So you're building a team, the question is, how do you lead it? Marianne DeNovellis
here with the six Figure Mastermind, let's really discuss the nuts and bolts
of how this really works.
Alright, let's talk about leadership. First of all,
I want to recommend an amazing book that I have read, it's called Leadership And
Self Deception by the Armature Institute. Amazing book, go check it out but I want
to talk about specifically what it means to be a leader and how to be an amazing
leader. I'm going to give you three keys for being leadership but I'm going to ask you
to go with me on this journey because some of the keys might sound a little
bit confusing at first but just trust me with it,
let's go with it and take some amazing amazing insight for leadership. Now why
do you need to be a leader? Maybe you're in a family and you need to take a
leadership position in a family, maybe you just got married and you're like
okay, we're co-leaders here, we're taking a leadership position here. Maybe
you are in a workplace situation where you're a leader, you're a supervisor, you're
manager, you're a leader in there, maybe you're running an entrepreneurial
organization where you have a leadership over your group of entrepreneurs or
maybe you're in a multi-level marketing business where you're a leader of that
specific team. So many different ways to be a leader, you can be a teacher, you
could be an educator, you could be in your local communities or your church
groups, whatever it is, there's so many ways to be a leader and even if it's
just you, you are the leader of your own life so let's get the expert mastery on
leadership and know how to take and put your best step forward. So here's the
first step.. When you're being an amazing leader, lead from the front. You've
probably heard this before to lead from the front of the room, to go first, to
take your position, to take your place as leader but what does it actually mean to
do that? You know, I can remember when I was working in my business and I was
working with this corporation with a lot of other people and I felt like, you know,
I have so much to offer but I was slamming on the brakes and not giving
myself permission to make that available to my community, to my group into
my work and I thought, I'll never forget this, I was sitting in my
master bathroom one day and I thought, you know, I know that I have amazing
things to offer, I'm sitting there put on my makeup and I was like, why am I doing
this? Why am I getting ready for the day? Why am I going into this organization
and when is it going to be my turn? You know, I had all of these, maybe you've
done this too, maybe you've seen all these great figure heads in your
organization whatever it happens, maybe you've got some some idols or some
heroes or some people that you look up to in your organization and maybe at
some point you've said, "Man, someday I want to be just like them." or maybe even
"I want to be them when I grow up." You know, whatever it is. I want you to get
rid of that idea, get rid of the idea that you want to be another person.
Guess what.. They're already taken.They are that person, you get to be your version.
You get to be your magnificent you. So when I say lead from the front, it means to take
your turn. Opportunity knocks and sometimes we
don't open the door, sometimes opportunity is pounding on the door
trying to break in and you are boarding up the walls and the windows and the
doors and not letting it in because you're too afraid to take your spot,
you're too afraid to take your turn, there's something about that leadership
that is intimidating or scary for you. When you are taking your turn as a
leader, that means I claim leadership, I claim that I am a leader, that I know
what to do, that I am taking charge of my world, I'm taking charge of my life, I'm
grasping the opportunity, I'm bringing it with me. I am saying I get to be that
person. I don't get to be another person, I get to be me and the more authentic I
am in me, the greater leader from the front that I will be. When you lead from
the front, you have to lead by example and that means whatever you want your
client base to do, whatever you want your leadership community, whatever
organization you have that stewardship over, you get to lead by example and that
brings me to key number two. Key number one was leading from the front.
Key number two, lead from the side. You just told me to lead from the front, what
are you talking about lead from the side? I'm talking about leading by example.
