I’m back from a lovely few days of family time up at my old childhood cottage where we all gathered to celebrate my mom’s life. Between glorious sunsets, meteor showers, and the company and lovely stories of dear family and friends, it couldn’t have been a more healing and magnificent tribute to my dear mom. She would have loved it!

As part of my launch of my new book, Lead Conversations that Count: How Busy Managers Run Great Meetings , I’m excited to start a video series sharing some of the tips and insights from the book that I think will really support people in running better meetings with greater confidence and ease. Today’s tip is about How to Increase Your Leadership Presence!

TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO

Before I dive into today’s tip, I want to share with you a little bit of context about this conversation, and why this book is important right now. Here’s the thing, I think there’s an issue here we need to fix. One is about meetings. We’ve all been in meetings where they are not well run, they’re boring. Did it even have to be a meeting? There’s some pretty hard numbers around this. 71% of people surveyed believe that meetings are pretty unproductive, they’re out of control, and they’re costly. They’re costly, about $400 billion in the United States, apparently. They’re costly not only in terms of people’s time, but it’s costly in terms of people’s energy, and their good will to want to show up at the next meeting and to do the good work that you need to get done. 

The other issue that we need to take a look at is about managers. These are those great hard-working, talented people moving their way up the ranks. But, perhaps, they are more skilled in the technical or subject matter side, than they are about understanding and navigating the craziness that can sometimes happen when all sorts of people with different opinions, get in a room and talk about something. Managers are really crucial, I believe, in organizations. Why? 70% of the variance in a level of an employee’s engagement has to do with the quality of their relationship with their manager. 

Gallup’s survey also shows us that actually 35% of managers are themselves not engaged in the work. If you have a manager who is not engaged in the work, and they have such a big role on impact with the people that they’re leading in a meeting, is it any wonder that a lot of organizations are still struggling to keep great people? Going through that hamster wheel of hiring people, on-boarding new people, then how do you keep that good talent. It’s getting tougher, right? This pandemic has really affected people and how they think about the kind of work and the people that they work with. 

The hope for me in this book, and my intention in this is I want to try to fix that Nexus point that you see over there. 

First tip I want to share with you, in this video is about Leader Presence. It’s not just about the work and getting the stuff done in the work, but it’s really important for us to think about how do you show up with the greatest level of impact and influence that they possibly can. You, as a leader, the first person you need to be able to lead is yourself.

I think the great metaphor for this is going on a mountain climbing expedition. You’ve got the leader of the expedition, they’re forging the path. They are the one that the rope is tied to, they got everybody tied up on the back of them and they’re forging that path. That’s kind of the role that you play in creating, and running your meetings. However, if you’re not doing your work to really make yourself ready internally through your own self-awareness, reflection, and some simple practices, it’s going to be a clunky ride up to the top of that mountain. What if your climbers see that their leader is actually carrying three backpacks? Two from the prior meeting that they’re still not over. What if they don’t have the right equipment? What if the rope that’s holding everybody together is too short? The leader and how you are prepared to really lead, be open, be prepared and nimble to address what’s happening in the moment is so crucial. 

So, a few tips for you to help boost your Leader Presence in the room. One is take a moment to think about what you need to leave outside the room. It could be an upsetting conversation you had, it could be a judgment you know you have about somebody in your team, or a disappointment that you had about a performance issue. Be intentional about what you need to leave outside of the meeting space.

Second thing, I think would be really helpful for you in terms of your leader presence, is to be intentional about what you need to bring into the meeting. This is really where it’s important to understand what’s the experience that you want people to have. Your greatest job – as a manager as a leader of people in that meeting – is not just about getting the work done, but really forging strong, trusting, safe relationships amongst the people on your team. Without that psychological safety, without that sense that you’ve got each other’s back, everything you do will be much harder. So much more friction, so much more rework. I go into a lot more detail in how you can prepare yourself for a meeting with my COUNT Roadmap that’s in the book.

I think that these couple of tips, what do you leave outside the room and what do you intentionally need to bring into the room so that you really lead yourself you can lead your people better. 

I hope that’s been helpful to you. Stay tuned for my next tip coming up in about a week’s time. If you have any other questions or want to talk further, just reach out to me at BrillianceMastery.com. Thanks so much.