudden, it's a bit like the tick box thing. I'm going to be cured and everything is going to be better and the clouds are going to part and the sun is going to shine and I'm going to be absolutely amazing. But, but, but, but people, doesn't work like that. We can curate it. We can guide you, we can facilitate your learning. We can even give you knowledge and help you develop skills and behaviours. It is you that has to apply it. It's you that has to make mistakes. It's you that has to reflect on those. What worked well, what didn't work well, what can I do differently next time? And then try it again. Only then does learning work. So yeah, one of the things that I really want to do through this and through through what we do generally is just try and shift this mindset of, yeah, we can do a massive amount for you, but you've got to meet us halfway and we're not going to do it to you. You've got to take responsibility for your learning and you have to live it. Yeah, I wrote a post last year and my end line was, if you're not 100 % in, I'm 100 % out. that's amazing. I love that. I love that. That's really good. Wow. And we've spoken so much and we haven't even learned about you, Lisa. How rude. So let's find out a little bit about you. So maybe a little bit about your background and, you know, in terms of the things that we're going to explore, and we're to explore a lot of stuff here on the LYL podcast. But in terms of the things that we're going to explore, what you really care about? I really care about leaders. shining a light on the way that things can be so that other people can be inspired by that and make choices, different choices that allow them to progress. It's kind of a clumsy way of explaining it, but my background, my context is I spent nearly 20 years in the army. I was cap-badged in three different corps, four... operational tours, know, lots of different experiences. And I worked with some of the worst leaders I could ever have imagined to work with I also worked with some fricking amazing people who were inspiring and kind of gave me the insight to what could be. And those that were perhaps not so great gave me the indication of what I did not want to do. I'm really passionate about breaking toxic generational leadership patterns that we copy what someone else did or what someone else told us. You know, when people are behave, when people do something that they've been told is right, but inside it doesn't feel congruent at all, but they do think that's what they should do. Mm-hmm. My thing is about helping people to find their everyday courage so that they can answer the call when they hear it inside that this isn't right, that they can speak up and do it a different way. And in so doing, we shift leadership into the inspiring, the energetic, the positive, the kind of forward motion place that it should be. rather than sometimes it can be stuck in, you should do, you must do, I'm the leader here, you do what I say, and I don't think that's helpful all of the time. Wow, amazing. I absolutely love that. I just love your whole philosophy around leadership. I know we've talked about it a lot. What would, if you could describe... what leadership is all about. or what it means to be a leader in one or two sentences, what would that be? I like that you said one or two sentences there. I added an extra one just in case. Feel free to add more. Be concise. What does it mean? I think leaders are radiators and not drains. Wow. think leaders are the light switches oners They're the people that create the magic. And I don't mean that, this isn't gonna be two sentences, sorry. I don't mean that in a Gandalf kind of way. I mean that the way that they show up, the way they show example and the energy that they bring to the room, people can see stuff that they might not have seen before. They can see a different way. They can see a possibility in what they're doing and in themselves. And therefore we create this. energy in the room to get stuff done. For me that's leadership is when you really create the spark and people are like yeah we can do this. So would you say that results are still important in leadership? Yeah, definitely. But what do mean by results? I suppose it depends on what you're trying to do. So if you take, you know, a typical business, businesses focus on numbers, don't they? They want to hit a certain target or a certain figure. And I think sometimes leadership can get lost in the pursuit of that. But I don't think it should be forgotten entirely. Because if you don't get results, then the leadership hasn't worked. But if you focus too much on the results, then you haven't been a good leader. And then you can get into that whole discussion about, if we're looking at the pennies and we're looking at the people, that was a management issue. It's not a leadership issue. Mmm. But I, leaders are there to inspire people to get to the end of the mission. Okay. to get it done, to get it done to the standard that you've laid out at the beginning and to take everyone with them. It's not just to take the best. It's not to take a small minority. It's take everyone with you. We've got to achieve this as a organization, as a team. Let's do this. This is how we're going to do it. You know, what's your feedback, but it's a, it is a kind of like get on the ship. We're doing this together. Yeah, absolutely. Couldn't agree more with that. You mentioned courage there. What