Hello, everyone. Welcome to Moving from Manager to Leader. This is the next topic in the 2024 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate Webinar Series. I'm Greg Brannan from Deer Oaks. Great to be with you today. The 2024 Leadership Certificate Webinar series is another opportunity for individuals who take part in all four of our quarterly webinars to receive as a reward for being involved in all four sessions, will receive the 2024 Leadership Certificate at the end of the series, at the end of 2024. This is the 11th straight year that we've offered this series, so I appreciate so many people taking part in it.

I want to remind you, in case you missed some of the earlier sessions, you still have an opportunity to get credit for them by viewing the online recording. And so to review the sessions earlier this year, back in February, we started with how to use employee recognition to increase productivity. That was on February 26th. If you were not able to take advantage of the live version of that, you could still request to be sent a recording of that session and get credit for attending by viewing the recording.

Then again, the second topic was strengthening the team. We provided strengthening the team back on May 20th. Again, if you weren't able to watch or take part in the live version of strengthening the team back on May 20, you again can reach out to us here at Deer Oaks and request a copy of the recording link. We'd be happy to send it to you. And then once you complete reviewing the recording online on demand, you can get credit for that as well.

And so again, to be awarded the Deer Oaks certificate this year, leadership certificate, you need to attend either live or viewing online on demand all four of our quarterly sessions. Again, the first session in February was how to use employee recognition to increase productivity. Again, if you weren't able to take advantage of that, reach out to us here.

You can reach out to Deer Oaks, to our team, by hitting Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and just request a copy of the recording link for how to use employee recognition to increase productivity from February 26th. We'd be happy to send it to you.

And then the second one, if you weren't able to view it live, again, it was called Strengthening the Team. That was presented live on 5/20, on May 20th. Again, if you weren't able to view the live version, you can again reach out to us at Deer Oaks by hitting reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today. Ask our staff to send you the recording link. We'd be happy to do that.

Today is the third topic in the quarterly series, right? Moving from Manager to Leader. And then for those of you that want to complete the series, the fourth and final installment will be presented on November 18th, and it's entitled How to Effectively Delegate Tasks and Responsibilities.

Again, the fourth and final session will be presented on November 18th of this year. And it's how to Effectively Delegate Tasks and Responsibilities. If you have not ever been able to sign up for that last session, you can request the registration link, again by reaching out to our staff and just requesting that link. Again, the fourth link would be how to Effectively Delegate Tasks and Responsibilities, which would be presented on November 18th. Again, to reach out to us to request any of the webinar links or any of the recording links, all you have to do is hit reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today, and our staff would be happy to provide that to you.

Folks, those of you that would like a copy of today's PowerPoint, it's already uploaded in the GoToWebinar software that you're viewing today. Again, today's session, moving from Manager to Leader. The PowerPoint slides are uploaded. If you look down into the GoToWebinar software on your screen and look under handouts, you'll see that the PDF is downloaded there for you to print it out.

All right, folks, again, happy that you joined us today. Looking forward to today's presentation. I do want to remind you that during these educational presentations provided by Deer Oaks, participants are in listen only mode. What I mean by that, of course, is you won't be able to audibly ask questions during the formal part of the presentation, which should really last about 30 minutes today, give or take.

But at the end of the formal part of the presentation, I will open it up for questions at that time. Please feel free to type in any questions you have into the question box in the GoToWebinar software. Again, you'll find that on your screen. And I will get to as many questions as time allows today.

We do have a great turnout today. We have over 200 people that have already logged on, and we'll probably get more before we get going here in a moment. So we may not be able to get to everyone's questions, but I will get to as many questions as time allows today. Thanks again for joining. Let's go ahead and get started.

All right. Let me begin with a quote by John Quincy Adams. Most of you probably know, President Adams was the sixth president of the United States. I love this quote. It says, if your actions inspire others to dream more, to learn more, to do more, and to become more, you are a leader.

