The Fundamentals of Leadership: Essential Skills to Lead

1. Welcome & Introduction : Hello class, and welcome to the fundamentals of leadership. My name is Josh. I've been an executive leader for over 20 years, not only leading companies but consulting with some of the largest in the world. And these are eight fundamental parts of leadership that are crucial for us to learn, to know and to develop. Now many people talk about the values in leadership. Today we are going to be talking about the skills that are required for leadership. We are on skill share. And so we're going to be talking about the actual skills that can be learned, developed, honed in on crafted and really a journey for all of us. So whether you've been a leader for 30 years or three days, this class is for you if you're in any type of leadership position or you want to be a leader. So when we talk about the fundamentals, we're not talking about being a rookie. We're not talking about being a beginner. When we look at the word fundamental, it is the core thing that makes up the substance of something. It's the, it's the very things required for the success of something. And so today we're going to be walking through the fundamentals of leadership and I'm so excited to be with you. This is going to be fun, effective, and easy for you with an amazing class assignment at the end. So join me as we go on this journey of learning the fundamentals of leadership. 2. Class Project : All right, So the project for this class is going to be considered a self assessment project. As you go through all these eight fundamental elements of leadership, be thinking about how you currently I'm going to ask questions and each one, and each of these lessons. But be thinking about where you are currently on your leadership journey. And at the end, we're going to go through that and develop something just for you to be the best leader that you can possibly be. So join me on this first lesson as we talk about communication and connection. 3. Communication: Out of all eight of these fundamentals of leadership, communication and connection is the most important one. All the rest of the seven are really important. They're skills that we all need to be developed for us to focus on and work on. But communication and connection, I promise you, is the most important thing that you can do for your skills in leadership. Again, we're talking about skills today. John Maxwell says is I have this quote in front of me. And this is, this is amazing. John Maxwell's in his amazing organizational and business leader, he says a good leader communicates. But great leaders connect. Good leaders communicate, but great leaders connect. Now there is a big difference between just communicating and actually connecting with people because we could communicate all day long and send emails and call people and give directions and all that. But if we're actually not making a connection to them, that is the goal in leadership to make a connection. I'm not saying with hundreds of people or thousands of people. Especially when you're at the sea level of an organization, There's a lot of people that you're not going to be able to connect with, but there is some people that you do need to connect with. And so this is my challenge to you right now. We're gonna get right into how to develop these skills. So my question is, how do we understand and how do we diagnose and how do we increase this skill for you right now in this class, my first question and I told you the project is a self-assessment. We're going through the skills of leadership, not just values, because communication is not a value. There's values that support communication, but communication and connection is a skill that you need, that you need to develop, that you need to learn, that you need to know how to do that. And there's so many good Skillshare courses that will share that with you as well when it talks about if you know how we effectively communicate and body language and all those things. But the first question I have for you is this, how are you connecting with the people on your team or those working with you right now. And this is a self-assessment. We're, we're, we're, we're moving directly into project territory because this Skillshare is all about us growing learning and increasing the skills, not just head knowledge, but doing. We're talking about action here. Skill always requires action. So my first question for you again is how are you connecting with the people that are on your team or that you're leading right now as we speak. One thing I want you to do right now, and this is an action item. I want you to get your phone out. Maybe you're using it right now, but get your phone out and text a couple teammates right now. And if you're leading people, text them right now and say, Hey, I just want to thank you for the job that you're doing. I just want to congratulate you for having, you know, for for doing all that you do because I'm telling you just those small things go such a large way. And so we need to constantly thinking about how are we connecting and we increase it by doing, we increase it by actual action. So one, some of the tax right now and what I want you also to do and you could start this tomorrow, but call on the phone one of your teammates or, or one person a day that you are leading that you don't normally have to connect with. Maybe you're working remotely, maybe you're at home, maybe you are in the field. Maybe you're doing something that you have clients and you're, you know, you're an entrepreneur and you're by yourself, connect with a client and say, hey, thank you so much for the work you've given me. And that is creating a connection and communication in your leadership. All right, the next thing is questions for yourself. Do the people around you understand the vision and the mission of what you're trying to accomplish. If there is no there's no understanding or if there is a lack of understanding of the vision and mission and means that you personally have not done a correct or good enough job to actually share the vision and mission with them. Why do you exist? What do you exist to do if success was a place? How would anyone know they got there? And so these are things that we are always communicating as leaders. We're sharing the vision and we're sharing the mission. Whether you're leading clients or you're leading people. Let me say that again, whether you're leading clients because so many entrepreneurs who are, who work for themselves, they think, Well, I'm not a leader because no one reports to me. False is not true. We are leading no matter what. If we are in any type of business capacities, doing something, selling something, connecting with someone, even if you are a YouTuber. And that's all you do is you work for yourself and you create content all day long. You are leading people. You're leading people and they, do they understand why you exist and how you are going to help them? How you are going to share your vision and mission and say, Hey, this is why I exist for you to whatever that is. Share that, communicate that and bring a level of connection so people feel so connected to your vision and mission. Whether it's where a company, organization or you're an entrepreneur and doing this by yourself. All right? Are you listening more than you are speaking? Communication. So much of it has to do with you listening and not talking. And we're talking about this skills here. These aren't just, these aren't values. This, these are skill sets for you to develop in yourself to be a better leader. So when we talk about communication and connection, one of the major, major assets in that as being able to be what we call effective and intentional listening. Intentional listening have ever sat down with someone and you've talked to them and it was just like Man, that was an amazing conversation and you're doing all the talking. It's because they were such a good intentional listener. They may