Welcome to Visionaries Pursuit, a podcast where we explore what it takes to turn your bold and inspiring ideas into reality. I'm Carolina Zuleta. I'm a life and a business coach and your host for this podcast. I'm thrilled to have you here. Welcome back. And this is episode 18. And we're continuing talking about the theme of goal setting and visioning.
Hello, and welcome back. This is episode 23 of the Visionaries Pursuit podcast. And today we're continuing with the topic from last episode, that it's all about how to elevate your team, how to create a team of top performers to get your business, your project to the next level. In the previous episode, I shared with you the beliefs and actions that can hold us back from being the best leader we can.
If you haven't listened to that episode yet, I recommend you start there. As I explained in that episode, becoming aware of what is happening inside of us is the first step to be able to change. I tell my clients, awareness is 80 percent of the work. And in this episode, we're going to go to the. 20 percent of the work, but very important as well.
And I'm going to share the strategies and tools that you can apply right now to help you elevate your team. So the first set of tools have to do with you, the leader, right? So in the previous episode, we became aware of what's going on inside of you, your beliefs, your actions. Here, I'm going to give you a set of skills that you can write down and ask yourself, how can I develop these skills?
In the next three months, in the next six months. So the first skill is the ability to self validate. Many of us, because we're human beings and nobody has taught us this, we look at others to validate us. Am I doing a good job? Am I being a good leader? Do you like me? Do you respect me? And based on what other people think about us, then we feel like we are good leaders, that we're doing a good job.
But to be a powerful leader, we must learn to self validate. We must learn to evaluate our performance, our actions, and tell ourselves, yes, I did a good job, or no, I missed the mark, and here's why. One of the exercises I do with my clients in our coaching sessions is when they're gonna launch a new product or a new campaign, or they're gonna have an important meeting with a stakeholder.
I ask them, what is your success measurement? But not what other people are gonna say or how they're gonna receive it, but your internal measurement of success. For example, if they're having a meeting with a potential investor, regardless if the investor decides to invest in them or not, their measurement for success can be, I was calm, I was clear, I deliver the message that I wanted to deliver, I deliver the message I wanted to deliver, I asked for the money.
So what I do during the coaching session is I sit down with my client and together we develop a plan. a measurement of success that depends only on the leader, on my client. So that way, if they meet those expectations they have for themselves, they can celebrate themselves. If they said, listen, my measurement of success in this meeting is to convey this message, is to be present, is to feel confident, and it's to ask for the money.
At the end of the meeting, my clients can look at themselves and say, did I do these things that I said I was going to do? Yes. So then I can celebrate myself. I can be proud of myself regardless of the outcome that is outside of their control. Meaning regardless if the client purchased or not, regardless if the investor gave them the money, regardless if the employee received the feedback well.
The way we self validate is by setting a success measure that is 100 percent dependent on our actions and then we can evaluate ourselves by our own actions, not by other people's reactions. And why this is important is because it allows you as a leader to focus on what is 100 percent on your control instead of spinning in your head trying to control the variables that are outside of your control.
Now, You might start noticing that, oh, this was my plan and I executed it perfectly and still I didn't get the result I wanted. So now I can come back and change my plan. But I'm not going to be waiting for people to approve me or like me. I can be a way more strategic person. And this is also very important when you're giving feedback to your team.
If you evaluate your capacity to give feedback, because people still like you or happy or they are grateful for the feedback, you might be setting yourself up for a trap. But instead, if you validate the way you give feedback, because you know what? I said all the things I wanted to say, and I stayed calm, and I was kind, and even if I was scared of sharing.
this part. I was brave enough to say it out loud. Then again, you can self validate and be more accountable to your own actions than waiting to evaluate yourself based on variables that are outside your control. So skill number one, It's to learn how to self validate, right? So you're not dependent on other people's thoughts to know if you're doing a good job or not.
Skill number two is learning to upgrade your self concept and our self concept is all the beliefs we have about ourselves, our capacities, who we are in the world. And when we're visionaries and we're stepping to do something we've never done before, we need to start seeing ourselves. Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC.
I'm an imposter. What if this person realizes that their boss knows less about a certain subject than they do? And upgrading your self concept is owning that and being like, listen, you are the expert. That is why I'm hiring you. And I am still the leader because I have the vision and I know where we're going.