Folks, and leadership looks different for different people in different circumstances. Again, we all will lead a little bit different based on our personality, our background, the amount of training we've had, the amount of experience we've had. But anyone, again, that inspires people, that supports people, that teaches people, that encourages people to be everything that they can become, you're leading.

And we're going to lead in lots of different ways in our lives. Some of you will leave will lead in formal ways, right? You'll be supervisors, or managers, or senior leaders in your organization. Others of you will leave more lead more informally, right? Maybe as a volunteer for your child's PTA or helping run a Girl Scout or a Boy Scout troop or coaching a little league team or a soccer team. And folks, I just want us to recognize that we all have the capability to lead.

All right. So my objectives for our time together today is I want to continue to discuss the benefits of improving our leadership skills. I also want to drill down and review the differences between being a manager and being a leader. I think many of us probably recognize, probably most of us, that management skills and leadership skills are a different skill set, but everyone that's leading people is going to at times manage and at times lead. So we're going to differentiate between both of those important skills.

We're also going to today talk about several strategies and skills that will help us become more of a leader on a day to day basis, even in that core area of leadership that so many of us are totally familiar with, which is those leadership roles that we have in our homes. If you're a parent, you're a leader. You're leading your family. If you're a spouse or significant other, I mean, you're part of a leadership team in a home. And so we'll talk about that as well. And then last but not least, we're going to review core leadership habits that will increase the motivation of the people that you're leading.

All right. We're going to talk about four areas of leadership skills today. Number one is we're going to talk about in more detail the benefits of enhancing our leadership skills. I want you to come away from our conversation today, really motivated to continue to grow in your leadership capabilities.

Number two, we're going to really drill down again into differentiating the two skill sets, managing and leading. Again, everyone in a leadership role, again, whether you're a parent, a little league coach, you're a formal supervisor or manager for your organization, whatever your leadership role, you're going to at times manage, and you're going to at times lead. So we're going to really drill down in the difference between the two. They're both very important.

And then we're going to, again, further differentiate the differences between managing and leading. Part three is going to be becoming more of a leader. How do we intentionally become more of a leader day to day. Certainly, management skills are important, but we've probably all worked for someone that was mostly managing, right?

And maybe even micromanaging, to the point where they weren't really very inspirational. You felt like they were always looking over your shoulder, always talking, always directing your efforts, not including you in the process, not partnering with you, not collaborating, and maybe even you felt uncomfortable.

Maybe you felt like you were in an environment where you were not very motivated because you were being micromanaged or not managed very comfortably or in a supportive way. We're going to talk about how can we intentionally become more of a leader day to day? And then last but not least, we're going to talk about some final leadership habits that can help you, in a greater way, motivate the individuals and teams that you're leading.

All right. Let me start again at the beginning, the benefits of enhancing our leadership skills. The first, and I truly believe that this is important to be thinking about, folks, is how can we engage the people that we're leading? Whether again, you're leading in your home, you're leading as a volunteer, or you're leading formally in the workplace, good leaders create more engaged participants. Good parents create more engaged children, OK? Good little league coaches or soccer coaches create more engaged and motivated players. And good supervisors and managers in the workplace create more engaged employees.

Global Force, which is an organization that does track employee satisfaction and employee engagement, they did some research recently that said that when a leader is doing a great job inspiring and motivating their team and an employee gets engaged, those employees tend to stay twice as long with their organization. They're much less likely to leave and go look for another job somewhere else when they're working for a leader that's really, really effective and motivating them to be engaged.

Those employees are also working for someone that's helping them be engaged, they're 85% more efficient in their work. People who work for great leaders are 10 times less likely to call in sick. That was interesting, right? And I can relate to that. I don't take much sick time. Now there's days when I don't feel well. You can probably tell I'm a little congested today, probably already dealing with some early fall allergies. But I wouldn't even think twice. I like what I do. I don't even think twice of maybe I won't work today. Because I like what I do, and I'm motivated. I want to go to work. I look forward to it. And so I can really relate to that.