other characteristics do you think are important for leaders of today? So courage is always my number one. Integrity. And when I say integrity, I mean it in a sense of absolutely knowing yourself. Like for me, leadership starts with us. If I, we, us do not know our triggers, our habits, our behaviours, what riles us, what makes us energized. If we don't know that stuff. then actually we are not being as efficient and as honest as we can be as leaders. It is the integrity to be brave enough to look in the mirror and say, I'm getting this wrong. I'm being an ass. Actually, I'm going to do some work on me to make sure this isn't happening again or whatever it might be. So can I just come in there and ask something and something that Pam touched on last week that I think it will be a recurring theme because I think it's really important is this thing called vulnerability. Why are so many leaders not willing to be vulnerable and to go, I don't know or I did make a mistake or I did bugger it up or I do need help. Why do you think that is? Why do you think some people, some leaders are afraid to do that? I think it's a really nuanced, multi-layered question. Thank you very much. I am wondering if we have to look at, if we have to look at organisational history in a sense and look back, if we go back to, like my history is dreadful, so if anyone's listening and wants me to be more specific, unlucky. We go back to like, you know, the end of the war, for example, and we look at what kind of roles people were doing. There was a really specific way of doing work. We, leadership was seen as the person who was the most senior and we got on with stuff and we didn't make a fuss. And we, and certainly at the end of the war, we don't make a fuss because Auntie Ethel down the road just lost three of her brothers and we only lost one. So we're not making a fuss. we've, you know, not that long ago was a don't make a fuss kind of environment. We then go, okay, well that's what our grandparents, our great grandparents, lived in and worked in and we learn from them how to behave. Our leaders that you know they the 50 let me see we're in our almost 50. I'm not quite there, only a few, couple of years ago. Yeah. Edging. But if we think about who the bosses are, who was their example, where have they learned their style from? And so I think it's such a nuanced, complex argument or not argument discussion, but vulnerability, if you look at the statistics of how many leadership roles are taken by men, how many are taken by women, is there something in there about social expectations about what leadership should look like? We should never admit emotion or we should never admit we're struggling because that would not do. Yeah, but I think, but then if you look at the number of people who are accidental managers and the number of people who are in leadership roles who have not had leadership training, They're going on what they think is the right thing to do and not on what is actually, you know, the thing to do because they happen because no one's ever said, you know what is. think this is all a hangover from way, way back when there's still trickling out through. Wow. think we're, I think we just carry, all of us are just carrying dozens of rucksacks on our bag with other people's shit in it, hours to carry. And that's why think it's so important that leaders kind of go, who am I as a leader? Who am I as a person? Hmm, that's interesting. Yeah, I love that. So you reminded me of something when you talking there about the war, et etc. So I'm really into World War II, World War I history, military history. It's one of my favourite things. And I was watching a documentary only last night, actually, and this thing really, really resonated with me because I shouted at the TV and there was this American general, was about the First World War, American general who brought all of the American soldiers over to fight in France. And he dragged all of his commanders into his office because they were all retreating and he told them not to retreat. And I'm kind of paraphrasing here, I won't be able to get it exactly what said, but he says, your job is not to keep your soldiers safe. Where'd you sit with that? I sit conflicted on that. If you'd asked me 15 years ago, I'd no, that wouldn't have been any different either. I knew you'd ask me a really awkward question. Where do I sit with that? I sit... I sit... No, I sit uncomfortably with that. Okay, what's the uncomfortable bit? Because I think a leader's job is to make sure that their people are safe within the realms of what they need to do for their jobs. you know, I get, I'm imagining the scene, you know, as soon as you get outside of that trench, I can't keep you safe, but I can train you and I can empower you with as much information as I possibly can and give you all the tools and equipment that you need to keep, to keep as safe as you can be and then it's on you. That's my role. But I think there is a huge difference and maybe I should have added that kind of the next bit he said, and he was kind of getting at, you're not here to keep them safe. You're here to send them into into battle to die. Essentially is what he was saying. That's hugely paraphrased. But I think there's a huge difference between send people into battle and if they die, they die. Or I'm going to my job is to keep you safe. At a certain point, I can't guarantee your safety, but