Leadership is the Problem and the Solution

Kris Plachy: Why does leadership matter so much? Like, really? Is it really just all a bunch of soft skills or does it actually make a difference? Let's talk about it.

Hello. Hello and welcome to this week on the podcast, Leadership is Feminine. I'm Kris Plachy. I'm so glad that you're here to tune in to this season. We're talking about magic. We're talking about CEO magic, to be specific. I want to talk with you about why leadership really is so important and why it is so magical.

So one of the things that happens for the women that I work with in How to CEO and it, honestly it happens kind of, it's like a quiet thing that occurs that I sometimes even have to point out to my clients. And I just got off a call with someone. This happened not very long ago on another call. I have clients who come and they start working with us and How to CEO very successful business, but really, really feeling the burden of, and the overwhelm of team dynamics and challenges.

So they come into How to CEO and their first few calls are just, you know, nobody's getting along. I don't know how to hire. These aren't the right people. She's not doing her job right. I don't like my team. I don't like my business. Right? All those kinds of sort of very despondent, overwhelmed, feeling, hopeless, tired, exhausted.

And then we get, you know, a year in, we've done the How to CEO program and then they joined me in the lab. And then the next thing I know, I'm coaching them on "I don't really know what to do with all my free time". "What am I going to do next? Like my business kind of manages itself." And they forget that there's work that they did to get there.

Right? But it's, so it feels it's slow and then sort of like up like, oh, but because my clients are entrepreneurs, they're always hungry for the next opportunity. So they don't take a minute to savor. Like, um, can we just talk about that your business is running and you're not there. Now what's interesting I think for entrepreneurs is because we're so hands-on. We confuse leadership and management very frequently. And we think of management as what leadership is and in a lot of other ways, if I'm not doing it, then I'm not leading it. But the truth is leadership is less about you actually having your hands in the pot and more about developing the ecosystem that allows that to happen in your absence. So you have a manager, you have a management team, you have people who understand how to operate your business in your absence, how to make things work in a way that you don't have to be there. But that's a process, right? That is an evolution of your own growth from really that entrepreneur, which is what I teach is like 'we', to that CEO level, which is more of an organism of us. It's an ecosystem. And I know that that can sound similar, but there's a difference because we include includes you and you're sitting in the same seat with a lot of the people, but let me, let me be very specific.

I want you to think about the last experience you had with a business that was not good. So maybe you, um, it was a customer service issue. Maybe it was a delivery issue. Maybe it was a quality issue. I'm going through that myself right now with a program I signed up for that really has turned out to not be what I expected.

Whatever it is, I just want you to think about it. Now, what we tend to do is we tend to blame whatever that negative experiences on the person that's in direct line of the experience. So poor customer service, it's the rep. Poor quality it's whoever made the product or whatever. Poor delivery of a service, it's the packaging, it's the system, it's the person running it. Right?

It's whatever. What I want to really hold space for is that when I remember years ago, when I went into a grocery. It was, I couldn't get any help at the pharmacy. And I went to a store manager and said, "Hey, I'm just trying to get a little help with the pharmacy," and he was completely disinterested in helping me.

And I realized in that moment that every single customer service challenge, service delivery problem, quality issue that you have in a business is it leadership problem. But we like to just blame the attendant, the rep, the person that we're working with right there. Rather than recognizing that, the reason that, that behavior, the reason that that level of quality or poor quality is allowed is, is tolerated, is there is because of leadership.

And so, what happens though, as an entrepreneur is if you are used to being a manager, meaning you're used to touching everything when something doesn't go well, your first inclination is to get back involved yourself and fix it because nobody can fix it like you can, right? It's just easier for me to do myself than try to explain to someone else. I'll just take care of it.

For as long as you keep that pattern, you maintain problems in your business because you're not building an ecosystem that can handle them in your absence. Because that's where the magic is. Right? The magic is when a client comes to me and says, "I can't figure out how to deal with this team of mine." And then a year later they're saying, "oh my gosh, this is, I don't know what to do with myself. My team is pretty much running itself. I haven't been in the office in this long." Right?