And they are 58% more likely to help a coworker when they're working for a motivating leader, and they've gotten totally engaged in their work. Also, and I think this is something most of you can resonate with as well, effective leadership is mostly respectful to others. People who are great leaders, they tend to not be people that micromanage. They tend to not be people that are always talking at people, telling them what to do.

They tend to be people that are supportive, and collaborative, and respectful to others, and that motivates people to get engaged and do their best work. Think about this. When you're working for a leader that is not a micromanager, is really supportive, is very helpful, gives you a voice really, looks forward to getting your input into problems that are needing to be solved or projects that are being started, that's a motivating environment to be in, and that motivates us to do our best work.

Now additional benefits, of course, are, and some of this is obvious, right? But again, drilling down a little bit more is when we are doing a really good job of leading, right? When we're being very respectful, very collaborative, very supportive. We've got our people's backs, right? We really support them and build good, trusting relationships. Help employees reach their highest potential.

People in positive workplace environments, where they're being well-led, tend to be motivated to get engaged and do their best work. And also that goes for a productive work team. Teams tend to become more cohesive and more bonded together when they're working for a motivating and supportive and encouraging leader. And of course, when we're doing a great job in leading, teams will more consistently achieve their goals and at the end of the day, be more productive.

All right. Let's drill down into the difference, folks, between managing and leading. All right. And remember again, these are not an either/or. It's not either are you a manager or a leader. Every single one of us, let me take a step back, every single one of us that's in a leadership role, again, and that can be informally as a parent, or as a volunteer coach, or member of your child's Parent Teacher Association, or volunteering for a nonprofit, or being a formal leader in your organization where you have the title of supervisor, or manager, or director.

Regardless, all of us in a leadership role are going to manage at times on a daily basis and lead at times. They are different complementary functions. But I want to demonstrate the difference and really, again, encourage us to continue to build up our leadership capabilities because managing may not be as motivating to people, where leading is highly motivational. So I'm going to get into those differences here.

All right. So characteristics of managing. Managing tends to be very task-oriented. People who are using their management skills, and we're all going to use our management skills every day. I can be very task-oriented. I like to lead. I like to encourage, and support, and make sure that I'm there for people, and try to be partnering with them, to make them feel a part of things, knowing that they're valued, they're a valued part of our team.

I still manage every day. I still have a to do list. I still follow up with people about deliverables that are not completed yet. But when we're in management mode, we're going to be more task-oriented, less people-focused. One of the main differences between managing and leading is when we're wearing our management hat, we're more focused on tasks. When we're wearing our leadership hat, we're more focused on people, on encouraging people, supporting people, coaching people.

But when we're wearing our management hat, we're going to be more short term focused, more task-oriented, more focused on the problem of the day, right? And those things do need to be attended. So this is not all or nothing. We still need those skills, but I'm going to make the case that we ought to try to be at least 50/50 on the leadership side, right? So that we're fully inspiring and creating our people and creating the best environment for them to thrive.

When we're managing, we tend to be more focused on controlling the environment. We tend to be more of a risk manager when we're managing, right? We may be less likely to take risks because we want to make sure that things don't go south, that things stay under control.

And we're often, when we're wearing our management hat, we're often directive. One of the problems I had earlier in my management career, I've been leading people and leading teams now for 30 years. I've been with Deer Oaks for the last 13. And I'm a director at Deer Oaks. I've got four people on my team.

One of the problems I had, one of the weaknesses I had early on, I was too directive. Like for example, when I would assign work to people, I would tell them what to do and how to do it. I'd say, here's the assignment I need you to do. And I wasn't mean spirited, but I just was too hands on. And I had to learn how to be more hands off and to be more collaborative when I made assignments at work.

But I was really directive. I would bring people in and say, here's the project I need you to do, and here are the four things I need you to do as you're completing this project. And so I mean, if you think about that, when you're telling people what to do and how to do it, that's really getting into micromanagement. That's getting down into the weeds.

And I wasn't doing a good enough job of allowing space for people to do the work the way that they were comfortable doing the work. I was too hands on. And I have made some adjustments over the years to become a little bit less of a manager and a little bit more of a leader.