Another way our self concept shows up is when we're raising money or we're selling our new product or service. Is that we have. We have coached ourselves so hard that we now believe that this idea we're presenting to others is 100 percent a reality. So we can show up being the leader we want to be. So we can show up with the confidence, the security, the excitement that is going to make other people want to join you in the journey.
Upgrading your self concept is learning to believe in the evolved version of yourself when the business is still not there, when the money is still not there, but you believe you are the person to be leading this. You are the person to be Going for that goal. And what comes to my mind is one of my clients who's a film producer and wanted to hire these actors that were way more established in Hollywood than he was.
And he had to believe that his film, that his movie. Even though he wasn't as established as them, was still the most incredible opportunity for those actors to join it. Even when there's not a real evidence that he's well positioned in Hollywood. It didn't matter. He had to upgrade his self concept in order to hire them.
And he did, which was incredible.
The third skill you must develop In yourself, to be able to elevate your team is the ability to get a very clear on what is it that you want. We talk a lot about that. It's communication and sharing your expectations, but it all starts with you being able to really define in words what you want, the expectation you want all the details.
You are thinking about that you may think are obvious, but they're not obvious for other people. I usually joke with my clients saying like, listen, your team can't read your mind. And it seems so obvious, but a lot of us think that because something is obvious to us, it's obvious to everyone else. And that is not true.
So developing the skill set to sit down and write down, what is everything I want this person to do? What is the level I want them to do it? Even to, I hope they use this color in the presentation or they use this type of font or they use this type of images. The things that may seem so small, if you care about them, you need to be clear in your head.
So you can then communicate to them, what is it that you want? A lot of the frustrations I see leaders having with their teams is because they say, It's because they say, I want X, Y, and Z, and their team delivers X, Y, and Z, but really they wanted X, Y, Z, and 1, 2, 3, and 100, and 101, but they missed communicating that part and of course their team didn't know.
And the fourth skill is once you have that clarity within yourself. It's the ability to communicate to others and put it in words that your team can understand and know that your team got it. So a simple tool to use here is to say to your team members, listen, I just gave you all these things I want you to do, but so we're clear.
Can you repeat back to me what you understand your. project is or your task is. Because when you hear it from your employees, then you know that communication was complete and that we're all on the same page. And the last skill to develop as a leader is the ability to have difficult conversations. If you're going to lead, you will have difficult conversations.
It's not optional. Even in your own life, even if let's say you're not starting a business, but you're leading in your family, in your group of friends, you will have difficult conversations and becoming good at having them. is key. And what do I mean about being good at having them? One is not skipping them, procrastinating them, pretending you don't have to have them.
Two is to be able to stay calm, cool, and collected while you're having them. Three is to, again, to be able to articulate clearly the difference between the things that you didn't like that are facts and your thoughts and opinions about those facts. Four is being able to Listen and be empathetic in that moment without getting triggered and be able to lead the other person to find a resolution from that difficulty.
If right now you think to yourself, oh, I tend to shy away from difficult conversations, I would make this a priority in the skills you should develop this year. Difficult conversations will save you money, will save you headaches, will help you deliver better products and services. I mean, they are fundamental when you're a leader and a visionary.
So, so to recap, here are the five skills you must develop as a leader or visionary to elevate your team. Number one, your ability to self validate. Number two, your capacity to upgrade your self concept. Number three, the ability to have clarity on what is it that you want and you expect from your team.
Number four, your ability to communicate that to your team. And number five, the ability to have difficult conversations. This five skills is what we develop in coaching. When my clients come to the sessions, I'm listening to see which of these skills is underperforming and giving them the feedback and the tools and through the conversations build up the courage so they can become better at these five skills.
Okay, so now I'm going to move on to Very specific tools or processes you can create in your business or project that will help you maintain a great culture and elevate your team year after year. The first one is, what are the values of your business? What are the most important characteristics you want your employees to have?
So values are the things that matter the most to us. And even though they're going to be the values of our business, they have to reflect our values as the founder or the leader of that business. And you are going to use these values to hire. To train and even to fire when someone is not meeting those values.
Values should look something like, you would love to work in this company. You would love to be part of this project if A, B, C, D. And they shouldn't be many. Maximum five, and they should be very specific. So I'm going to give you an example. I was working with these two women who founded their own business, and we were looking at their values.
