Leadership Pitfalls: What to Stop & What to Start

Are you unknowingly holding your team back? Small leadership habits can have a significant impact on workplace culture and productivity. In this episode of Good Company, Drew Dudley and Brett Elmgren delve into behaviors that leaders should avoid and unpack the steps they can take to foster more positive and productive workplaces. They explore the power of creation-based conversations, why holding team members accountable is key, and how problem-solving conversations create better workplaces. Tuning in, you'll discover a five-step approach for handling conflicts and challenges, the "genie" question, why controlling your emotions as a leader is essential, ways opinions dilute true expertise, the idea of indirect positive feedback, and more. Join the conversation to explore how asking better questions, leveraging expertise, and providing structured feedback can substantially enhance workplace culture and productivity!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Why leaders should shift their approach from judgment to curiosity and support. [0:01:48]

• Navigating judgment effectively and why leaders should always assume good intent. [0:04:00]

• The power of reframing ideas as questions to foster engagement and ownership. [0:07:19]

• Reasons leaders should end open-door policies and focus on problem-solving. [0:11:33]

• How to create places for constructive conversations and define clear dos and don’ts. [0:14:53]

• An approach to create problem-solving conversations for effective conflict resolution. [0:17:39]

• Steps leaders can take to control their emotions when navigating conflict. [0:22:28]

• Unpack the issue of over-collaboration and the idea of a credibility scale for teams. [0:27:08]

• Ways to identify and evaluate expertise for effective credibility rankings. [0:30:45]

• Shifting from incorporating direct positive feedback to indirect positive feedback. [0:34:41]

• Examples of disempowering phrases leaders should avoid and what to say instead. [0:37:23]

• Takeaways from today's conversation and what Drew and Brett have planned. [0:49:22]

Quotes:

“We are always going to judge; that is just how the brain works. It's more about stopping the default negative assumptions as a reaction to whatever [leaders] are being hit with.” — Brett Elmgren [0:06:06]

“If venting is never followed with action, then it actually creates a culture of entitlement.” — Brett Elmgren [0:14:00]

“There is positive intent in every difficult conversation. You should not be having the conversation if you cannot find the positive intent.” — Brett Elmgren [0:16:58]

“Stop looking for who is right and stop trying to solve the problem as quickly as possible.” — Drew Dudley [0:21:04]

“The power of naming your emotion is a very important one [for a leader].” — Drew Dudley [0:23:22]

“Some of your best insight only gets offered when you ask for it from team members.” — Drew Dudley [0:34:27]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

The Opposable Mind

Drew Dudley | Everyday Leadership

Brett Elmgren | Axom Leadership