Now on the leadership side, OK, characteristics of leading is it's more longer term focused, more future-focused. When we're wearing our leadership hat, we'll tend to be more strategic. So not only just thinking about I need to get this task completed today, but what are some of the ways we can get this task completed that will enhance the satisfaction of the people that we're working with, for example?

Like for example, if I've got my management hat on, I could be assigning a task to an employee, thinking I just need to get this off my desk quickly, so the employee can get this done because I've got to go on to something else. But if I'm being more, if I have my leadership hat on, I may be more thoughtful in who I assign that task to because to someone, that this could be a developmental assignment for them. Not only will they complete the task, but they'll learn some things. It'll help them in their skill development. That's more of a strategic approach in assigning work. Not just to get the work done but to get it done in a way that can help someone grow in their skill set for the future.

Also, when we have our leadership hat on, we're going to be much more around supporting people. Having their back, making sure we've got good trusting relationships, making sure that we're being very focused on what we can do to help people get their goals accomplished, how we can help them solve the problems of the day, and then influencing people.

Think about it. There's a lot of motivating that goes into wearing our leadership hat right, where we want to be an encourager. We want to encourage people, show them a lot of recognition, show a lot of appreciation for their efforts. Those are all leadership skills that we're using. And so we're trying to influence people. Working with someone, coaching them. Trying to help them, call out their gifts and abilities. Help them grow in their skill set, help them enhance their own leadership capabilities. Try to motivate people to do their best work. Create an environment where people can thrive. That's all part of a leadership focus and our leadership skill set.

Now just because you're not wearing your management hat doesn't mean you won't take risks. But when we're wearing our leadership hat, we're going to be cautious about that, and we're going to take more calculated risks, a more strategic approach to taking risks. And again, mixing the long term with the short term.

And typically, in our interaction and communication with people when we're wearing our leadership hat, we're going to be partnering with people. Again, if I'm assigning work to someone, rather than telling them what to do and how to do it when I'm wearing my management hat, when I wear my leadership hat, I'm going to assign the work to them, but I'm going to give them input into how they're going to get that work done.

Give them the space to do the work in a way that they're comfortable. That's bringing someone into-- giving them a voice, making them a partner in how the work is getting done. Again, that creates a more motivating environment for people. And leadership is all about creating a motivational environment.

All right. Here's some additional things that effective leaders do differently. Effective leaders, and I know we've all-- think for a minute, folks, as we're going through this session today. Think for a minute about the people that you have worked for, that you enjoyed working for. And I'm going to give you a chance to share here in a minute.

But think about, what did those leaders do differently? I would really love to hear from you all. If you could use the question box in the GoToWebinar software, this will be confidential. What I mean by that is I'm not going to read the names of people that are sharing. But I would love for you for you all to think about some of the best leaders you've ever worked for.

And what did they do that made a difference? What did they do day to day that created a motivating environment for you? How did they treat you, and in what ways did they interact with you that was particularly supportive and encouraging? What about their leadership style really motivated you to get engaged and do your best work? So if you can, please use the question box in the GoToWebinar software.

All right. Here's one. One of our colleagues said that a great leader that they worked for in the past would ask what they needed, what their concerns or struggles were, and how they could help. That's great.

Another one said, another colleague said, they would simply do the same tasks that were expected of me. I like that because you're right. Good leaders will never ask someone to do something they wouldn't do themselves. That's a great point. Another colleague said that a great leader that they work for, she always felt that she was heard and that they really cared about her as a person.

Another colleague said that a really great leader always stepped in when they were needed. They thanked me every day when they said goodbye. Left me thank you notes. That's great. That's motivating. They treated me as a real person and not just another worker. Good stuff. They focused on being effective, not just efficient. I like that a lot. They knew how much to support you and how much to let go of. That's great.

Once a month, we would have breakfast together, and the leader would actively listen to their needs. I'll do a couple more here. I've gotten a lot. They believed in me. I like that. They took the time to show you, if it was something you needed more training on, they didn't belittle you or make you feel inferior for asking.

