How do you know you're a good leader?

Ahoy legend. Welcome to today's episode of the leadership question where we're going to dive into a topic today around reference, in reference in terms of what's your point of reference? And how do you know, good is good? So the question for today, one that we'll spend some time on picking, as always exploring, understanding, insights and challenges with that, and then ultimately giving you some tips, tools and tactics to take away is around the question of how do you know you're a good leader? Subjectively? Objectively, there are lots of ways we can define that. But I think the interesting thing for today, because it's a singular topic is How do you know some generatively that you're a good leader? What's your point of reference? This was sparked by a conversation at an event a couple of weeks ago, which I thought was quite interesting. I was asked to give a talk, actually a couple of talks that week. And in one of the talks, were speaking to someone else who was involved in the event, not a client or anything, of course. And they said to me, you know, I think I'm a pretty good leader. So well, you know, that's great, you know, interesting to hear, what are you doing, like, oh, I don't have any staff at the moment. Okay, that's cool. You're What have you done, where you've been a leader? How do you know you're a good leader? And they said, Well, I have experiences Oh, that's great. You know, it's always good to bring a myriad of different things to what you do. And I said, specifically, tell me, what What have you done? And they said, well, people don't always like my style. But I think I'm a pretty good leader. And I think I'm a pretty good leader, because I've had two really important roles that have defined my experience as a leader. I was like, Cool, what are they? And they said, the first is I used to be a fitness instructor. And so of course, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up a little bit, and I said, Okay, we're in well, that's interesting, kind of command and control dynamics. That's this wait, though, there's a second one. And they said, okay, and then the other one, and they said, Oh, I'm, I'm a mom. I said, sorry. What do you mean? I said, I'm a mother. I have kids. I said, Oh, okay. Interesting. Yeah. Great. Well, congrats. That's, that's good to hear. Yeah. What would you like? And they were asking me questions about the leadership topic that was delivered. And I said, Well, what would you like to know? And then the subject changed? That was really interesting, because when you think about that, the person who said that to me clearly thought they were a good leader. Now, whether they are aren't, you know, I can't assess that in that conversation. Right. I have no frame of reference for I have no experience, I have no observations, would that person specifically that I can unpick in the moment? So we just turned the attention to the question. But it did raise for me a curious question of how do you know you're a good leader? And what experience and mental models are you bringing? So for that person, you know, to say that they're a parent, and that makes him a good leader? It's a stretch, right? I have no issue with parents, obviously, we all come from a parent at some point, you know, my parents are not a part of my life. And that's okay. But the idea of a person being a parent is challenging, and it's not nearly as rewarding extrinsically as as to be intrinsically. But all of that aside, does that make you a good leader? There's a power dynamic there that's quite explicit, and a duty of care that goes beyond leading people and trying to get them to see the vision and doing all the kind of classical leadership stuff, you're actually responsible for the well being and legal guardianship of a child that you're not in the same way expected of a parent, as a parent, a parent and an employee. Does that make sense? So if you're the parent, you've got this legal duty of care that you do not carry with employees and with children. Yes, things can break up air quotes, but not nearly as easily you can't fire a child and say you're out of here. I mean, give them up for adoption, all kinds of other stuff, but that's not what we're talking about. So that one, I struck off the list and I go, gosh, okay, well, we've got to eliminate that one. And the second one was fitness instructor and you think, fitness instructor. Again, not really a leader, you instruct people, it's in the title, you tell people what to do. Now, some people think that's the role of a leader and I would argue that's quite draconian. And not at all the measure of a good leader. Can I direct people to do the thing that they need to do? Well, yeah, I guess but one that's terrible for engagement. That's not really going to drive staff to book Yeah, this is great. I really enjoy it, too. It's not visionary three, it doesn't involve good long term career development and aspirations. It's very transactional, very transactional and quite authority driven. Would you work for someone who directed you Who? Or would you be able to retain people, if you directed them to just do a series of tasks, and in some regards pushing and getting them to do things they don't necessarily want to do. Now fitness instructors work in short bursts, they do that for 45 minutes or half an hour or an hour. Never really more than that. You just started signing on for that. But imagine a fitness instructor, you spent eight hours a day with kind of minimum for five or so days a week. Oh my god, you'd you'd hate them, you would have this absolute hate driven relationship where like, I'm tired of you telling me what to do all the time. Always looking at me watching saying do these things. So you might go, this is a bit crazy Travis like what an extreme example. But the thing is, the person thought it was good