I'm going to do everything I can, whether that's training, whether that's equipment, whether that's tactics, whether that's strategy, whether that's how I treat you, whether that's the behaviours in this group of people that will make you feel inspired, confident, and as safe as you possibly can be. That's what I think it's about. And it's interesting because I think that you could just apply that scenario to the battlefield and to soldiers. However, if we flip that into a organization that has our job as leaders is still to keep them safe and to give them the training and the equipment and the awareness and the boundaries and the empowerment. And I'm wondering sometimes if that sense of safety is undermined by a lack of consideration from the leaders that actually my job is to keep them safe. A million percent, because even in the business world, in the organizations that we work in, there are going to be times where people have got to take risks. There is going to be times where people feel scared, where they're doing something completely new, where they're completely out of their comfort zone. Now, just because they're not on a battlefield being shot at, doesn't make that, well, obviously it's different, but you know, it's, you can definitely transport it. And I think it's in those times where. it's risky and we've got to take risks and we might make a mistake or we might get it wrong where leaders have to instill that inspiration, that confidence and to say, know what, when you figuratively speaking go over the top, I'm going to be right there with you. And if you fall down, I'm going to pick you up. absolutely, absolutely. it's that a couple of years ago, just fairly recently actually, I had this realization that people think courage is big stuff. They think it's the big stuff, but actually the courage, the everyday courage piece is, Craig, this is an awkward conversation, but I really need to talk to you about, you know, we have to shift from, well, we've got to have a challenging conversation to, could we have a courageous conversation? And I just think if we spent more time focusing on the small stuff, the little things that cause the resentment and the gossiping and the schningffing and the nip. And I just made up. But if we spent more time thinking about the little tiny things all add up to big things and yeah, that's where the focus is missing sometimes. One of my huge bug bears is, and I kind of understand why it's difficult, but I sometimes have a problem with people just not giving feedback or making feedback into a thing that has got to be difficult or challenging. No, it's two human beings talking to each other and one providing, and it's a two-way conversation by the way. facilitating information that's going to mean that that person is going to be better and they're going to improve. What in the world is difficult about that? Have the fricking conversation. People have a right to know when they're not doing something right as just as much as they have a right to know when they are doing something right. Have the fricking conversation people. Just go and have the conversation. I know, I feel that and I wonder if there's a wording thing, like language is so important but I would say I'd like to give you some constructive criticism. Like instantly I'm like, prickles are out! Have you heard of the shit sandwich? What is that? Like it really is like... and this no word of a lie, if I hear that at least once or twice on every single leadership program I deliver, I will be fortunate that I haven't heard it as often as I would expect. Because people think, right, I'm going to tell them something really good, then I'm going to hide the bad thing, then I'm going to tell them something really good again. No! If something's not right, just have a talk. So, Lisa, you're working on that thing. Can we just talk through how it's going? Okay, why have you done it that way? Okay, but how about if you did it that way? What would happen then? Yeah, because I noticed that actually that bit didn't work out so well. So if you did it the other way, what might happen? And it's just stuff like that. Just have the conversation. It's totally right and within that is a... Right, we're working together on a project. We work in an organization and the organization mission and values are X, Y, Z, right? So we know that in however many weeks this project is to be finished and this is what we're working towards. When you tell me that the piece of work that I've just done doesn't quite hit the mark because of ABC, you're not saying, Lisa, you're a knob. You're saying this piece of work doesn't quite hit the mark because, and in order for us to get to there, I need you to change it or I need you to change the way that you're coming in or the way you're showing up or whatever. It is not, I feel like, and I'm totally guilty of receiving it in this way. It is not you are a bad person, you are not good enough. It is the thing that you are working on, which is nothing to do with you as an individual, isn't quite right. But there's this, this, need a fancy word if I haven't got one, this merging of me and my role or me and the thing that I'm doing. Clearly, if the boss, the leader, whoever says, Lisa, you are a knob, then that's a different conversation. But generally speaking, feedback is not about us as individuals, it's about the thing. Absolutely. But that's why setting or having very clear