On today’s show, we discuss why leaders are not making an impact in their organizations.
James Saliba is a certified coach, trainer, and public speaker with a BA, MBA, and over thirty years of experience in the leadership world.
His career began as a software engineer before being promoted to management in the IT industry, where he eventually became the VP of a $4 billion tech company. He worked tirelessly to gain the knowledge and experience to become a leader employees wanted to follow. He has been in the trenches and has conquered most challenges leaders face throughout their careers.
Jim adopted a growth mindset and created an atmosphere where employees were encouraged to experiment and were rewarded for their hard work. Mistakes were not seen as failures but rather as learning opportunities to make changes and improve. He has leveraged his years of experience and experimentation to develop the successful Triple E structure to help his clients get unstuck so they can progress to the next level of leadership.
Key Takeaways:
Symptoms of a gap between leadership and employees.
People are promoted because of their technical expertise, but they don’t have leadership skills, and they aren’t being trained in that area.
What do companies experience when this happens?
Top leaders will find themselves having to manage their managers much more to get what they need, rather than being able to focus on the growth and health of the organization. Because management doesn’t like to be micro-managed, turnover increases.
What are the skillsets needed for leadership?
Vision and Strategy – Can I build a vision for my team/department? What do I want this to look like one year from now?
Execution and Production – How well am I executing, and am I producing?
People and Processes – Can I make a change in my department, or is the corporate culture fighting me in this?
Executive Presence – Can I communicate well, carry myself well, listen well to understand what’s going on, and can I put that information into action?
What should companies do to address this situation?
Coaching / Mentoring tends to be better than Leadership Training so that the employees have a chance to learn something, try it out, and then get feedback and further guidance. Sometimes companies have a hard time justifying the cost of this type of training, but it brings a good ROI in the long run in productivity and creativity.
What would you tell the individual that doesn’t feel like the company is investing in them?
Great advice from Brian Tracy – Invest 3% of your salary into yourself and your growth.
How can you get the most out of training?
Be intentional about practicing what you learn as soon as possible. You can also find great training as free content on podcasts or social media platforms. Investing 3% of your time is a great strategy as well.
Is there a limit to how much a leader can learn? Is there a ceiling?
There are always new things to learn, and if we aren’t continuing to learn, people will pass us by.
4 Fears of Leadership
- Fear of being incompetent
- Fear of appearing foolish
- Fear of failure
- Fear of being vulnerable
How can we move past the fear?
- Identify the fear.
- Ask yourself- What is the worst thing that could happen?
- Put things in place to deal with the worst thing.
- Then take the risk.
How do I plan my growth? Ask yourself –
- Where am I now – strengths, weaknesses, values?
- How do I currently engage the world or my personal environment?
- Where do I want to be a year from now?
- How can I get where I want to go?
- How am I doing? Evaluate your progress frequently.
3 Top Things to Focus on:
- Self-awareness – Being able to look at what’s going on in you and around you to understand what things you need to tackle.
- Self-development – We are constantly learning and changing the environment around us.
- Support – Don’t do it alone.
Connect with James Saliba:
Website: https://jamessaliba.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamessaliba/
Jim’s book: The Six-Step Leadership Challenge