have only said five words. And you're like, Man, that was the best conversation I've ever had that that person is a leader. Because we as leaders, we intentionally listen. We intentionally listen. And maybe your job requires you to give so much direction, so much vision, so much mission, many tasks. But when's the last time that you'd sit down with someone said, hey, how are you doing? How is your job? How is it going? How is this? How is this week, Ben, maybe on a Friday or a Saturday or on a Monday. This is where the communication and connection is so crucial for us not to just give tasks and give direction, but to say, Hey, are the things that I'm giving you good for you? Are you able to accomplish them in the time that I've given you? How am I leading you? Those are tough questions to ask as sometimes we don't like those answers. But for you to listen as a leader and listen as you make connection, that's one of the best ways you could actually make a connection. All right, The last thing, nonverbal cues and communication, we're talking about nonverbal things. Being aware of how you're communicating at all times. You could just be sitting in a meeting and you're sitting there and you're slouch back and your arms are like this. And everyone's like men, What's their problem? And you're like Man, that was a great meeting. Everyone else thinks that you're mad at them. Everyone else thinks that you're upset, especially as leaders. The way we come across our posture, the way we look at people, the way we make eye contact with people, having a smile on our face. Some of the nonverbal cues are one of the greatest ways we actually make better connections with people. It's sometimes without talking. And all the introverts said, Heck, yes. Spirit, like I don't like talking. I don't like having to give Michigan I'm a leader, but it's hard for me. I'm telling you if you lead with nonverbal cues, you will be the best leader that you can possibly be because your posture will be correct. The ways that you connect with people will be, I'm telling you it's life changing. And so these are things, these are skills that we're talking about when we look at communication and connection. All right, Well, let's move on to the next one. 4. Inspiration : All right, so the next foundation element of leadership is inspiration. And I'm not talking about getting loud. I'm not talking about, you know, being a motivator or even having an attitude of trying to motivate people or being jovial or, you know, like I said, it so many people when they hear inspiration, they think loud, they think someone who's, you know, rambunctious and your personality depends on inspiration. That is not true. Well, we're talking about here, and this is a skill we're talking about. Skills is the ability to inspire confidence in others. And so when we talk about inspiration, There's so many different levels to it. There's so many different, I mean, I'm sure if you just Google the inspiration, there's a million videos. There's a million people talking about how to inspire people when we're talking about for the leadership skill, for the fundamental skill of This is how do you inspire confidence in the people that you're leading. So we're not just inspiring them to do good and to do better and to be the best that they can be. It's inspiring confidence in them to be a better leader. It's inspiring confidence for them to be able to run a meeting by themselves, for them to be able to branch out into new things. And so when we talk about this, it's crucial that we understand how we actually develop this skill. Because you might say, Man, I want to be able to do that. I feel like I inspire people, but how do I actually inspire confidence in people? There's three things that you need to think about before we get into some of the action items is authenticity, values and self confidence. Authenticity values and self confidence. The ability to inspire confidence and other people comes from those three places. You being authentic, you actually having values for yourself and you being self-confident. You cannot inspire confidence and other people, if you yourself are not self-confident, you can't, it's impossible, you can't do it. And so what I'm talking about here is your ability to latch on to your values, to latch on to being an authentic and real leader, an end that there is a confidence that Combs. I'm telling you, if you have values that you adhere to you and say, This is how we're going to live, this is how I'm going to work. These are the things that I'm going to die on the hill for. These are my values. There is a confidence and self confidence that comes out of that. So those are three things, and these are questions for you. What are your values? Are you authentic? And are you actually confident? Are you confident in your own ability? And as we go through the rest of these things, if you are living all of these well, you will be confident. And so my question again is, how do we understand, diagnosed, and increase this skill through all eight of these things, we're going to go through questions for yourself. And this is leading up to the project at the end for us to be able to really do this real self-assessment. And again, we are increasing skills here, we're developing skills. This isn't just head knowledge. This isn't a lesson for just, oh, that was a great lesson. I'm going to go on with my day. These are things that are actionable for you right now. Okay. So the first question when we're diagnosing, when we're looking at how do we increase this skill? Is this, why do you lead? Why do you lead? What is the reason that you lead? This is a question to look deep inside of yourself. Why do you lead? What is the, what is the reason for it? Is it just because that you took a job or that you wanted to be famous or you wanted to have a voice. What is the reason why are you a leader? Why are you doing it? And that's something that I'm always asking myself. And these are things that when I sit with clients, when I sit with people that report to me, when I sit with organizations and businesses and sit at the C-suite level and at the leadership level, in the management level and the director level. My question is, why do you do for this? Why are you elite or why are you here? What are you doing this for? And I know this is something much deeper, but these are questions that we have to ask ourselves when we're talking about inspiring confidence. You must understand why you want to lead, why you are a leader, why you are doing the things that you do? Why do you do it? What is the purpose of it? Because if you can get down to the core root of your purpose and leadership, your ability to inspire others and inspire confidence in them will be off the charts, a promise you are at. So here's a couple of ways that you can actually inspire confidence in yourself right now. And these are questions that ask yourself and things to look at how you lead. There's two things that great leaders who inspire others and inspire confidence do. The first thing is risk-taking. How risk averse Ru, do you take risks? Do you challenge others to take risks? Or are you a play it safe hunker down leader? Because the hunker down play it safe leaders, they're not inspiring and they don't inspire confidence. And so if you look at some of the biggest best leaders in any industry, whether it's at Apple or Amazon or smaller businesses are Fortune 500 or Fortune 100, 00, 00, 00, 00, 00, or even local businesses around you that are doing amazing, great things. They all have something in common. And it's being able to take risks. It's understanding how risk-adverse Ru, how do I take risks? What do risks look like in my realm of work? Because all of you watching are from the farthest left to the farthest right on the spectrum of what you do and what your job looks like, and how you operate and what industry you're in. But all of you who are watching this can take risks. What does it mean to take a risk? And how