They trusted my judgment. They never judge me, even if my questions were basic. Thank you, folks. I'm sorry I couldn't get to all of them. We had a ton of great input from folks. But thank you. That was wonderful. Thank you all for participating in that. I'm going to give you more opportunity to share your comments and ask questions here in a little bit.

All right. Here are some additional things that effective leaders do differently, is they make a positive difference in the lives of their employees. They're inspirational. I've had the really good fortune to work for some very inspirational employees in my career, or excuse me, some very inspirational leaders in my career. They motivate you. Just being around them is motivating. They inspire us to do our best work.

There was one research study that showed from the field of social work that talked about how when you work for a great leader, not only will you be more inspired to do your best work during the day at the office, but when you go home at night, you're going to be motivated to be a better spouse, a better significant other, a better parent, a better neighbor.

That working for a highly effective leader creates an inspirational environment that really helps uplift us as people emotionally, spiritually, mentally. And when we go home, at the end of the day, we're in a better place to go home and be a positive impact on the people around us. I think that's really, really true. So leadership has a halo effect. Not only does it inspire us to be the best that we can be in the workplace, but it inspires us to be the best we can be outside of work as well.

Effective leaders also motivate teams to work more effectively together, right? I love that. The teams work when there's a great leader who do a really good job of inspiring people and team building. They really create an environment where people want to work together towards a common goal or common purpose. And then of course, effective leaders collaborate effectively with individuals and teams to do a great job with the work, to overcome adversity and so on.

All right. Let's talk about becoming more of a leader. So how do we more intentionally, folks, become more of a leader? I needed to do this a couple of decades ago, and I'm still working on it. I can't sit here and say that I'm the best leader. I think I'm a much better leader than I was 20 years ago and even 10 years ago. But I'm still learning. I'm still on a leadership journey. Even though I've been managing and leading teams for 30 years, I'm still growing.

And so let's talk about what we can do to more intentionally grow as a leader. Again, my goal is to be at least 50/50. So between managing and leading, I want to be at least leading 50% of the time, right? Because that's where people are going to be most motivated and feel most cared about, and respected, and supported, and encouraged.

Now also, and don't feel bad about having to manage tasks. Tasks need to be managed. But as long as you're also concurrently practicing these leadership skills, you'll still create a motivating environment for your team.

All right. So here are some things we can do to more intentionally on a daily basis, enhance our leadership capabilities. So from a mindset standpoint, we need to think more about supporting and helping our people. So let's not be so focused on to do list that we forget spending time with our people and investing in our people.

A lot of times, supervisors in the workplace, they're so busy. I've never met a supervisor who doesn't have a really long to do list, right? Again, it doesn't matter what your title is. Supervisor, manager, director, senior leader, whatever your title is, I've never met someone in a supervisory role or a leadership role that doesn't have a really long to do list.

So it's real easy to spend so much time on the problems of the day or the tasks on your to do list, that you're not investing in people. We need to make sure we're investing with people, and we're strategically spending time with them. Scheduling one on one meetings on a regular basis. Gallup, the polling company, says meeting one on one with all of your direct reports. Doesn't have to be every week, could be bi-weekly, could be once a month. But meeting regularly, one on one with your direct reports creates more engaged employees.

And employees that have a standing one on one structured meeting with their boss, with their supervisor on a regular basis tend to be three times more engaged than people that don't. There's something in that dynamic of proactively spending one on one time with people.

And to be more of a leader, we have to think more about how we can encourage. i look for ways to send out congratulations emails, or to encourage someone, or to thank someone. I look for ways to do that. I practice finding good in people. And so let's be more focused on that every day and see that as an investment.

I also really try to be more collaborative. That was something I didn't do a good job about 20, 25 years ago. Again, because I was so directive in my approach, I wasn't asking people for input very often and how we were doing the work or the getting much of their input into how we were solving our problems.