objectives is so important. Making sure that everything that we work on is linked to the values is actually helping drive that mission towards that overall vision of that place that we want to get to. And I see so many people not connecting those up and they wonder why it doesn't go so well and then they're afraid of telling people. It is just a conversation. yeah, have it. How important is communication in general then out there in the world, whether it be within a team or a leader or whatever? it's not very important at all because no one seems to be too well we can talk you know you know when people say you can always come to me like if there's anything going noise come to me and then you go yeah and then you go to them and you say I've got this thing going on and they go all right so what I would do is or why did you do that and it's like you're not listening at all and I think like if everybody knew if everyone was taught at school how to listen to hear, listen to understand, rather than listen to overlay my opinions and citizens of what we want to do. I think communication would improve drastically. If we cannot have clear communication and we can't understand each other's context and opinion, How are we going to move forward here? Yeah, completely. for me, I mean, one of my mantras is communication is the key to everything you do. And honestly think that. And for me, when teams aren't performing well, and it's very easy to blame that on the leader, and sometimes the leader will have a part to play in that, and a big part to play as well. But for me, when teams do not perform well, it's because they simply aren't communicating. Yeah, I think there has never been a more important time to learn these skills and look in the mirror. Like the world is crazy right now. And I just feel, maybe I live in La La Land, I don't know, but I just feel like people are not trying to understand the other person's context. Yeah, that's another discussion. yeah, and it's another episode, because I think there's a lot of things that come into that. You mentioned listening. We have two of those and one of those for a reason. But also, think it's, you know, how we're using our voice, using your voice on purpose. How often do you actually sit there and think, how am I actually coming across right now? How do I actually sound right now? It's the questions that you ask. It's the rapport that you build. It's the energy that you bring. And for me, the other crucial five elements to this. And again, we'll be talking about this a lot, no doubt, over the course of our various episodes is emotionally intelligence. You've got to be self aware. You mentioned that earlier. You've got to be able to manage your emotions. Your motivation has absolutely got to be tip top. And what I mean by that is the impact, the positive impact that you want to have on others, your empathy. mean, I'm the least, just ask Pam, I'm the least empathetic person going. But I've learned how to do it. I've learned how to appreciate it. Yeah, I've got to do it on purpose. It doesn't come naturally, but it doesn't work. Communication doesn't work without empathy. And then lastly, are your social skills. They're simply being able to hold a conversation. They're now to manage relationships, manage conflict, influence people in a really great way. And the people just take all of that for granted and they don't learn it enough. And if I had a pound for every time, someone said, what's this emotional intelligence all about? I'll be a millionaire. And it amazes me that people don't know about it. Why is that? because it's not, we don't really talk about it in too, I mean, I think the younger generations are probably much more aware of it than we were, perhaps a lot. it's not talked about or in. This is a thing that you've got layers of different generations of different beliefs and different outputs and different expectations and different exposure to things. So it's kind of I think it's really important to understand people's context of where they've come from so that you can understand where they've come from. Yeah, that's fair. But I would say that if you want to be more successful at what you do, be great at communicating, be great at those elements of emotional intelligence. So this is for me, I call it inside out communication. So how we talk to ourselves in here and in here will result in what we verbalize, what we talk about or communicate externally. And if you think about all of the people that that are really great at what they do and are really inspiring and engaging, whether a leader or not, for me it comes down to that stuff, it comes down to communication and I think, yeah, it's a key skill that has to be learned. I'm really interested, I just want to ask you a couple of questions around leaders. I'd love to know, and you obviously don't name names, but could you describe the best leader you've ever had? Okay, there are two, I'll try and merge them together. unfailing belief in the vision that they had for what it was they were creating. the very clear dissemination of information so that everybody knew where they were going and their part in it. Yeah. the ability to talk to everybody like they mattered. communication EQ. be humility to say when they were wrong or that they were changing direction because and not to blame that on other people but to take responsibility for their own actions. Amazing. really good