do we inspire as we take risks and others are the second thing is willing to change and allow change. So taking risks and having the ability to change and pivot quickly and to be able to look at markets, to look at things and say, Hey, we need to change faster. I need to be able to change with where the market's going. And so when you look at the biggest leaders in the world, they are all risk-takers in there. They all have the ability to assess what changes are needed and assess the change that they need to make as a leader themselves. And those two things inspire confidence more than any other thing that you can do as a leader, say, Hey, we're going to take this risk. I know that it's risky. It's in the word. But I promise you guys if you keep following me, if you know the vision and mission, we're going somewhere. We're going to take this risk. Whether it's very successful or whether you fall on your face, you at least inspired people and you pick each other backup. Or you, you've, you know, live in the glories of winning and doing something amazing. And so those are two things, risk-taking and being able to change. That is how those are things that you look at right now. Look at, look at yourself. Am I a risk-taker and am I able to change? Because if you can't change, you will not be a leader. I promise you guys. So think about those things as we move on to the next leadership skill. 5. Emotional Intelligance: Alright, so the next one is emotional intelligence. And I know this phrase has gotten much more popular over the last five to ten years. If you said EQ or emotional intelligence 20 years ago, people were like, What are you talking about? There was very few literature, There's very few books. There was very few blogs and podcasts about it. Now you hear this word everywhere. And it's for a reason because this is a requirement for you as a leader to develop this skill. If you want to be any type of good, healthy leader, it's emotional intelligence. And I just want to read you, I have this in front of me that my definition of it, so there's a lot of different definitions of it, but this is my definition. It's the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways, as well as understand others emotions and how you could affect them. So it's not only how your emotions are affecting yourself and your work environment, It's how you are able to manage your own emotions and able to assess others emotions and how you come across. So there's, I know there's self-awareness and that there's empathy in that we're gonna talk about those things very quickly here. But emotional intelligence is not only how you are able to manage your own emotions and assess them in real time. It's, you're assessing others emotions and how you are coming across to them. I know this is something deeper when we talk about leadership, but there is skill sets that are involved with you increasing your capacity to be emotionally intelligent. And so there are five main characteristics. Makeup EQ, we call it emotional quotient or emotional intelligence. But there's five main things that you need to look at. And so I hope you're taking notes in this. This is a lesson, this is a class. So whether you have a notepad in front of you or you have a piece of paper in front of you. Take notes on this because I promise you guys, this is something that is foundational for you to actually have emotional intelligence. So the first thing is having self-awareness. I know I said that already before we got into these, but it is so crucial for there to be a actual self awareness in you. And this is always knowing how you feel and how you are presenting yourself in any type of situation. And I know it's self-awareness can be described in many different ways. But at the core of it, it's knowing how you feel and how you are presenting yourself to others. It's when you, have you ever met someone who's, who's completely not self-aware? It's exhausting. It's, it makes you nervous. You know, a lot of them are close talkers or they talk too loud or they talk too much, or they make you feel uncomfortable, whatever that would be. People who have no self-awareness, have no ability to actually lead. That can't lead. It's impossible for them and the people, the leaders that have been put into a position that aren't self-aware, it is almost impossible to work for them because they have no clue how their actions are affecting you, how their emotions are affecting you. And so this is something for you to have a better understanding. And then my question to you is how self-aware Ru, how self-aware Ru of how your actions, how your emotions are not only affecting you and your family and people around you, but those who work for you, those that you work with, and those that you're talking and communicating with. So that's number 1, self-awareness. Number two is self-regulation. It's being able to regulate your emotions, you choose what is right for that situation. And this is, we're talking about this as an executive skill set. This is executive functioning that we're getting into here. But self-regulation, It's literally having the ability to choose the emotion that is required for the moment, not having that emotion choose u. This is one of the hardest things and one of the most misunderstood things because people were like, How can you choose an emotion? How can you, how's that even possible is that, you know, are you manipulating all you get into all those things. And really it comes down to you, you as a leader, no matter what is happening around you. Whether it's really good, whether it's really bad, not allowing those emotions to affect everyone else negatively. And we could be going through turmoil. We could, we could be completely stressed out, but us as leaders, we have to come across with a confidence and there's a humility and that I'm not saying be prideful in fake. I'm saying for you to be able to manage your emotions in a way that no matter what is happening in your personal life. I know people who have bosses that if they have a fight with their spouse, the night before or the morning of that day will be the worst day of their life. Because they are angry at everyone. They're yelling at everyone, there's slamming doors. And that is them not being able to self-regulate their emotions and how it affects others. Okay, we're going to keep moving. So self-awareness, self-regulation. The third thing is self-motivation. It's working consistently towards short and long-term goals while maintaining high standards of quality for your work. That last part is the most crucial thing because we could all have goals both short and long-term. But you keep the same standards of quality at the beginning than you did in the middle and the end. And that is having the ability to self motivate yourself to say, hey, as a leader, I'm not going to rely on anyone else to inspire and motivate me. I'm going to have a self-motivation. So to have the ability to say what you're gonna do to the long-term goals that you have and the short-term goals you have the same level of excitement, the same level of quality, the same level that you had at the first day, because it's easy to write out a big, let's say there's like a big rock that you want to accomplish and it's like, Oh yes, we're gonna do this this year, six months later. Are you still excited about it? Are you mad that it hasn't been accomplished? Do you bring the same level of enthusiasm from the beginning to the end that has the ability to self motivate are the four thing. And there's only five. It's empathy. You could put yourself in other situations. It is easy to support your own view, but can you see others points of views? It's really easy to say, Hey, here's what my view is. But are you able to put yourself in other people's shoes and say, I I may disagree with it, but I understand where they're coming from. If you could understand where people are coming from, your empathetic. If you are not empathetic, you will never, if