I was thinking, because I'm the supervisor, I need to lead this. I you need to direct it. But I wasn't realizing that I have a team of talented people, and every team is a team of talented people. Every human being is talented. But I wasn't giving my team enough opportunity to weigh in, to come up with ideas, to share their opinion. I was missing out on all kinds of opportunities.

I've totally changed the way I do my team meetings, where 20 years ago, I would do an agenda thinking it was my team meeting because I'm the department head. I do 80% of the talking. And I wouldn't give my team enough opportunity for input. Nowadays, I'm thinking I've almost flipped that. I do maybe about a third of the talking and try to let the team do the other 2/3.

And we brainstorm together in our team meetings nowadays. It makes a big difference. And as a result, because there's five of us, myself and four others, five heads are much better than one. I know we all know that, right? And we come up with much better ideas, solutions to problems. I think it's a much more motivating experience for the team because I've become more collaborative and less directive in how I facilitate meetings.

And then again, our mindset ought to be more about the future. Like instead of what is today, let's be thinking about where do we want to go with this? What's our way forward? What are our goals? I know a lot of you last month got into FY 25, those of you on the fiscal year. That started for many of us on July 1. Some of you are going to be starting your fiscal year on September 1 or October 1.

But be thinking about, where are we going from here? How can we take this even higher? How can we enhance what we're doing? How can we grow? That's another mindset that leaders need to maintain to set the vision for the team.

We also want to prioritize people over tasks. And what I mean by that, of course, is spend more time with our people. So whether it's one on one meetings, like structured one on one meetings or structured team meetings, those are important. But even informally, spend more time with people. I used to feel like slowing down to chat with people, even in the hallway back in the day, right? I used to feel like I had to rush through that because I had too much to do on my to do list.

Now I'm realizing that taking a few minutes to brainstorm with someone or to visit with them about how their weekend went, or did they see the game, or how was their vacation, how are their kids doing? i see that now is an investment in caring about them as a person, not just as an employee, as one of our colleagues said earlier.

And so make sure you're investing, spending time with employees both formally and informally. Formally through your one on ones and team meetings and informally, just looking for opportunities to hang out with people, and catch up with them, and see how they're doing. And get to know your people. I'd love to get to know them. Not pry into their personal lives, but get to know them as you would any acquaintance. Find out more about what they did before they came to work for your organization. Find out more about what they're interested in, how they like to spend their time.

I just really feel like the more we can get to know people, the more people will feel like we're cared, like my boss cares about me as a person. That's really important. One employee engagement study said that people are most likely to get engaged when their boss cares about them as a human being. And so I really try to look at the quality of my interactions every day. I'm careful to proof my emails and my texts. I'm trying to slow down and give people opportunities to weigh in and have a voice, so that they feel when they're interacting with me, they feel cared about, and they know that I'm interested in hearing from them.

And again, working on being more collaborative. And collaboration is all about having good two-way conversations with people. And so shifting our paradigm from directing everything, always giving our suggestions, always telling people what we need them to do and how we need them to do it. Always telling people what we think they need to do to overcome a performance issue.

Instead of that, asking people what they think they could do to improve performance. Giving them input into what they think we could do to accomplish this goal, or to solve this problem, or to complete this task. It's about asking more and telling less.

There's a great book out there called The Leadership Habit. It's written by Michael Stanier. Stanier is pronounced S-t-a-n-i-er. Michael Stanier. And again, it's The Leadership Habit. I think the subtitle goes like this. Stop telling, and start asking, and change the way you lead forever. The more we ask people for input, the more we proactively give them a voice, the more people are going to buy in, take ownership and feel a part of things, feel respected.

All right. Last but not least, and then I'll open it up for any final questions. Additional leadership habits that can motivate your staff and your teams is practicing proactively being more positive. I know when you work for someone who's really positive, it's inspirational. I talked to someone who had been managing teams for a long time. She was close to retirement age, talked to her a few years ago. And she said, in all the years that I've worked, she worked for a local municipality, she says all the years that I've worked here, I've come to realize that I have to separate my personal problems from my leadership responsibilities.

