Operators have a unique leadership role on the team.

Entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned as the inspirational leader. They set the vision and provide the motivation to reach that vision.

But along the way, your team will need continuous support to manage their emotions and stay committed to the goals that the organization has set. Working through their own limitations and growing pains that are a natural part of the journey.

This is where the Operator is paramount to the success of your team.

Because they are the emotional leader of the team. Providing the support and inspiration they need to continue moving forward.

Learn more in this episode.

Links

Learn more at https://www.adamliette.com

Activate The Warrior Within https://www.adamliette.com/awaken-the-warrior

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Transcript

Adam Liette
Hey there operators Welcome to this episode, I'm starting in a little bit different with a little bit different tonal inflection, if you can't tell. And that's because this episode is one that's kind of near and dear to my heart, and my soul. And I kind of want to set myself up on the right stage and set you up on the right stage because this is about leading with emotional intelligence.

Adam Liette
You know, someone once told me one of the most influential people in my life who who coached me, Alec scharffen, told me that an entrepreneur, like the leader of the organization, is the influence. It's the, like the main influential leader of the organization, they provide the motivation, they provide the vision. And that's true. And that's what the CEO needs to do, they need to provide that big picture, here's where we're going, here's how we're going to get there. For many of us, that are in the position of leadership within the organization, especially a Director of Operations, or any kind of a team leader, you are the emotional leader of the team, of your team. Your team relies on their CEO, for the vision, and you for the emotional support to get there. And this stuff gets emotional. You know, if you're hiring correctly, if you're cultivating a team correctly, you get people that are true believers, you get people that want to do good for you, because they believe in you. They want to do good for you. Because they trust you, they they love you. And you love them too.

Adam Liette
And there's a lot to be said about that relationship that gets built within our organizations within our teams, about how deep it gets very, very quickly. And I don't discount that. I don't ever take that for granted. I don't want to, because that takes away part of my humanity, it takes away part of my reason for being on this earth to be absolutely honest. It's it's something that I love about the process I love about my job I love about what I do, is the fact that I have people looking to me, I have people that depend on me. I have people that want me to be successful so much that it hurts. And they want to be successful with me. And that requires a certain level of empathy on our parts, requires a different person to show up in those moments.

Adam Liette
So as you may imagine, I'm typically kind of the bombastic person on the team. I'm the fast talker, the loud talker, I'm the person rah rah leading the charge from the front. I'm usually the loudest person in the room when I speak, especially if I'm in a particular moment of inspiration, hard to believe, right? If you've been listening to the show for more than five minutes, that tends to be my personality, very high D, very high D all day and night. But there's those moments where we can't be that. So I remember when I first discovered the fact that I was the emotional leader of the team. And it was about three, four years ago, we were I was director of operations for this company. And we were making this gigantic big push. Like we were expanding. We were doing all these things and it was like stress central to try to hold that together to get it moving. And I honestly I obviously handle the stress different than other people. And I at the moment, at that moment, I didn't even consider the fact that other people didn't handle stress the way I did.

Adam Liette
So I had a team member come up to me and they were just frickin broken, broken, ready to leave ready to quit at a moment's notice, if I said the word like you're fired, they probably would have said, thank you and left. And instead, this moment, this, this one point in time, kind of set me on this journey of discovering how to be that emotional leader. So the first thing is just like really understand your people understand their communication modalities, be able to read between the lines, you know, yes, we often do this slack kind of thing. But like, if you pay attention to the way people are writing things to the way people are showing up, you can start to see different language patterns that emerge in their slack messages in their frequency and their follow up, all these things kind of play into factor. And you can start to tell when someone's like not having a good time. Just kind of be aware of that.

Adam Liette
Be aware of the fact that as you're going through this, like, people are going to be feeling different things. And during the journey, like make space for them. So it's one thing to say like book a time on my calendar. And you often hear that, like I have an open door policy, something like something from a leader, like, be more proactive about that, especially if you're going through periods of like real stress, or like major change within the organization. Don't just like leave that that that's up to chance, like actually book time with someone be like, Hey, I booked 15 minutes on your calendar, why just have coffee and chat. Just like leave it as simple as that. You're making time for them. Now. They don't feel like they're interrupting you. They don't feel like they're intruding on you. You're outright saying I'm here for you, brother. And I made time on my calendar for you. Let's just chat, okay.

Adam Liette
When you're in that moment, you know, as you get a couple of minutes into it, people tend to start opening up. And I want you to just be aware of a couple of things in that moment when people start expressing what's going on. I want you to just pay attention to their body language. I want you to see how their eyes are looking, you know, are their eyes looking up down? Are they looking at you? Does it look like they have any kind of those signs of stress? You know, do they have tired looking eyes? Do they look like they're to the point of exhaustion? Are you hearing tonal inflections in their voice? Are they expressing things in a way that you've never heard them say before? Like all these things are just like indicators that something's wrong. They might not be telling you yet, but something's wrong. Or they could come right out and tell you and what do you do in that moment, where someone either isn't telling you that something's wrong or comes out directly to tell you something's wrong? The answer is the same ironically. And your I want you to instead of going into Solvit mode, which is so often what we do, as leaders, we're constantly trying to fix things for everyone.