you disagree with anybody. And they, and they have a different point of view, you get angry, you get upset, you get mad, you start to lash out. And these are, I'm telling you guys, there is so many liters that lack empathy that are unwilling and unable to actually put themselves into any other people's shoes as leaders. That's what we do all day, every day. Even if you don't have no one reports to you and you are a freelancer or a YouTuber or whatever you would be, put yourself in your client's shoes and say, Hey, I don't know why I'm struggling with maybe there's a strain relationship there that having the ability to have empathy to say, Okay, let me see what let me see from their point of view, which is going to be a 100180 different than whew. It's literally going to be the opposite. And some of the ability to see the opposite point of view is what so many people lack in, but as required for us to have true emotional intelligence. The last thing is just social skills. Can you hear good news and bad news? Are you able to get people to support new things and to support change? How is conflict resolution? How does that work? Social skills so much, so, so many things that we do in leadership when it comes to social skills is the ability to manage conflict. When conflict arises, are you able to confront it? What do you get socially awkward? And I'm not talking about, are you an introvert or an extrovert? I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the social skills that are, that allows you to be able to jump into situations and say, hey, I know there's conflict here, but I'm going to I'm the resolution now. It's not a process that you put in place. It's a person that you put in place for conflict. Let me say that again, conflict resolution is not accomplished through process. It's a conflict by, by a person and that's you as a leader. You jump into that, or you develop others around you to develop it. And of course, we could have processes for when there is conflict. They go into this meeting with these people. But conflict is always always fixed and resolved only through people talking, not through tax messages, not through emails, physical talking, whether it's on Zoom, whether it's person to person in a meeting with them. That's how it's done. It's not done through a text. It's not. So many people want it to be, but it's not. And that's one of the hardest things in leadership as your ability to actually have a social skill of confrontation, of being able to confront and say, Hey, this isn't going right, what are we going to do to fix this? And there's empathy, there's self-awareness, There's self-regulation. All of those things mix with, with being able to confront, always create a healthy environment. All right, So as we end this one, we're going to be talking about ways to understand, diagnose, and increase your skill. This is what I want you to do. Keep a journal, spending just a few minutes at breaks, a few minutes during the day, here in there at different times to write out your thoughts. This is something that most people want to do, but never do. So when we talk about emotional intelligence, get a journal, whether it's a Notepad on a digital device or a physical piece of paper. But start writing a journal today or tomorrow. And start writing down your thoughts of things that you're feeling. This is one of the best ways to understand how you are emotionally healthy or not. Because you can quickly start to see how angry you are getting, how mad you're getting or how happy you are. And maybe you're really good at this heredity. But started journal and do that for seven days straight. I'm only asking for seven days straight in this. So start-start this journal, write those things out after seven days, go through each day and say, Hey, what was I feeling that day? Maybe your complaint over but you look at that day and was like, Oh my goodness, I can't believe how angry I was, how upset I was, and how my emotions affected every single person. So the second thing is know your values. I know we talked about this, but you're, you knowing your own values are so crucial. In that same journal, I want you to write down five values that you have right now that you say, here's things that I believe that I adhere to, hears things that are valuable to me. These are things that I feel like I do. Write those out and then put them next to your journal and say, do my values support the things that I'm doing and feeling? Do they actually supported or is it, Is it a dream and not a reality? Because we could have values and say, Yeah, I'm honest and have integrity and accountability. But really all those things could just be in your head and you dreaming of doing those things. Alright, so the last thing is know where you stand with what you do. How much do you enjoy what you actually do? And in this journal you can write this out. Where do you stand, isn't is it like, Man, I got into this business because I used to love it and now I don't. Because the more we hate our work, the less emotional, intelligent we become, the less self-aware we become. And sometimes you could become a monster just because you're doing something that is complete opposite of what you actually want to do or our call to do or what you've dreamed of doing. And so right, that how, where do you stand with what you currently do? Alright, well, I'll see you in the next lesson. 6. Building Trust : All right, so the next fundamental element of leadership is building trust. And this is the next most important thing next to communication and connection. If you do not have trust, if you have not built trust with the people that are working with you, for you, clients, customers, people around you. If you do not have trust, you cannot be a leader. You can't. No one will follow you. Maybe you have a leadership title. But if you don't have trust, no one's falling you no one's listening to, you know, ones. And you may be right now, you may be thinking like man, that's, that's kinda crazy because I'm a leader, but it's still hard for me to get people to do what I want them to do or the task that I give them are the things that we're doing. It's so hard for me. A major reason could be that you lack trust that people have for you. It could be gone. It could be maybe you maybe you haven't worked long enough with them and there's no trust built. All right, so when we talk about building trust, trust is always required for healthy leadership. It's always required to do something great. It's always required to do something big, something grand. Whenever you see someone doing something amazing, It's because people trust them. Look, look anywhere at someone doing something massive, something big, something great. It's because there is a trust built with them. People trust them. Whether you're writing novels, writing books, selling something, leading people in an organization, trying to get clients, whatever it would be. If people trust you, it is so much easier to do good work because great leaders build trust. Great leaders build trust. I can't say that enough. This is the most important thing other than communication and connection. If you don't have trust, nothing will work well for you. And the way we know this is ask yourself a question. Have you ever worked for someone that you don't trust? How toxic was that? How difficult was that? Maybe you're working for someone right now who you don't trust, then you're like, Yeah, I'm raising my hand. It's impossible. It's so difficult, it's so hard because I just don't trust that they have my best interests. I don't trust that they're going to steward things. Well, I don't trust I don't trust I don't trust them when that's there. That's what creates toxic work environment is probably more than anything else. It starts with a lack of trust and everything else follows. You start to see gossip and people stabbing each other in the back and unhealthy competition, which we love competition. But there is a high levels of