And what she said was, I know that I'm a human being. And so some days, I'm not going to have a good night's sleep, so I'll be exhausted. Some days, I'm going to be preoccupied with a personal problem, and I'm going to be distracted, she said. But you know what? I signed up to be a leader, and part of being a leader is getting outside of myself, setting my own personal issues aside and being there for my people.

So she said, when she goes to work every day, and she's walking into City Hall. She puts her hand on the welcome to city hall placard right by the front door. And she envisions herself checking her baggage at the door. Then she puts a smile on her face, walks in the door, and thinks to herself, in her mind, it's showtime. Puts a smile on her face and goes in to be as kind and helpful to her people as she can.

I needed to hear that because I'm like everybody else. I have personal problems some days. I'm distracted some days. I'm weighed down by issues some days. And so that woman really inspired me to try to check my baggage at the door and to more intentionally every day, put a smile on my face and be there for my team.

And that's something we have to make our mind up to do. We signed up to be leaders. If you're in a leadership role for your organization, we signed up to do this, right? And so we need to make sure that we are intentionally doing that to the best of our ability every day.

And last but not least, focus on team building. Great leaders create environments where people can thrive. Cohesive environments where people feel a sense of belonging. And those teams don't just come to bed together. I know we've all been on work teams that did not feel like a family. It felt like a competitive environment where everyone was out for themselves. Or it felt like people were disconnected because it was such a diverse environment, whether it was culturally diverse, different generations, people not having a lot in common, different personality styles.

Really effective leaders do a good job of getting people to work together, regardless of their background. And really create some commonality between people. Give them time to get to know each other as individuals, not just as colleagues, as co-workers. So create team building events where people can really bond together, have team meetings where they do icebreakers, going around the room. Everyone shares a little bit about themselves in a given area.

I did a lot of that during the pandemic with our team. We got to know each other a lot better. We did one that was a lot of fun. We did one icebreaker and talked about the best musical concert you've ever been to and why. And we all got to laugh a little bit as we got to know each other's musical tastes, right? Because there were some surprises in there.

But those are the kinds of opportunities that bonds people together. And then getting people to have an opportunity to brainstorm and team goals. Instead of you dictating the goals as the leader, you can set the tone and say, hey, I want to come up higher in this one area, but let's brainstorm. What could we do? What should our goals be? How could we achieve those goals? Make it a team goal, where everyone has a voice and a say. And so they take more ownership.

That gives people a sense of belonging, and it makes them feel like they're part of something, working together toward something, a common goal. That's inspirational. And when people like each other, when team members like each other--

There was one study from The Leadership Challenge. It's a book by Kouzes and Posner. It's another leadership book that I recommend, The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner. Kouzes is spelled K-o-u-z-e-s, and Posner is P-o-s-n-e-r. Is the teams that care about each other as people, that bond together and feel like a work family have remarkably higher productivity, as much as 70% higher productivity. I think every leader would want to have 70% more productivity, right? That's the bottom line for us in a leadership role, is to have a highly productive team.

All right, folks, I know we covered a lot in a very short period of time today. I want to give you an opportunity to ask questions. And so again, if you have any questions, if you can, please submit your questions in the question box in the GoToWebinar software that you'll find again on your screen.

We had some additional things coming in from folks that was really great information. That's interesting. This is interesting. We're getting questions already coming in. I appreciate that. This is a really good one, is that this individual said, I used to love my job and work with my old leader, and now I dread work every day. How can I kindly bring this up to leadership with them not taking it the wrong way?

I mean, that is a really, really good question. And so obviously, if we want to work with our leadership, and we've all heard the term managing up, right? How do we effectively interact with the leadership above us in an organization, in a respectful way, and that's the key. It's not what we say. It's how we say it, right? In a respectful way, that would hopefully motivate them to take some positive action, that you feel like needs to be implemented in your environment.