sense of humor, which was not pointed at other people's failings or, you know, humor that's funny, not humor that's based on, you know, I'll judge your stupid shirt or, you know, whatever it is, the complete absence of personal attacks on other people. And that's passive aggressive nonsense. And just the best way to describe them would be the conductor of an orchestra. I love that analogy. I've used that a few times myself in, in, in when I've been coaching or training leadership. Yeah, that's such a good way to put it. Yeah. Like if I think of a conductor, they're always, they always, they're in it, they're there with their people. And it's like, can, I use it with my clients as I'm sure you do. You can't, you can't tune the French horns for them. Like you can hear what's out of tune, but they, your French horns have to trust you. And they can only do that if you're in it with them rather than sat, you know, how could, how could you be a conductor sat in your office, everyone else is playing? Like you've got to be there. You've got to be in the mire. And I think that's also the piece is that those leaders have been the ones who have spent time in the trenches and they're not coming to it from a, all right, this is my position and I know that you, they're not coming from that place. They're coming from a, it's about, I know that we can do this together. I've, you know, I'm going to bring my experiences, but I, Absolutely, we can do this together. Yeah, I love that. And describe your worst. Hmm. or the worst you've experienced, we've, and again, you don't need to name any names, but we've definitely spoken about this in the past. very old school approach of I'm senior, you're junior, not using, I would be addressed by my rank, only by, you know, or by my surname or by my rank but not by my name, or they didn't know my name, not, the worst, man, I'm gonna put them all together, like, even, I can see them in front of me and the la- of willingness to stand up and take responsibility for what is yours so that your people are not then given given stuff that doesn't belong to them and whether that stuff is responsibilities, beliefs, you know having a what's the word I'm looking for? like being told off for stuff that's absolutely not their responsibility because the person above didn't take their responsibility. And the very, think most of it was more about that they cared more about themselves than they did about the people that they were serving. And that's so important because I mean we all have such an impact on each other and I am a believer that I'm not necessarily responsible for how people feel. I think we're responsible for how we feel. If you do something, you're not necessarily responsible for how that makes me feel. I'm responsible for that. But we do have such an impact on people and I think whether you're part of a team or you're a leader you've got to be, and I'm taking this from actually a leader I worked with earlier this year, last year, one of my clients is you've got to be really aware of the shadow you cast. Yeah. because you could make a difference one way, and it'd be amazing, or, and I know you've experienced this, you can make a difference very badly the other way. Mm-hmm. Totally right. And this goes back to the self-awareness piece. And what's really interesting now is now I do the behavioural profiling. I know, you know, I do the disking. I know you do the other one, another one. the same. I realised back then what my natural preferences were as a leader and as an individual and had I understood what theirs were I think and and vica versa I think that we would have had a better relationship because I am a really I am a hundred percent people focused don't give me the detail don't give me the tech and dominance and being the person in charge is actually my lowest trait. because most of time I just want to make sure everyone's okay. The people I worked with, a traditional army officer model and probably a traditional leadership role for any organization is the detail and the get stuff done type thing. If we'd realized this about each other, my bosses who were just rude would have recognized that in order for me to start my day, I need a good morning, how are you, nice to see Could I have my report by 9.30, please? And in return, I would have known to say, you know, just a short and pithy good morning and here is your report. But what would happen was they thought I was really annoying because I talk too much because I'm trying to get a hello. That's all I want is a validation here. That's it. So I'm going to try really, really hard to try and make you like me because all I want you to do is call me by my name. I know that makes me sound desperate, but... it doesn't, it's so true. So true. I see it all the time. And on the other side of that is they're just like, for God's sake, you know, just the kind of curtness and the impoliteness and the impersonal ability, whatever the word is, of them. It just makes it like oil and water, whereas actually we could just, and I really think that it should be standard. Every organization should have behavioural profiling for every person that are available so they can understand who they're working with. It's been the most powerful tool that I've added into LYL's leadership coaching and programs by far. It's been so powerful, so impactful. So if anyone out there is listening and you want to know what your behaviour