unhealthy competition when there's lack of trust. Because silos are built and people are doing things without other people knowing and it's disaster. And so ask yourself, do you maybe worked for someone right now or do people trust you? Do they actually trust you? Were going to get into ways to understand, diagnose, and increase this skill in your life right now. Because again, we're talking about skills and leadership. These are the fundamental skills. These aren't just values for you, for head knowledge, that these are action steps for you to increase your skill in leadership. And we're talking about building trust. And so the ways to understand, diagnose, and increase this is one, be a role model for everyone. You are the example you set the benchmark for others leaders are the best role models when they could show how their vision. Let me say this again. Leaders are the best role models when they can show their vision and how it impacts the world to those they're working with and towards being a good role model as being able to actually show how the vision that you have, how it impacts them, and how it impacts the world, how it impacts that your client, that's how it impacts customers, how it impacts everyone else. And when that trust is built around that vision, that is something so special. And so you are the role model. You are the example, you set the benchmark for building trust. And one of the best ways to do that is to have a crystal clear vision and to communicate it constantly and show them that that vision works and build trust with everyone around you are. The second thing is tell the truth. Tell the truth, no matter what, no matter how hard it is, no matter the outcome. It's all about having integrity building trust is all about actually telling the truth and living with integrity, doing the right things when you actually say you're going to do them. So that only doing what you say, but doing the right things as you're doing them, That's integrity. So many people think integrity is just, hey, I did what I said. But it's like yeah, but that was, that was garbage. And so what we say in integrity is it's actually doing the good and right things in the time that we said that we were going to do them in. And so tell the truth no matter what. Tell the truth no matter what. I have something in my office here That's right on my wall and it says, truth above harmony. I want truth above harmony, even if it if it causes conflict, or it may be it requires conflict to tell the truth, tell it anyways. Because if you, if you're living all eight of these conflict management resolution is going to be really easy for you. So truth above harmony, always. All right. Next one, be loyal to the team. Be loyal to them. Are you loyal to the team? Defend them, provide for them, praise them when warranted. Praise them when warranted. I there was a long pause there because I wanted that to sit in so many times on us as leaders think are only job is to tell them when things are going wrong and to put deadlines on them and pressure them. That's part of hit. The other side of it is us actually being able to be loyal to them as we are asking them to be loyal to us. So defend them, provide for them, give them ways for growth. Even if it if it means you having to discipline someone at a job, even if discipline is required for your job, give them next steps, be loyal to their vision for their own life. Or the next thing is be transparent. Bringing people inside decisions and why they are being made. Bring them inside the decisions. So many times people don't like unhealthy leaders. They'll comment on healthy leader just because I never tell them what's going on. And how many times have you said this at your own job or what you're doing is like, I never know what's going around here. I never know what's going on. I hear that as a as a the past consultant for so many years, I wouldn't meet with companies and I would meet with the leaders who think everything's everyone else's fault. Because usually when you're bringing in a consultant, it's because there's problems. And then he talk with all the staff and people that are actually doing the hard work. And they're just like, Yeah, I have no clue what what is ever going on here. Were never told anything. I never know what's happening. I never, you know, everyone finds out on Facebook before I do, I wrote, you know, there's big things that happen in, I have no clue what's going on. This is us to bring people into decisions. Even if you're not going to use what they use their opinion, ask them be transparency. Hey, here's where we're at, Here's what we're doing. Here's what we're thinking for the future. Here's what, here's we'll rethink. You can go be transparent. The last thing is never micro-manage, ever. Never micro-manage, ever. If you have the right people, that is never needed and will always push the best people out. If you ask many people who leave organizations, who leave companies, people who even clients who leave freelancers. It's because that person was trying to micromanage them so much that there was no trust built. They felt a lack of trust. And so this is not only for people to trust you, but for you to trust others. And that's your leadership. It's you building trust. It's you never micro-managing, but leading out of a place of health. So the more you can lead out of trust, the better the rest of your entire organization will be, whether it's one person or 1000 people or 10000 people, build trust with your team. 7. Difficult Conversations : All right, So this next one is considered what I call difficult conversations. Being able to have difficult conversations. This is something that when we look at the difficulty level of all of these things out of the eight people being able to confront situations, people to actually have difficult conversations is one of the most difficult things because it's called they're difficult, hasn't been name. It's really, really hard to do this. It's really, really hard to develop this. It's really hard to even think about having difficult, crucial conversations. But I'm telling you guys, the healthiest leaders. The fundamental skills required in leadership is to be able to have difficult conversation. And we're talking about being able to manage conflict, being able to bring up vital things that may hurt someone if you say it, but it's being willing to have empathy and talk them through. There's a reason why every single management training that exist in the world for every single organization and company has something in there to 2 with conflict management or conflict resolution, because we are all dealing with people. We're not dealing with robots. We're not dealing with just AI. Even if you are in that industry, but you're building AI with other humans. And when humans get involved with work that we are passionate about, that we all want to strive and doing better and we're all have, even if you all have the same goals in the same vision and the same mission, and we're all going to the same place. And it's healthy environment. When you put all humans together, conflict is surely to arise, I promise you maybe there's conflict in your life right now with someone who reports to you or there's a difficult conversation you've been wanting to have so badly, but you haven't. You've come to the right place. We're going to be talking about what is required and how to actually develop this skill and how to, how to do it in real life. Because these are skills I'm telling you guys, this isn't values, this isn't head knowledge. These are skills that you need to be able to actually have a difficult conversation. And so the first thing we want to say is we must be willing to confront. And the way that that happens is a word called courage. You have to have courage as a leader. And in reality, the older I've gotten in, the more people I've worked with, and the more things I've built in, the more companies that I've seen succeed, and the more people that