And so one of the things you can do, you can brainstorm with the supervisor. If you've got a supervisor that either you directly report to, or maybe you and some other teammates are talking to someone else in leadership in the organization, and you're brainstorming. One of the ways to approach something like that respectfully is to say, there was a time when the morale around here was a lot higher. And I don't know if you've experienced that.

I mean, if you go in complaining to a leader, it's going to be hard to motivate them to make change if they're being complained to. But if you go in constructively, of course, respectfully but constructively and say, several of us have gotten together, and we've experienced that morale around here has not been great over the last couple of months. And I wondered if you noticed that.

Because I was hoping maybe we could brainstorm some things we could all do to make this environment a little bit more motivating for all of us moving forward would be kind of a way to approach something like that in a tactful and a constructive way. And hopefully your direct supervisor and/or the other leaders on the team would be open to having that constructive conversation. Thank you for that.

All right. Here's another good question. And putting me on the spot, which I don't mind, is what is the hardest thing you have conquered as a leader? Honestly, it was learning to better manage myself to be more effective. I am an extrovert. You can probably easily tell that even spending a few minutes on a webinar with me, I talk a lot, is I've learned over the last couple of decades to be less verbose.

I still talk a lot, I have that natural personality, but I've learned to ask a lot more questions. Like asking the people that I work with, what do you think we should do here? Or how do you think we should solve this problem? In our team meetings, guys, let's brainstorm. What should our goals be for the fourth quarter of this year? What do you think we should prioritize?

Where 20 years ago I would be dictating all of that. I'd be saying, this is what I think our goal should be, or this is what I think we should do to get this done, or this is how I think we should solve this problem. I've learned over the last couple of decades to be less directive and more collaborative, more of a partner. And I've learned to realize that I don't know it all, and that others have great input, and to give them that opportunity by asking a lot of questions. I hope that helps.

Here's a good question. What's your stance on the One Minute Manager as your work philosophy? I like that. I read a lot of the One Minute Manager back in the day. Because I've been around so long, back in the-- I mean, I was managing teams in the late '80s and in the '90s, right?

And that's when Ken Blanchard, who wrote the One Minute Manager books, his popularity was probably close to the highest back in those days. He's still pretty popular. And he's still around. He's older. He has a training organization that I believe his son is still running. But he's still pretty active.

I have a lot of respect for that. The One Minute Manager, for those of you that are not familiar, he does a lot of very intuitive things, like takes a lot of things we talked about today, and he talks about how to be intentional in one bit-sized action and then another.

For example, he would do one minute collaborating would be an example. So instead of just walking up to someone and giving some direction and going on to the next thing, which a lot of busy managers do. They walk up to someone and say, hey, can you do x, y, z, and then they walk away. Or they send a quick email and say, hey, don't forget to do that, and then they go on to the next thing.

One minute collaboration is where my boss is a really good job at Deer Oaks, she will send me an email and say, hey, Greg, this is going on in this situation. What are your thoughts? That's her bringing me into it and collaborating with me electronically. And I appreciate that. And it makes me feel good too to have a voice. That's motivating to me that she does that.

And so those are the kinds of things that Ken Blanchard was really good at. He would take a leadership skill, like we've talked about today, and break it down into a way to implement it very intentionally, one step at a time and bite size pieces. So I hope that helps.

Here's another one. How do you rebuild trust with a manager that's made you feel that they have that made you feel they have not made you feel valued. So let me make sure I'm getting the context of that. How do you rebuild trust with a manager that's made you feel or who has not made you feel valued.

And that happens. We will sometimes work for people that are very autocratic or authoritarian. Those management styles are still around. I know we all probably know people that have those kinds of top down management styles. They're always talking at people, giving a lot of direction, not doing a lot of collaborating. Dictating a lot.

And so again, if you feel like you have not been brought into things where you feel like you don't feel particularly valued, you can do some things about that. Like if you don't have one on one meetings with your supervisor, for example, you can request those. Like hey, can I meet with you every couple of weeks, maybe biweekly, just to give you an update of what I'm doing. I want to make sure I'm on the same page with you with how I'm doing things and my priorities and get a chance to get some input from you.