The Culture Nerds - A Leadership Podcast
Want to constantly grow as a leader and shape a great culture in your workplace? This is the podcast for you.
Of course, if you’re a yoghurt fan who typed in ‘culture’ and ended up here …(sorry, nerdy workplace culture joke). If you’re a serious person who believes serious topics must be covered in a serious way, we may not be the petri dish for you either.
But, if you want lived executive experience and decades working with corporate clients, government agencies & NFPs, all topped off by the hilarious hosts (at least we think so!), welcome - we're glad you could join us!
We nerd out on leadership and workplace culture – which is why we’re good at them. We tackle the topics you need to develop as a leader and to transform the workplace culture you have into the workplace culture you want. And we have fun doing it.
Hard hitting topics. Easy listening.
The Culture Nerds - A Leadership Podcast
🗨️ Authentic Conversations: How can they step up if you are all over the stairs?
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Most leaders want to create a workplace where each individual feels empowered to take on more responsibility, challenge themselves, and step into leadership roles. In our latest episode of Authenticity, Transforming Workplace Culture, we look at the potential barriers that hinder team members from stepping up and discuss strategies to overcome these hurdles. We discuss insights from a recent leadership development program, and consider how fostering a supportive environment and creating safe spaces can accelerate an individual's growth and align the workplace culture effectively with the team's goals.
Our conversation further evolves as we examine the significance of providing opportunities for practicing leadership skills and shaping a feedback-oriented atmosphere. We give you an inside look into the dynamics of leadership development, the essence of creating opportunities, and the impact it has on team members and workplace culture. What stands out is our emphasis on the need for leaders to step back, to create a vacuum that drives team members to step up and fill. The episode is a genuine conversation that challenges the conventional norms of leadership and work culture, and encourages leaders to create opportunities, foster growth, and prepare their team for future leadership roles. This episode is a must-listen for leaders, aspiring leaders, and anyone invested in creating a healthy, growth-oriented work culture.
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Before we get into today's episode, we want to acknowledge the privilege of living and working on Aboriginal land and we pay our respects to the elders, past, present and emerging. Welcome listeners to our latest episode of Authenticity Transforming Workplace Culture. I am here today in sunny Brisbane recording in person with my co-host, simon Tyson.
Speaker 2:Hello, kira Lee. It is beautiful here in Brisbane, isn't it? We're about to get on a plane, though, and head further south and start adding layers.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, we are. We're going to Melbourne this afternoon, where it will be a little bit more colder, a lot more fresher A bit more like our homes. Yes exactly. Simon, what are we talking about today?
Speaker 2:Well, as you mentioned, we're in Brisbane and we're working this week with a client. We've just finished for them, we've half finished, because tomorrow we work with the second group One year leadership development program and it's been so exciting being here for the graduation session and a final session which has a lot of strong messages, and as part of that we talked about stepping up. What happens throughout a leadership program is that we give people that capacity to step up, but that doesn't necessarily guarantee they will, and our listeners will relate to this. They'll look around their teams at times and think do you have got people who have another gear? What is it that stops them stepping up? And you, very skillfully yesterday, led them through a reflection and one of the questions that you asked was what's the barrier in your organization to stepping up?
Speaker 2:And an assumption emerged that surprised us, even after a year with the organization. This assumption that emerged surprised us and was very powerful because by challenging that, all of a sudden, one of the key obstacles that people experienced to stepping up in the workplace disappeared. So as they started talking about it, we noticed a theme and we used a particular process where people could give feedback on a slide and people would just throw in whatever comments and we could, as a group, sit and explore what the themes were, and one of the biggest themes we noticed was around. Well, my boss isn't going anywhere, so how do I step up? Or we've got a really small team, so there aren't that many places for people to step. And I think what struck both of us is that's not even what we were talking about, but that's what they had in their minds, and so they were waiting until, oh, when my boss goes, I can step up, but of course, that's not what we mean. What did we mean by? What did we have in our heads?
Speaker 1:I'll just take it back one step, because when that started to become clear that that's the direction that they were thinking, then their line of thinking I asked the question you know, what behaviors does this look like? Because I was thinking inside my head at the time. This happens every day, like we ask people to step up and people assume that that's what stepping up is. But if we know what some of the behaviors that sit behind an expectation of stepping up or a want for our team members to step up, what does that look like? And it was then when we started talking about well, what can, if you can't formally step up because your manager is in that role and they're not going anywhere? What could stepping up be if it's not that? And so that's when we started talking about well, how can we create opportunities for people? How can we create opportunities for people If I'm leading people? How do I create opportunities where they can't have?
Speaker 2:my job because I like my role and I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 1:But how can we prepare them for a role where they can step into, whether it be my role or another leadership role in the organization? What does that look like? How do we create them a safe spot for them to have a go learn? We can coach them through the process so that when opportunities do arrive whether that be me going on holidays or me helping out in another area somewhere- Don't you say when you leave, because that's not a topic that we ever discuss.
Speaker 1:But what does that look like? And so then it was almost like a sharp right turn, wasn't it of the conversation?