I interact with. My very short definition of leadership as this, the people who have the most courage. Literally I know there's, yeah, if you ask anyone, What is your definition of leadership? I know John Maxwell says it's influence. Other people will say that, you know, being followed, we come up with all these catchy things and all these like short definitions. But in reality, the people who have the most courage to go there, the most courage to have the difficult conversation, the most courage to take the risk, the most courage to be able to confront what needs to be confronted. Those are the leaders, whether it's in your title or not, some of the best leaders I've met, or people who don't even have leadership and their title. And they're able to have the courage to actually have the conversations that are required. And so courage is needed when we talk about difficult conversation. When we talk about confrontation, when we talk about us having to bring up a crucial point of maybe someone's not meeting their quota or, or their deadlines not being matched or what they said they were going to do, they're not doing or whatever that would be. And sometimes even if you're a freelancer, you have to be able to confront something in a client and that's really hard to do because you're afraid that they're going to leave you. Maybe they're mistreating you and, you know, and it's like, man, I've wanted to say this for so long, but I'm just going to do it. And again, we said this in the lesson before. Truth above harmony, truth above harmony. You need to be able to share what the truth is, what reality is. And so we're going to quickly go through every single one of these. We're going through. How do we understand, diagnose, and increase this skill? And we're going to go quickly through just a few things. This is, these are action steps for you. These are action items to be able to have a difficult or crucial conversation. Number one is this. When you're meeting with someone, state your intentions, Be honest and give information upfront. State your intention. Say Hey, this is why we're meeting, this is why we're talking. And here's my intentions through this. If you could start it off with delivering a setup for it and say, Hey, here's why we're meeting. This is the setup. They, these are my intentions. This this is exactly what I wanted. Being able to speak freely up front, on the front end and not tip toe around it. And then finally say, Hey, actually this did kind of and it's like they're, they're confused and it's like, Wait, are you confronting me now at that we were just joking around. It's for you to state your intentions in the beginning. Second step is create a goal that is mutually beneficial. Create a goal for them, and maybe they're not hitting a benchmark that you set. But if you create a goal that's mutually beneficial and say, Hey, you're not meeting this, but this is what we, what we need from you in the future over the next 30 days, over the next 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. Maybe you put in place I can employ employee improvement plan or something like that. But it's a goal that is mutually beneficial for both of you. You both succeed together and say, hey, I'm, I'm with you on this, I'm with you on this. This is a goal for both of us. Number 3 is listen. So you set it up, you state your intentions, you give a goal to them. And then listen to them. Say, hey, here's what's, here's, here's my intentions, here's what's happening. Here's what, here's what's not being met. Here's the thing that I need to confront. Here's the goal for that. Here's what I think that we actually can't accomplishment. And then you listen. And we talked about intentional listening. This is where listening is the most crucial and most important when we're talking about conflict resolution. If not, you coming down and saying, did it edited at it like a shot with a being able to just tell them everything and then you run out. You say, Hey, all right, can you share with me, what are you thinking? Does this sit right with you? Listen. The next thing is, once you have listened and they've given their side of it or they've, you know, maybe they came up with an excuse. What you need to do then is state facts. State only the facts do not state your feelings. Do not state your emotions. Do not assume ever. So many times when people are going to confront someone, they have assumed all of these things and they bring all of those assumptions that bring their emotions. And they say, hey, you did this because of these things and they're like, wait, when you don't know me, you don't know my thoughts. You that's not why I did that. That's not that it didn't even go down like that. I didn't even say that. And we could assume all of these things and bring all of that in state. Only the facts that you know, that you are able to present to them. And they say, Hey, can you show me a couple of examples? Yes, I can hear the hotter. Here's two examples. It's not just me thinking that you're doing this. And this, I'm going to tell you in this, this is really hard for most leaders, but give the benefit of the doubt. The most healthy leaders that I know that I've worked with, they always give the benefit of the doubt even when they don't want to. And that's one of the hardest things. There's hard and leaders who have been around for a long time and say, I never give anyone the benefit of the doubt. Everyone's always trying to steal from me. Everyone's always trying to take for me, everyone's always going to do the minimum work. No one wants to work with that person. Nobody. You want to work with people that give you the benefit of the doubt, so give it out to others. Are the last thing is as suggestions about how you can help in their future and then give clear steps. So as suggestions and then give very clear, crystal clear steps for their change. So having a difficult conversation, it includes all of those things. And if you do those things in order of what I just said, I promise you the next difficult conversation needed to have, we'll go and be successful are it will join me on this next one. 8. Managing Attention : All right, So this next one is managing attention. Managing attention you might be like, wait, what does that, what does that mean? I thought it was like time management. It's all about managing attention, not time. There's a million books on time management, there's a million resources on it. You could go anywhere on the internet, you could find it literally a million books on time management. What we're talking about here is actually managing attention. Managing attention. It's not just about time management, which I know time management is crucial and important. But you want to manage their attention. And time management will flow from that. What's at the core of time management? It's attention management. It's being able to prioritize and focus yours and others attention on what matters most and what will be the most effective for them to do. This is all about us asking ourselves what matters most? What matters most this week? What matters most this month? What matters most of this year? What are the big rocks? What are the things that everyone should be working on? What are the things that everyone in the entire organization or company can put their hand too. Maybe they're not going to put a lot into, but what can they put there a time and attention into? And it's being able to recalibrate and refocus people's attention on what matters, what really matter. So my first question for you is what matters most in your leadership? What matters most at your job? What matters most if you're a YouTuber or freelancer or someone who does work for other people, or you work on Fiverr, or you own a business, or you're an entrepreneur, What matters most right now? What matters most right now in Ru, speaking that out to every single person that works with you for you, with you. Are you telling people? Because I promise you