leadership. And so if we turn back to the question and say, Well, how do you know that you're a good leader? And how are you benchmarking yourself? You know, what are you doing to go? Well, I think I'm a good leader. But how do you know? When's the last time you sat back? And go? Do I think I'm a good leader? And am I really practicing good leadership? What is my definition of good leadership? You know, there's the classic things that I would expect every good leader to have on their list. And some of the things we talked about would be coaching. Are you a good coaching leader? Yes, the difference between telling people what to do, and coaching them towards an outcome, and without using the word in the definition, but helping them understand and gain insights, to move them towards their own development? That's good coaching? You Are you someone who has a clear vision? And really drive that into what you're doing? And help connect with the vision of the person? Do you have development goals in mind for that person? And do they align to their development goals? Do you push people to be accountable when they don't want to be accountable? Or when their peers are not being accountable? Do you create great team dynamics where the team mesh really well? And when they don't you facilitate that going better? Do you go out and advocate for your team? Do you go out and fight the hard fights you go out and negotiate with stakeholders to get to a better place? If this is just some of the things that come to mind immediately? These This isn't by no means the exhaustive list of good leadership. And I think you have to take stock of that. And we all do as leaders, we have to sit back and go, How am I performing against the things that a modern leader in a complex world fraught with talent shortages, recessions, you know, economic uncertainty, all the things technology comps, everything that's going on at the moment? And, and really going, oof, do I think I'm doing a good job? And do I really believe I'm doing a good job. Now, as always, it's not my role to pick on anyone, nor would that be the flavor of this series. That's not what we're after. But what we are after is making this useful for you, and making sure that you're stopping to take stock of the things that do matter. Because if you're listening to this, obviously, you give a $hit about being a good leader. And it's really important. So I'm here to support with that. Now, what can you do? Well, first and foremost, look at your frame of reference, look and look at your peers frame of reference. Sometimes we end up with this herd mentality. So your frame of reference might be useful, you might have had some really good leaders and mentors that you've worked for, and you've adopted that style. Great. But then the herd mindset that can be problematic is when you work in an organization where all the leaders kind of behave the same. And that pattern of behavior is not a good pattern of behavior. You know, for example, one of the trends I see in this and it's not really a trend, in a kind of micro sense. It's a large, macro spanning trend that's gone on for years is this thing where leaders feel like they have to drive consensus based decision making. What a f*cking terrible way to run an organization, consensus based decision making. What does that even means? Like, we want to get as many people as possible to agree to this, if not everyone, before we commit to doing anything terrible. Not everyone can be right and not everyone should make the decision. There should be accountable people who are responsible for certain decisions, and who hold others to account for doing those things to try to get everyone on site is blasphemous. Have you ever host a town forum, where you've asked every employee what they think you should be doing? Those answers could not be more misaligned if you tried. So don't go that track. So that's some of the herd mindset stuff I'm referring to. If your peers around you have that style, you need to push against it. Or if their style is very, we act nice at front of employees but behind closed doors, we do dodgy $hit and push people around or or scheme and plan and plot not. So first is you second is your peer group. And the third for this is what do you what would your employees say? It's always interesting if you do a 360 or if you just ask them, hey, you know, what things am I doing that are useful as a leader? What things could I be doing better as a leader that would help you you to grow and go in the direction you're after. If you were in my role, what thing would you do differently tomorrow or immediately? Those are just three questions off the top of the list that you can take away and use to see well, what are my staff think about me? And then four. And finally is, what does my leader think about my impact in influence as a leader? How effective am I? What would they say? What did the review say about me? What's the measure of success? These are all important dimensions to factor in. So today's topic, in summary was around, how do you know you're a good leader from a subjective point of view, but starting to add some other people's insights and Intel into that equation, look at your past experience, be clear on what you've done, look to your peers and make sure you're not moving in the wrong direction. Check in with your staff using those questions I've just given you and then speak to your leader around what they see as your development opportunity, assuming, of course, that they are good leaders. And if they're not find a mentor, find someone else who used to work for who was a great leader and check in on those specific things. That's today's topic. Thank you for tuning in. Always great to have you in the episode. I'll be back tomorrow with our next episode of the team buffalo podcast. I will see you soon and keep kicking a$$.