Speaker 1:because that and you could see their eyes start to go oh yeah, this is how we can step up personally, but this is how we can create an opportunity for people in our team to step up. And what the bigger picture to that is is it just elevates everybody. It just elevates everybody's leadership capabilities. It elevates the discretionary effort that the people in your team have, because suddenly they're doing things that are more challenging for them and they're stepping.
Speaker 2:They're getting the opportunity to step outside their comfort zones and you're shifting that culture towards the alignment of where you want to be in your culture, and they knew that distinction in their heads, that they weren't feeling it in their hearts, and that was the that's what really emerged, that they knew there's multiple ways to step up and in fact, stepping up can be just taking on something new, trying something, contributing in a different way. But in their hearts they were thinking, well, I can't really step up, I don't have an opportunity because my bike, we're in a small team, my boss is not going anywhere, I don't have this opportunity.
Speaker 1:And what was really good was when we started. What I really enjoyed was when we started talking about what those behaviors were. A lot of them, you could see them go. Oh, I'm doing that. I'm doing some of those behaviors I'm working on these with my team and suddenly it became about well, there's such a barrier to stepping up to we are stepping up and we're creating opportunities for people to step up and we can see other opportunities that we can now work on and that was, I guess, for me, the highlight, because our whole point of yesterday's session is they need to take all these strategies that they've worked on and all the new found skills that they've done.
Speaker 1:It's all good and well for us to give them the content, but they're the ones that are living it every day.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And now they can see that the next challenge, when we're no longer meeting monthly anymore, is how do I implement?
Speaker 2:this Absolutely.
Speaker 1:How do I continue to stretch myself but also stretch the people in my team?
Speaker 2:Now there's a couple of parts that I think we'll come back to that later because there's and we'll keep you hanging for a little bit longer listeners. But there's one underlying principle that we're going to come back to at towards the end of the episode, but before we get there, something else that's really important, that Kirillie touched on wins the best time for someone to step up and the answer is before I need to. Yeah, if I'm sick all of a sudden, or I go on a holiday, or I leave the business, or whatever happens, I've got to go out in some sort of emergency. And then people have to start learning to step up. Well, that's going to win badly and everyone's experience of stepping up is going to be poor. The person who has to step up is going to feel vulnerable. They're going to feel out of their comfort zone, and that's okay, but they're going to feel too far out of their comfort zone.
Speaker 2:It's just such an elevated level of pressure Absolutely, and the person who is relying upon someone stepping up is going to start thinking, oh, this doesn't work, and I feel let down. And in fact, it was with this same organization that we were working with yesterday. About a year ago, I met with one of their managers who was frustrated by one of their they're basically a 2RC and their failure to step up whenever they left the business. So each day they might be out of the business for an hour or two. It was the nature of their role. They had some other functions they performed, or they'd have a long weekend or they'd go on holidays, and they were so frustrated that, by the way, things were not dealt with by things that weren't handled effectively when this person had to step up. And my question to this manager, which transformed the way they approached it, was how often do you let them step up when you are in the building, because surely that's the safest time?
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:If I want you to step up and I'm here to catch you while you try new things, that's great. If I'm there to notice when you do it well, that's great. If I'm there to step in, if it just is going pear shaped, that's great. And of course, then that person's being prepared to step up when I'm not in the business yeah. So best time to do it is before you need to, and the same goes for a new role. So the best time to step up to being a manager in your branch or in your team is before that position's vacant, because then, when the position does become vacant, you've already got someone who's demonstrated their capability. So it's good for the manager who might be moving up and might be moving on. It's great for the person who's got a head start to going into that role.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and we talk to anybody that goes into a formal leadership role and the biggest challenges they have are the people issues.
Speaker 1:Absolutely the technical side of things is normally taken care of to a certain degree. There's many things that need to be learned, but I feel like 95% of people, when they step into a formal leadership role, say the biggest challenges they have is all the people issues that they have to deal with. So if we can be creating opportunities for the people in our team to have these experiences of these people issues and these can just be really open, honest conversations, feedback If you can normalize feedback in your team or giving and receiving feedback it's a skill that some people find so hard once they step into a leadership role because they've never done it before and they've never been in environments where that's happened.
Speaker 1:So if you can start creating those opportunities in your team, it's not necessarily giving opportunities to step up for technical side of things.
Speaker 1:It's these micro choices that contribute to the culture of your team and the greater organization and if you can start creating opportunities for those things to be practiced. And creating opportunities is not creating opportunities for them to go and do it, it's modeling this for them. So you can create an opportunity for someone to give and receive feedback by having a conversation with them as their leader and asking them to give you feedback on how things are going, and then you can provide them with some feedback and just normalizing that behavior, so then they know that those conversations are frequent.
Speaker 2:This is what we do.
Speaker 1:Okay, and this is just. This is what we do.
Speaker 2:And we've got to remember that the job of a leader is to create more leaders.
Speaker 2:Yes, so if I can do that, you know and our listeners frequent listeners, regular listeners, as you all should be will have heard me say before that we don't believe in trying people in the deep end.