and communication preferences are and how they're described in four easy colors so you can interact and adjust and adapt your approach to get better outcomes and to have more successful interactions, give one of us a shout, we would be more than happy to do that for you because it is so, so powerful. And when, when those two sides of that, of that wheel, that colour wheel actually come together like that and are adjusting and adapting for each other, even if they're direct opposites, what that forms is one of the most strongest, capable, powerful teams ever. Because Each person is bringing all of the stuff that's needed because your people stuff is needed, the detail and the get stuff done stuff is needed. It's all needed and everyone has got to bring it. And if we can learn how to adjust and adapt and appreciate what people are bringing and make sure that we are amongst us, even if it's just two people, we are bringing that. my God. Do you realize how powerful that is? and how successful things become almost instantly. million million percent and also like the power of having the overlay of we don't have anybody who's a who's a green because we need everybody we need every element of that circle centered but the trap we fall into is working with people like us so we don't have we don't have the reds and the green because i like yellow people let's work with more yellow people Well that's fine, we'll have a lovely day, but we're not going to get bugger all done, you know. Yeah. Or, you know, working with people that are like me, so I'm kind of the detail. You know, we'll probably have a wonderful time arguing over making sure everything's correct. But again, nothing will get done. Yeah. So yeah, really, really important. And it's really inexpensive actually to get that profiling done. And for the value add to an organization, I think it outweighs like so many times over than... Absolutely. I'm going to do a shameless plug Lisa. If anyone would love to know their colourful behavioural profile, their behaviour and communication preferences, me and Lisa can get that sorted for you. We'll give you a coaching session. It will cost you less than a couple of hundred quid and it'll be one of the best things you'll ever ever do. Ever. Give us a shout. Wow, what an amazing first proper episode, Lisa. So, so cool and so many things that we've explored there and We can go into detail on later episodes. But I think I'd just like to finish off with, I just want to get a sense from you. Obviously, you've talked a lot about leadership. We've talked about communication, lots of different things. But just get a few kind of almost really important hot topics from you that you would like to see us discuss and explore and debate in future episodes. creating boundaries for healthy living. that's amazing. For everyone that's listening, I'm writing these down. Go on, give me another couple. because it's my favorite thing to talk about, but defining your everyday courage and deploying it into your... whatever it is you're doing. I think we should talk about how to ask for help. how to be vulnerable and still be the leader. one. and how to look after yourself as a leader. that's a great one. One thing that I've only got one in mind, I do have more in mind. You mentioned one earlier actually that I definitely want to talk about and this could be a couple of episodes I think, Accidental Managers. I definitely want to talk about that. I think that's a great one. But one thing I want to talk about is coaching and the industry of coaching and... what it means to be a coach and the value you can get from coaching and the important part it plays in learning. So looking at it almost from both sides of the fence, I think that's a really important one as well because like you, I really, really care about our profession and I want to make sure it's held up there in the right light. And I don't sometimes think, particularly when you see all of these. documentaries about, I call them Facebook coaches, but all of these people you get on Facebook said, come and have my coaching and you'll have a Ferrari on your drive within a week. And all of that stuff, my God, it makes me cringe and all the other stuff. I think it's actually dangerous is I want to, I really wanna, yeah, elevate all of those awesome, I'm not saying we're, well, we are awesome, but I don't wanna be big headed, is to elevate that and to really talk about. about coaching the good, the bad and the ugly. think that that is a really important conversation to have. think there are a lot of misconceptions around what a coach is, what they bring and confusion around, well, I had a coach and they just told me what to do. That's not coaching. And I think with our training with Optimus, like I think, you know, the level of detail that we've gone into and working under the ICF accreditation rules and, you know, it is, It is a profession and when you a professional coach to come and work with you, the results are superb. But you have to understand it so that you're not thinking, I'm sure you've had this conversation, it seems like a lot of money. And it's not a lot of money because you've got to think in terms of what's the return on investment here. It's not, it's not like, that meal was expensive. It's like. my God, I'm sure you have this. I've got clients who now will be like, I'm still doing that thing. That thing that we talked about is still