I just had that conversation with someone today. And that is not uncommon. Because we stopped swooping in to be the solution provider for every problem. We build the team that can do that. But if you don't know how to do that, you're going to be constantly in the weeds.

You have to first believe that that's possible. How do we know that's possible? Because I want you to look around at the big, huge companies on the planet that thrive that the CEO of that business is not answering customer calls. Somebody figured it out or else we would never have billion dollar businesses.

Now, most people I work with don't have any aspiration for that. You just want a healthy seven, maybe multiple eight figure business, right? You don't, you're not looking for coupajillions. But if that can happen at a huge level, can it happen at a, you know, 15 or 22-person business? What's the difference? The difference is the skillset of the CEO.

The difference is resources for the CEO, which is true, but it's mindset because when you work in a big company, people have a different way of thinking about what gets done and they don't go to the CEO and say, "Hey CEO, we can't figure this out. Can you please answer the phones today? Joe's calling in sick, can you please make the sandwiches?" 

Well, it doesn't work that way, but if you keep playing that way, your business will keep operating that way and we'll continue to be completely dependent on you in a way that is keeping you trapped in your own business. So this is why we do How to CEO.

Now, How to CEO is a program that we, we birthed and put in the world last year. And at this recording, my CFO informs me that last year we worked with 132 women, which I'm so proud of, in the, How to CEO program, because 132 women means we probably helped change the lives of 1300 people because I figure every leader touches at least 10. And when a leader is more confident when she's more grounded, when she's more clear, when she's more directed, when she's more joy-filled when she's thriving, then the people around her do also.

So I'm really, really proud of what we do. So here we are, at the beginning again of our next How to CEO, it starts on January 25th. And here you are listening to this podcast. If you've been thinking about it, but you haven't joined us, I just want to talk to you about what are you doing to help yourself learn how to lead the team?

I've had a few people, right? New year, same Rhonda in the billing department. She didn't miraculously change or disappear when you were gone for break. She's back again. She's still there being negative or Debbie downer or not listening or coming in late or not taking initiative. What is it? How much longer are you going to deal with that?

Like, it's, it's amazing what happens when you really do start to see, first of all, how much authority you have over the decisions that are made for your team in your team, with your team. And that you have the emotional fortitude to handle it. 

I think that's what gets so many of us, as we care about people we're very loyal. We don't want to let people down. We don't want to hurt them. I mean, goodness, it's the middle of pandemic, this terrible time. But at the same time you are suffering, you are struggling because you don't have a team to support you. I mean, how much longer do we dothis?

So when we, we did this, How to CEO, now we really thought about, okay, what did we love and what could we change? And we made some decisions. We decided to change it from a 12 week program to an eight week program. And the reason we did that is we knew that most people came to us with a real, like two or three significant triage needs. And we know that by helping you get through those triage needs, you're able to kind of open up your brain and accept some new ways of doing things.

But initially, most women come to us and they need some very specific support with very specific issues in their team. So within the first eight weeks, we really clear that. And then we invite you to do the lab with us for a year. And that's ongoing advisement, coaching. Consulting, really, right? You bring problems and we, we figure them out together.

You leverage our experience and our knowledge of the particular topic that we're talking about, which is team leadership and management to implement the right kind of changes into your business. And you do that. You do that part, and then you come back and you work it out with us. What worked, what didn't. Or maybe sometimes for some of our clients, they just come because they just need help and they just need to show up and they just need to feel supported.

So we made that decision. And so as a result, we've lowered the registration a little bit too, because now it's eight weeks instead of 12. So it's incredibly affordable and when you look at the increase in revenue that the majority of our clients experience, once they get the team figured out, it's a no-brainer.

So this is slightly a longer like sales call on the, How to CEO program, but I also want to really help you know, that the problems you're facing in your business, if they're recurring, it's not a person on the team problem, other than the one that has the same name as you. And I can speak from that very humbly from personal experience.