And their initial values were things that sounded great, but weren't very specific. Like, you would love to work in this business if you're resourceful, if you're effective, if you're authentic, right? We hear those words and it's like, oh yeah, I think I know what they mean. And yeah, probably I am resourceful.
But it completely shifted when we made them more specific. When their values went from resourceful, effective, and authentic to, you act like an owner. And by that, we mean that you're a self starter, you have high energy, you have big dreams, you have a hunger to win. Do you see how when we say that on an interview, listen, you would love to work here.
If you love acting like an owner, some people are going to be like. Yeah, that is me. Every job I've had, I felt like it's my own business and I love acting like an owner. And some people are going to say, no, that's not for me. And that's a beautiful thing because then you're going to attract the right talent to your team.
Or for example, another of their values, instead of being. You're effective is you are accountable to the results and not the tasks. So you know how to manage your own emotions, prioritize, and organize with attention to detail, follow through. And what they meant is they didn't want employees who said, Oh yeah, I already sent an email.
Well, I've sent them three emails that they were accountable to the end result and not the process or the tasks. They want employees who are gonna figure it out until they get to the result they need to get. And again, you can use this as a way to train your team, teach them what you're expecting from them, or when you have an employee who doesn't want to, or who doesn't have the capacity to create those results that you want, to let them go because they're not the right match.
So the first tool that you can develop within your organization that is really going to help you elevate your team is your values. The second one, and this one seems so obvious, but we all know that it doesn't happen in most, uh, small startups or small projects, is very clear in your job descriptions.
Actually making the time to, like I said, in the previous set of skills you need to develop, get a very clear what you want for this person, this job, and then write it down to the detail. So that way, when you're hiring an employee and you're posting a job description online, or you're giving it to your friends to see who they can recommend, it says exactly what that person is going to be expected to do.
In your business or project. Now, I know that when you have a small business, those job descriptions might not be very clear. Yet, because you think, well, I don't know, things might change. I don't know what the evolution of this business is going to be. So if you have a new business, make sure you include that in your job description.
You can write, We are a startup, these are the expectations we have from you initially, but the most important expectation we have is that you are adaptable. This job description will probably change as our business needs change and as we understand better where we're going and what are the things that we require from you.
If you are an adaptable person, if you're good with change, you're gonna love this position. But if you want something more concrete, this might not be the job for you. We have values and then job descriptions. And the third one is create a structure for giving feedback, either because you have it scheduled, right?
So, for example, many of my clients have a monthly feedback session with their top leaders, a quarterly with other employees. They have some type of structure in which everyone knows in the company that you're going to meet, and then in that meeting, You are going to receive feedback or you're going to give feedback.
So we're all on the same page. And also you can create a structure on how your employees give feedback to each other. Simplest one that I recommend to most of my clients is what is one thing you did well. Or one or two or three things that you're doing really well and what is one or two or three things that need to improve.
And then you can have your employee give you that feedback as well. You as my manager, here's one, two or three things you're doing well. And here's one, two or three things that I would like more of you or that I would want you to change. It is the most simple way of giving feedback, but it's incredibly effective.
So again, if you have a team right now, I want you to think, how do we give feedback? What is the way or the structure we use to give feedback to each other? How often do we need to put it in our calendars? And how are we going to hold each other accountable to giving that feedback? So these three tools, values, job descriptions, and a structure for feedback can change Significantly, the effectiveness of your team and the culture within your employees.
You put these tools into practice and I assure you, you will see a significant difference in the way your team is performing. So remember, it never starts with your team. It always starts with you as the leader. with your ability to be self aware, to understand the stories you're telling yourself, the actions you're taking, and then to develop the skills that will make you a better leader every day.
And then, of course, the structures which will help you hold yourself accountable to those skills that you are developing. That's all my friends. I hope that you really take one or two lessons from these two past episodes, put them in practice and see the power they have in elevating your team. And if you want personal help with this, let's book a call.
This is what I do with my clients every day. I help them become better leaders and it's something that I love doing. All right. See you next time. Bye bye.
If you're currently pursuing a big, bold idea and would love some support, let's talk. In my coaching program, I'll teach you how to manage yourself, your own thoughts and emotions, as well as your team and your money. So you can turn your beautiful idea into a reality. Go now to. carozuleta. com slash consult.
That is C A R O Z U L E T A dot com slash consult. And complete the form to book a complimentary call with me. See you there!