so many times we look at people's time who say, man, they're not even effective in there. They're not doing anything that's important. They're just wasting time in there on the internet watching videos when they should be at work. Maybe, maybe just maybe it's because you have not clearly defined what matters most to them in the moment right now, what matters most right now? And where does this come from? Communication, connection, and being able to build trust? I said those are the, those are the most important. And it includes all eight of these things that we're talking about. But you need to communicate and connect with every single person in your organization or that reports to you at least maybe you have three people that report to you and there's a 100 people under them. They need to know what matters most today. What matters most tomorrow, what matters most. And I promise you guys all of the things that you're frustrated about as a leader and saying, Man, they, there's no time management skills here. It's really being able to manage their attention, manage their eyesight. What are they looking at? Where are they going? Maybe it's in a different direction that you even think that they are. All right, so the last thing, these are the ways to understand, diagnose, and increase this skill. Number one, go through a whole day and write down what you are talking about, not doing. What are you talking about with people? Your attention speaks the loudest. What you are spending your time on, what you are focusing on the most will speak the loudest to everyone. Whether you work for yourself or you work with a 1000 people or 10000 people, what you spend your time on people will notice, they will see, and they will also do those things or get mad because you're not focusing on the things that you told them that focus on in their eye. You're not even passionate about it. You're not even doing the things that you said are most important. So this is an exercise. Do this for one day. What are you talking about when you wake up in the morning? What are you talking about with other people? What are the things that you're sharing? Where are you putting your attention to? My next question is, what can you accomplish in less time? Studies show that most people only spend two hours a day in real quality work. You could be working in eight hour day. In most studies show that people only get two good hours of time. A lot of that is not time management, it's attention management. Focus their attention on what matters most. Then I promise you, you will get better work out of everyone around you and yourself. All right, let's go on to the next. 9. Empowering Others : Alright, second to the last one is empowering others, empowering others. This is the act of giving others resources, giving others responsibility, giving others authority. It is actually empowerment to do their work. Well, let me say that again. When we talk about empowering others were giving other the real, giving others the resources, the authority, and the opportunity. It's not just giving resources, it's giving authority and opportunity to do their work and to lead in what you've called them to lead or them to do. It's giving strength to those around you. It's actually giving physical strength and empowerment to others and is about measuring the success of those around you, not just by your goals, but by their goals. Success is not just about if you are accomplishing things. Success as a leader for you is, are they accomplishing things? Are they accomplishing their goals? And that comes with authority, with us being able to give authority. And so when we start to talk about this, we hear the word delegation a lot. And most trainings for companies, most, you're going to see a lot on online. You're going to see a lot when we talk about leadership training. The word delegation comes up a lot, and most people do not understand what true healthy delegation means. It is a dual activity. There's two sides of delegation. One is giving out task and the other is giving out authority. Task in authority, it's us being able to give out not only, Hey, here's the direction, here's what you should be doing. Here's the things that are most important. Here's the task associated with that. But now here's the authority to be able to lead an implement and put into place, and to be able to make decisions and for you to have crucial conversations and you'd have difficult conversations. So when we talk about delegation, it's releasing tasks to people and also releasing authority. Most people only do one. They say, Hey, here's all your tasks for your day. I just delegated a bunch and they're like, Yeah, but I don't have any authority to actually make any change in this. I don't have the ability to to make any decisions. You have the right people. Get out authority if you don't. Get rid of them and hire new people or trying them out to be able to do it. Is that easy? So many times people complain about it while I just give out tasks and tests. Antacids like well, they don't trust you. You don't trust them. They're not right for the role. You're asking them to do things that they're incapable of doing, that there's all these things with it. But a lot of times your, your inability to only release task is based off of you not trusting them. It's like how do you build trust with them? It's you give authority to them and if they win or lose, you're there with them to pick them up or to praise them. A lot of what we do in leadership is picking up and praising is it's a dual role as well. So when we talk about delegation, it was how long a task we're talking about authority. I have a couple of statistics for you. I'm going to read these because I want to make sure I get these right. Because this is directly tied to being able to empower and not being able to empower. The first one is 53% of people are unhappy at work. This is a Forbes stat, this comes from Forbes Magazine, the company, 53% of people are unhappy at work. That means over 50 percent of the entire workforce. Billions of people are unhappy with their job, are unhappy with what they're doing. And here's the next step that supports what we're talking about, 79% now here, this 79 percent of people who quit their job site, why? Lack of appreciation? What they're saying is I was not empowered to do my job. People will use the word I wasn't appreciated, but what they're really saying is I was not empowered, I was not trusted. I was not given authority to do the things that they were even asking me to do because I was micromanaged. I always had to go back to my boss and go through all this red tape. And I'm done with it. 79% of people who quit their job. That is the reason. That's almost 80 percent. Everything else that's left is very small. It's a lack of appreciation, which means there is a lack of empowerment happening everywhere. And so I want you guys to be able to look at this. How do we understand and diagnose and increase this skill? Because empowerment is a skill, it's for you to be able to not just have a value for, but to learn how to do it. All right, stick with me because we're almost done here. Ways to understand, diagnose, and increase this skill. The first thing is to ask yourself this, what support do the people around us need? And how can you give them more purpose? Because empowerment is always attached to the purpose. If they know what the purpose is, what the vision is, what the mission is, it's so much easier for you to empower them to have authority to fulfill that vision and mission. So the question is, what support do they have? What support do they have from you, and what do they need for them to be able to fulfill the vision and mission of what you're asking them are. The second thing is, is get feedback from those around you. What the culture is, or the way things are done around here. This is one of the hardest things for leaders to do is to ask others, say, Hey, do you feel empowered? I may say that I empower