making a difference two years later. Yeah, absolutely. But again, I think there's a thing around expanding on this conversation about the responsibility for doing something different and whose responsibility that is, because ultimately, the person being coached has to go away and do something. They have to change something. They have to apply something. They have to try stuff out. They have to make mistakes. And we're there to guide and to help them explore and to... The way I always see our job as a coach is to, if you can imagine taking people up to a row of doors, just a row of doors and then being with them whilst they open the door and look inside and then decide if they wanna walk through or not, that's part of a coach's role for me is helping people find those doors, open the doors and then seeing what's inside and then exploring what they're gonna do once they get there. But again, it's not, you know, It's not the coach is not there to cure you. It's not a tick-box exercise. I've had six coaching sessions Why haven't I got my Ferrari or my mansion yet? Well, because you're not doing anything differently That's why something else I think is relevant and that is talking about trauma as leaders and the importance of what it means and the interaction with courageous conversations. There is so much collective trauma in the world right now with all the genocides and all of this kind of stuff but I think what tends to happen is people still go, we're at work, we don't talk about that stuff. Yeah. see that you're from this particular nationality and that might be going on in your home country but I'm not going to talk to you about that because we are at work. Whereas actually, whether it's financial trauma because of the cost of living crisis and people are worrying about that or whether it's whatever it is, there is a responsibility for people to understand the impact that that has on their people. Yeah, I couldn't agree more and it kind of links a little bit to what Pam said last week is helping people to show up as their whole self. Just give me goosebumps. Good one, Yeah, love it. So wow, we got some great stuff to talk about over the next few weeks and months, haven't we? Exciting. And I can't believe we said, how long should we do this episode for? We'll do about 30, 40 minutes. 51. little bit over, but hey, who cares? You can listen to this whenever you want. You can pause, you can come back to it. You can even go and select the chapters that you want to listen to if there's a particular topic that you're interested in. So who cares that we run over? And no doubt we will again, because it's fairly obvious once we get going, Lisa, it's hard to stop us. Thank you so much. What an amazing first episode. Any final thoughts before we wind up? apart from I'm really hungry. Thank you so much. This has been so much fun. And who would have thought that talking about leadership could be fun, Craig? I know, right? It's meant to be inspiring. And that's what we're trying to do for people, right? Is to inspire people, get them to think differently, get them to go and try things, and to help leaders be better leaders, to help people who are part of a team be a better teammate, to help people communicate better, to learn better. That's what this is about. So yeah, a great start to that. if we were gonna leave the listeners with something to ponder, what would be the ponder point for this week? The ponder point for this week. Do you know what? I want, this is gonna come in a couple of parts, but it's all kind of merged into one, is if you're a leader, I want you to think about the type of leader you are and how you can be better at that. If you're a member of a team, I want you to think the same. Think about what type of team member you are, what you're contributing, how you can be better at that. And think about, how you can generally be better, develop, grow, learn. Take responsibility for that and what that looks like. That would be the thing for me. What about you? similar lines, my invitation would be to consider if you were to show up, if you and your team were to show up in your highest potential of what you could look like, what would you do differently? Yeah, you win. This is so epic. Yes, lovely and simple. There's me gabbling on for too long and you just put it into one lovely, amazing, succinct sentence. I love that. Just say that one, say that again, Lisa. If you think about yourself and your team showing up in your highest potential of who you could be and what you could achieve, what would you do differently? that's amazing. And on that amazing PonderPoint, that's what they're going to be called, the LYL podcast PonderPoints. And on that bombshell of a PonderPoint, we will end it there. Thank you so much, Lisa. I can't wait for our next episode in a few weeks time. So everyone tune in for that. If you haven't listened to our pilot episode with... the amazing Pam McHugh go and take a listen to that you know give us a follow give us a like give us a subscribe on whatever channel you are listening to us on or watching us on and we will see you next time See ya. And there we have it, our first proper full episode of the LYL podcast. We really hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. And don't forget, whatever channel you are listening or watching on, give us a like, give us a follow, give us a subscribe, and we look forward to you joining us next time.