So let's say that in your organization, maybe you are in construction, you're a
master leader, you're the head of the company and you made a name for yourself
in business, you know, and in this example, let's just say that you've hired
a bunch of people to come in and they are digging a trends to lay a
foundation for a brand new wall going up. An excellent leader won't just go up and
say, "Hey, good job digging that trench down there, you're doing great work." But
my hands aren't dirty. A great leader will lead from the side in that they
will get down in the trench with you and help you dig the foundation and help you
lay the stones and help you pour the concrete and be a side-by-side mentor
with you to walk through that step-by-step. Your knowledge base may be
higher than the person next to you but your leadership is from the side, meaning
that I will stand next to you and teach you everything that I know. I'll never
forgot this experience when I was out on a ropes course one day and we were
climbing on this climbing wall and we were paired up in teams and the teams
had to do this, they had to get both people from the bottom to the top of the
wall and the way my team, that was all the instruction we had, was to get
from the bottom to the top of the wall and then they threw a wrench in the
clockwork and said, but one of you is blindfolded. Okay, so I was the one this
time that got to go blindfolded. I'm super adventurous, I was like, "Hey, I'll do
it, that sounds really fun and cool." So I'm starting to climb this wall and my
teammate also had to climb the wall and my teammate got up to the top of the
wall, they weren't blindfolded so they could see where all the hand and
footholds were and they got to the top
and they were looking down and seeing what they thought was the perfect
pathway for me and I got to a point on the wall where I was spread out all
hands and legs just like a starfish stuck to the wall and I didn't know
where to go, I couldn't see, I had no perspective of where I was or how close
to the top I was and the person at the top of the wall, my teammate said,
"Marianne, all you need to do is jump six inches from where you're at and grab
that next handhold and then you'll have the whole series of hand holds to the
top." And so I'm thinking, okay I can't see what he's talking about, I've got this
blindfold on, I'm spread-eagle on the wall, I don't
know where to go watching it but my leader is telling me that if I just jump
six inches, then I will be able to grab that next handhold, okay, so they've got
eyes, I don't, I'm going to trust it and I'm going to jump. Well, as you can imagine
jumping on a wall, starting off isn't really that easy to begin with. Nevermind
jumping for something that you can't see. When I made the jump, I could
reach up with my hand and I completely missed the handhold and that's why they
have these carabiners and the harnesses because if you do something dumb like
that and you jump off a wall that you're stuck to and you're blindfolded, the harness
would catch you and you know I had a great belay team, they took really good
care of me but I completely missed the target and here's what happened, I got
back on the wall, you know, as you can imagine my mind was like, I'm kind of
questioning the instructions of my leader here because the last one didn't
work out so well but he's the one with the eyes, he can still see, I'm going to have
to just trust that for now so I start back on that wall, I'm climbing up, I hold
myself up, I grab his hand and I get over the wall to the very very top,
take off the blindfold, congratulations. Yay, you did it. Awesome.
We zipline down and we're having our debrief at the end and the facilitators
of the ropes course asked about that specific moment where I needed to jump
and my coach told me to jump and he said, the facilitator said to my teammate
and to my coach, he said, "Why did you ask Marianne to jump?" And he said, "Well I
figured she was just six inches away, she could make it." And the leader said this,
he said, "Can I offer you a different perspective?" and he said, "Sure, that sounds
great." The leader who was leading this ropes course was leading from a
perspective that was different from my teammate and here's what he said, he said,
"What you were seeing wasn't actually what was happening, that handhold was
actually a foot and a half away from her instead of six inches but you couldn't
see because you were leading from the top down rather than from her side,
imagine what would happen if you had eyes, she's blindfolded but if you had
been next to her on that wall the entire time, been able to take her hand and
place it on the handhold instead of telling her to jump for something, that
your perspective is actually skewed on, imagine how much more successful
you would be." So leading from the side means even if you have more knowledge,
more expertise or maybe especially if they have more knowledge and expertise,
to lead from the side of the person that you're teaching so that you can see from
the same perspective that they can see. Perspective changes everything. If you're
leading from the top down, your perspective will be distorted than if
you're leading right from the side. Here's the third tip.. In leadership, we've
got lead from the front, lead from the side, now I'm going to ask you to lead from
the back. Leading from the back? Now you're really confusing me, Marianne. You
told me the lead from the front, I need to split myself and lead from this right
and I need to split myself again and lead from the back. What does this all
mean? Well, let me show you what leading from the back means. Let's go
back to the ropes course, when you had that team leader who was facilitating
the ropes course that could see that proper perspective, not only could he see
a better perspective than what he was leading from the person who was leading
from the top down but he was also a support. When you lead from the back, that
makes you a support to your team, you can't belay someone on a ropes course
from the top down, you can't even belay someone from the side over. In order for
you to support the person that's on the ropes course, you need to be leading from
behind underneath. The person that was leading from underneath and behind was
supporting my weight, when I made that blind jump trying to get up that wall,
I fell but I didn't fall more than six inches because I had
my support team behind me on the ground, someone who could support my weight,
someone who knew how to put the brakes on the harness and someone who could put
me back on the wall when that time came. When you leave from the back, you are a
support should anything happen, should someone fall on your team, you see it, you
have the perspective. If you're leading from the top down, if you're completely
blind, only leading from the front, you may not see someone fall so if you're
building an organization, if you're building a team, if you're leading in
your family, if you're leading in your community, make sure you have the
perspective from the back so that you can support your entire group so that
way, no one slips through the cracks because you're there to leave in the
back to catch them, to encourage them, to support them, to belay them, to bring them
to where they need to be, not back to square one but get them back in the
proper next step for them, maybe that is step one for them, maybe that's just
starting from where they're at but leading from the back allows you to
be the perfect support system for your team. So those are three keys to amazing
leadership. You know what it takes? Go out there and make it happen. Now you
know what it means to lead from the front, you know what it means to lead
from the side and you know what it means to be a support by leading from behind.
I would love to hear from you and what your feedback is on how you do this best
so you know, just drop a comment below, just go down there and type some fun
stuff in, I'd love to have a conversation with you. Hit the subscribe button and I
will see you tomorrow.