Right? When I have a repeating pattern, guess who I have to pay attention to. And that's what coaching's for. That's what that kind of support is for. Like, can we just kinda look at why this is happening? What's happening? Why do you keep hiring the same ineffective person? Why do you keep doing that? Why do you keep hiring the same kind of person? Why, why do you feel like you got to save everybody what's happening? Why can't you have a difficult conversation? Why are you paying so much money, whatever it is. 

So in the world of business coaching, I just had this exchange with somebody the other day, who said, you know, business coaching is so saturated, I'm like I don't do business coaching. I do leadership coaching. If you want to learn how to make more money or how to market your business or how to get more clients go somewhere else. If you want to figure out who you are and how to build a team that honors you as a woman and as a leader and as a visionary, this is where you need to be.

Because you really can curate a team that is in complete alignment with you. And there's no better magic than that. For the woman who wants to thrive in the world and do her work and make a difference, having a team where you feel absolutely supported is magic. And I'll tell you what the opposite is true.

Having people on your team that you do not believe are there to be supportive and do not support the business, or you, or the goals. It is absolute turmoil. And yet we tolerate it. Because we don't want other people to feel bad or we don't know how, or we think it's just us. So we think we're the problem and we don't know how to solve it. So we just tolerate it.

That isn't true. We can solve that. So whether you have a revolving door or you have a door that's been cemented often, nobody leaves. There are ways to resolve these. And I would love nothing more than for you to join the ranks of all the other women that I've worked with this year to come in, learn what you need to learn, get the support you need to get, get some perspective you've never had before.

Have some fun. We laugh a lot on all of our calls. And turn this year to move forward in 2022 with a foundation you've never had before, when it comes to the people you hire to help deliver on the promise of your business. Everywhere I go, I think it's part of the problem I have now with what I do, as soon as something happens, I just immediately know this is leadership issue.

You can tell when you walk in a store. Why is it that the dance studio that my husband and I've been taking lessons at is so delightful? We're in the middle of a pandemic. You would think that any place would have a hard time hiring great people, it would be a dance studio. In a smaller town. But they have the best people and they're delightful and everything runs like clockwork.

But then I go in a restaurant and I can't get help. That's not the people's fault. That's not the team members fault. That is a leadership issue. It's expectations. It's how you hire. It's what you tolerate. That's it. So, so this belief that a lot of people have, it's so hard to find people right now. Sure. It is. But you know, what, if you're really, really clear about who you are and what you represent and what your business does on the planet and what you're trying to create in the world, and it sounds interesting to the right type of candidate, you're going to attract them. But you have to do your own work. And the investment then is the best news, because once you're really clear about that, it doesn't go away.

Now, do you have to keep hiring for the rest of your life? Yes. As long as you have a business, you will hire people. As long as you have a business, you will fire people. That never changes. It just doesn't wreck your world so bad. You just move on. All right. Yep. Good. Okay. Next. Gotta figure this out. Got another problem. Gotta figure it out.

Maybe you'll just add people. You'll be growing. The magic in a business comes from the team that is just delighted to be there and you were delighted to have them. And I believe that is true for every single one of you listening to this podcast right now. But you have to believe that, but if you haven't invested in your own skill to be that leader, then you'll just keep kind of banging it.

And you'll think it's the business's fault or the people's fault or the industry's fault or the just beat having to manage people's fault. Instead of it, just, maybe there's a few methods, a few practices, a few approaches you haven't learned yet. And we can teach you those in How to CEO. So the registration is open right now for How to CEO.

It's at krisplachy.com/howtoceo. Super easy. All the information you need is there. I would love to work with you. I would love to support you. And I would really, really love to help you have a business that you are incredibly proud of. Whether you're in the building or not. Whether you're online with them or not. That you know that you've built a team that is the proper representation of the work you want in the world. That they deliver on the promise of your business.

I would love more than anything to help you with that. So we're going to work together in 2022? What are you doing? Are you thinking about it? Let's do it. krisplachy.com/howtoceo. Let's go. Have a great day.