Adam Liette
Here's the thing, someone that is in an emotional state doesn't necessarily want you to fix them. Like, how demeaning is that? Like, let me fix you for you. Like, no, they don't need you to fix them. They just need to know you're there. So ask questions. Give them space to talk, get them talking further. Get them to expand upon it by just asking more questions. How do you feel about that? What does that mean to you? So what do you did? What did you do in that moment? What did you let that tell you about yourself? How did you react to that? What are you going to do now? All these kinds of things that they're very open ended questions. They're not really directive. It can't be like a one sentence answer. Like it's usually a conversation, but it opens them up, gives them space. lets them keep talking. Keep them talking about what they're going through, about what they're experiencing about why they're experiencing this. And keep asking questions, because here's the wonderful thing that happens. And again, I've seen it time and time again. Like, it's basically like three things are gonna happen.

Adam Liette
The first thing that could happen is they end up solving the damn problem for themselves. Like they talked themselves around it, and they end up figuring out where they were missing or that that blank spot there, that blank space that they had, that they didn't know how to unlock it. They didn't know how to shine light into that blind space. And you provide the conduit for them to do it. It's truly beautiful and it happens. Provide that conduit provide that space. Let them solve it for themselves. The other thing that could happen is there's nothing actually to solve. They just needed to whine about it a little bit, not to demean it, but they just needed to kind of bitch and moan. Okay?

Adam Liette
And they end up like just coming to it and be like, oh, oh, that felt so good to get off my chest. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I didn't do anything. All I did was ask him questions that sat there and listened as an active listener to them. I didn't do anything, but it feels like I solved it for them. In many ways, and that's weird. But take the credit. Move on. You're welcome. Thank you. Bye. Maybe there's one thing to say about empowering them like, bro, I didn't do crap, man. You just You just had to get it off your chest. Like kind of letting them know like, bro, like, you got this. Like that's, that's pretty cool. Like pick me up. The final thing that could happen is the the solution was actually like really, really simple. And we just had to get to the the actual crux of it is so like I had a team member once was like extremely overwhelmed, hyper stressed out. And it turns out, it was just how I was managing and organizing their their like daily scrum list. So the stuff their daily tasks that they had to do every day, it was just formatted in a way that was confusing to the team member. That like gave them a lot of undue stress. And we just like Team fixed it right then and there. The rest of the team was like, Oh, snap, this is so much better. I didn't see it, because I'm not in that lane, right. And I just had to hear it from their voices, that it wasn't working and open it up to them helping me fix it. So pretty crazy way to do it. But all this came from just letting them talk.

Adam Liette
The absolute worst thing you can do is like pretend you know the answers and tried to solve it for them. Like people don't want to hear that. And they definitely don't want to hear you making comparisons to your own shit. Okay, so if someone's like, super stressed out, like, oh, yeah, I remember a time I was stressed out, like no one wants to hear that crap. So don't give it to them. Keep asking questions, keep it open. This is just like one part of like being that emotional team leader of being that emotional rock in your company. But I think it's probably the most important part to start, like learning how to do this, it does not come naturally to all of us. It is hard to do. It's hard to not go into pure D mode and try to solve stuff for people.

Adam Liette
But I promise you, if you just open up to people, allow yourself to be a little bit vulnerable. Allow yourself to give them that space, you will see results, you will see a greater emotional stability to your team that will propel you forward because it's going to strengthen up your team. So we can get through the tough projects together. Not every day is going to be smooth sailing, we will have days that are smooth. And those are great, let's revel in those. But let's also position ourselves for the days when we're all running around kind of like chicken, chickens with their head cut off, trying to get something big accomplished, that's going to move the company forward. This is how you do it. Okay, this is a long game, it is a strategy. Remind yourself of this. And you will see the results. That I promise you. I hope this helped. I hope it at least open the door towards one small, tiny little thing that you can do to be that emotional leader on your team to start moving things forward to be a better team member and a better leader. Just by opening yourself up to them. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please go to Adam liette.com Please and give the podcast a review. What are you waiting for? Go ahead and just do a quick review always helps. And until next time. This is part of leadership guys. It's not just giving directions. It's also being a listener. Being a rock to lean on. Being that emotional leader of the team, that's you operators to lead the way. Hey operators, I believe that within each and every one of us lies a warrior in waiting this warrior is able to conquer any obstacle that comes their way to discover how to awaken your warrior spirit and conquer what's holding you back. Go to Adam liette.com and join awaken the Warrior Within