everyone, but do you actually feel empowered? What are the wait, you know what we're talking about culture. This is part of the culture. There is a culture of empowerment or a culture of lack of empowerment. When we ask like, what are the way that things are done around here? Maybe everyone's going to say, yeah, if I make a decision and it's wrong, I get my head chopped off, so I never do them and I have to always go back to my leader because he's emotional and he's unstable and he's unwilling to address things and we don't trust him. We're talking about all the skills of leadership here. I ask people around you the last thing is share your vision and mission fulfilled to share it, put it out there. The only way to fulfill it is to share it. Set goals, give them goals, give them Vision, give them mesh and tell them why they're there. And I promise you guys your ability to empower and your ability to trust others to actually haven't. Authority and task will increase greatly are, let's move to the last one. 10. Constructive Feedback : All right, On this last one we're talking about constructive feedback. Constructive feedback. What feedback? And listen to this. What feedback will make people feel the most empowered? We just talked about empowerment. So what feedback can you give them that's constructive, that's conducive, that actually gives them tools and any equips them to do better. What can you do to actually empower them through that? We're going to talk about real quickly the three elements of what actual constructive feedback is. Again, this is a skill to develop in yourself. These are the foundational fundamental things of leadership. Things that we can get better at, skills that we could increase, and things that we should have developmental journeys for through our entire ten-year of leadership. So the first thing is be specific. This means you are paying attention to them. Be specific. You're paying attention to them. Tell them the exact things that you need to be addressed, both good or bad, that, or that they are in need of improvement. And so this is very different than having crucial conversations and having difficult conversations because those are always required to have in the moment when things arise. When we talk about constructive feedback, this should be a way of life for you. This isn't something that's just done at the end of the year. This isn't something that's like a quarterly activity with your boss or with a manager, or with a director or with people around you and say, Hey, we're going to be doing your review. We're going to have feedback for you. The true healthy culture of constructive feedback is to have this something built into your way of life, into the way that you talk, that you're always giving feedback, you're always giving that out, even if it's weekly or daily. So many times people wait till the end of the year. Hey, let me give you some feedback and they're like, Why didn't you tell me this six months ago? What, why would you not tell me this? How dare you, they get mad? And so constructive feedback is something that is a way of life. So the first thing is be specific, which means you have to pay attention. You have to pay attention to what they're doing. The only way to give feedback as to know this, to know it's not second-hand knowledge. It's, hey, I see this. And you then here's feedback for so tell them the exact things, be specific. The next thing is be timely. This should be regular. They should be informal. Feedback. A feedback system is informal. It's not a formal sit down where hey, we're gonna do a 30-minute feedback session. It should be something that's, that at anytime you could give feedback. And if your culture is not that way, it's really hard to change it, but how it starts is you doing it tomorrow? You doing it the next time you're working with someone that reports to you or that you lead, or something that you need to be able to bring as feedback. And maybe it's good or maybe it's bad, either way. Do it too. But the last thing is as recognition and encouragement. So be specific, be timely, and let there be recognition and encouragement in it. Feedback systems work best. Hear me no, feedback systems work best when you can share wins and losses and improvements. Wins, losses and improvements. Wins, losses and improvements. Most people, when they give feedback, It's only losses. And it's discouraging and it's hard. And you're like, oh, great, they're good, they're giving me feedback. Now, there should be an element of encouragement, there should be an element of empowerment and an element of improvement. This is what I've seen improving you and here's what can still be improved. All right, before we end this, I'm going to go into the ways to understand the ways to diagnose and the ways to increase. My first question for you is, do you receive feedback right now from anyone? Do you receive feedback? Maybe it's at a peer level. Maybe it's someone who's above you or even someone who's below you. Do you receive any type of feedback right now? Because if you're asking others to be part of a feedback system that you are giving, you also need to be receiving that feedback. And so my question to you is this, do you receive feedback as those around you, how you lead? How can you do better? Gimme, gimme bullet points. That's something I love doing as a leader saying, hey, how am I leading you this season? How am I leading you this month? Do you feel empowered? And that's truly healthy? And the last thing is, is this, these are ways to understand, diagnose increases. Do you actually empower those that you are giving feedback to? Do you empower them? I know we talked about empowerment a lot, but when you are giving feedback, your highest level goal should be when they leave this conversation. When they leave this feedback, they're going to be empowered with next steps, with ways to improve and empowered because you encourage them. Well, thank you guys so much for listening to this. We're going to head right to the outer of this and we will see you in the class project. 11. Conclusion : All right, well now that we have gone through all eight elements of the fundamentals of leadership, I hope that you are now well equipped to be a healthier, better leader in whatever you do. I know there was a lot of information in this, but there should be even more than information. We're looking at what our action items for you, what are skill sets that you are improving? Because it's not just about head knowledge, it's about you actually being a better leader. And that starts today, that starts tomorrow, that starts this week. And so I hope that you got so much out of this because there is so many action items for you to actually do starting today. Now we're going to move right into the class project here. It's going to be great for you again, this is a self-assessment for you, but I just want to say thank you so much for joining me today. I had so much fun with you and I will see you in your projects and in the comments for this lecture. See you guys soon. 12. Key Takeaways : All right, well, before you start that project, I just want to say the key main takeaways that you should have from today, these are the most important. I've said this throughout, but communication and connection and building trust. If you don't get anything else out of this, learn how to communicate and connect better through this lecture, go back and watch it again. And there's our section on building trust. These are the most important things out of all of these fundamental elements. Now of course, to me these are the most important things you could do. All eight of these things if you are operating at all of these, you will be the best leader that you can ever be. And I promise you guys that. So connect with people, communicate with people, and build trust with them and do these other things. And I promise you, you will be the best leader that you can be. Aright. Well, I will see you guys again very soon.