Speaker 2:That's reckless and unfair and unsupportive.
Speaker 2:As a leader, we do believe in insisting people get wet, so we like to get them in the shallow end and then grow them as we prod them towards the deep end. And if we help people step up in these ways, so, leaders, if you look for opportunities to step up, if you push outside your comfort zone, if you say to the people above you, you need to give me some opportunities to step up, but if you also look at the teams you lead and are doing the same for them, then what you're doing is getting people in that shallow end and coaching them towards the deep end. And as you say I reckon you're being conservative, but in saying 95% will say the hardest thing of the people issues, I reckon it's 99.9. And if we can just give them a little bit of practice around that stuff in a supported environment when they actually need to formally step into a new role, then they're going to be so much better prepared for having that opportunity. So I mentioned one final thing that I wanted to finish with.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And this is the philosophy that I really want our leaders out there to adopt. We talk all the time about people stepping up. Now, another philosophy of ours is that when something doesn't go as well as would like it to, the first question a great leader asks is what's the failure of leadership? Now, the inclination is to look at your people and say what's wrong with my people? Why aren't they stepping up? But a great leader says what's the failure of leadership here?
Speaker 2:And what we so often find that the failure of leadership that's occurring when people aren't stepping up is the manager is standing on the very next step. They're in the way. There is nowhere to step up to, because every time something needs to be done, every time people have learned that this is my place, they're kept in this comfort zone, in this box, because the leader's filling up all the rest of the space and the big, big takeout would love it. Leaders listening to this pod to take home and apply is get off the bloody steps, not right off the steps. Don't go charging up them and say, right, oh, you're on your own, but maybe step up one or two and leave some space for people to step into. And I actually think opportunity has to be there, and then we have to coach the people to step into it and we can't just expect right, I stepped out of the space, so they'll step into it. We might need to say, hey, this is what I'm doing and I want to support you as you step into that space.
Speaker 1:Yes, I totally agree with that, simon, and I think that that's what we see a lot of, and when we have leaders that are prepared to create that space for people to step into and create a supported space for them to help their team members step up, great results follow.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Yep. And when people aren't stepping up, maybe maybe it's because they don't want to, maybe it's because they don't have the confidence, but maybe in a I think this accounts for a lot of it maybe there's nowhere to step to, there's no opportunity. And for the leaders listening, I want you to think about your leader and are they providing you with the space and opportunity to step up, or are they all over the step? And is that what is getting in your way? And if that's the case, we strongly recommend as long as it's safe for you to do so, have that discussion. I want to step up. What's stopping me is that there's nowhere to step to, because the alternative to that is to settling into a comfort zone where you effectively become less than you could be, and that's what I think always. I think that's always sad to see a human being make that choice. So look for that opportunity and if you've got a push for some space, if you've got the right relationship with your manager, then that's a conversation you should have.
Speaker 1:I would challenge all leaders that if they feel that they have team members that could be giving a little bit more, or you feel I want them to step up, have a conversation with them and ask them for some feedback. How can I support you more? How can I coach you to stretch yourself or challenge yourself? Ask what role you can play in that. Don't push it back and go. You need to step up or we need you to step up. Ask yourself what role you can play in facilitating that to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and where would you like to step to? I'm really keen to see you step up a bit. This is what that looks like from my perspective, because step up's a cliche, absolutely. What does it really look like? And?
Speaker 1:that's when we spoke about the behaviors and the team yesterday, like they were naming some great behaviors, and so, if you think about, well, if I want people to step up, what is it I want them to do? What are the behaviors that I want them to be actively doing that I can then coach them through. So I think it really all starts with us, as leaders, being able to define what it is that we need from our team members and then be able to give them. Once your team members know the behaviors that they need to do, then we can start putting in strategies and we can coach them. But it's just when we, I guess, call something as stepping up and, like we learned yesterday, stepping up can mean two very different things to people and it was such a great discussion and opened our eyes to, which was then the topic for this podcast.
Speaker 1:But yeah, this means so many. This can mean very different things to people, and so being able to articulate those behaviors and that then opened up the discussions for some really great ideas, but also some good reflections that were already doing this and that real credit to them that they're creating those opportunities that they probably haven't reflected on. In that, way before.
Speaker 2:And look, I'm just gonna add one thing. You talked about leaders really defining what they need from their people. I'd also add to that leaders define what your people need from you, because there's a fairly high chance if your people aren't stepping up, then you may be the problem, or at least part of the problem. So, kereley, as we sign up off, I'm going to urge our listeners check out the events tab on our it's within solutions on our website. There are some great events there, some great courses. There's a including our free Plenty in 20 series. So we've launched a series of 20 minute webinars that will run fairly frequently, tackling some of the topics that are the hot topics for leaders. So check that out. There's also some great paid courses there if you think our content could help develop you or the other people in your organization. But check that out. Reallearningcomau.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Simon. Look forward to our next opportunity to record in person again. I will see you then, I'll be in sunny Brisbane any time you want to do this show.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe we might this week.