There’s an art to effective leadership. However, we’re seldom taught how to do it. As entrepreneurs, we all want to become better leaders. Whether you have a team or want to have one, it’s crucial that you put important leadership methods in place as soon as possible. Today, career coach Emily Hawkins explains how.
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About Emily Hawkins
Emily Hawkins empowers the unemployed, unfulfilled, and unrecognized to find what they love in their life and put it in their work. Her online courses and individual career coaching will help identify the barriers that are preventing you from knowing and achieving your purpose.
With over 15 years in corporate America working with budgets, processes, and people Emily can help you streamline your time, team, and career aspirations to land a new role, a promotion, or a completely new venture. Armed with a Georgia Tech MBA and a Robbins-Madanes (yes, Tony Robbins!) life coaching certification, Emily has been uncovering the potential in people for years.
As a career coach and corporate leader, she has seen the most common mistakes people make over and over – many she learned through her own failures. Emily ended that vicious cycle when she took charge of her life.
Failures Lead to Success
Before becoming a leadership expert, Emily shares that she “did everything wrong” in the beginning. Back when she was in the corporate world, she would be micromanaging, rush hiring, and all other kinds of leadership mistakes which caused her team to fall apart.
One day as she was envisioning her ideal team, she realized that she needed to change herself too. So, she read books, gathered insights, and put them into action. This allowed her to create a new team with a positive and more informed approach. She describes the importance of having diversity in a workforce, the value of giving praise, and the best way to onboarding.
Seeing the success in the team she built, as well as others she helped in the company, her colleagues suggested that she become a life coach. At first she dismissed the thought, but later on she became open to the idea and joined a Robbins-Madanes program which pushed her out of her comfort zone. That’s when she decided to leave her corporate job and start building her business.
Good Leadership Starts with You
Although team building involves working with others, it also requires a lot of working on yourself. Emily talks about how good leaders listen more than they speak. She explains the importance of integrity, trust-building, and following through on promises.
Running your team with integrity means treating its members as you would want them to treat you. Model the behavior you want to see. Emily believes that actions speak louder than words, but when they align, it shows accountability. This builds respect, which is a powerful motivator when it comes to working together effectively.
Effective Communication for Leaders
Of course, no team will function well without proper communication. Emily fosters this by regularly asking seven seemingly simple yet essential questions:
- What’s on your mind?
- …and what else?
- What’s the real challenge here for you?
- What do you want?
- How can I help?
- If you’re saying YES to this, what are you saying NO to?
- What was the most useful or most valuable thing for you here?
When you really get to know your team members through asking questions and listening to their responses, you’ll learn so much about them. You’ll discover their values, what motivates them, where they’re confident, and where they need support. Even gestures that seem little can make such a big impact in people feeling seen and cared for. And that is really part and parcel of leadership.
Ultimately, it’s not so much what you say. Being a better leader goes back to those actions.
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Enjoyed this article? Check out this related piece for more insights: How To Create Positive Habits That Actually Stick
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IN THIS EPISODE
- How making mistakes made Emily an expert in team-building [4:15]
- What integrity really means for leaders [17:05]
- Improving communication and connection with 7 essential questions [28:15]
- Learning to relinquish control and let your team members take the lead [43:20]
QUOTES
“I thought that I wanted to work with people like me. But I’m already on the team. I don’t need another me. I need somebody who’s very opposite of me so that all of our gaps are filled.” [10:15]
“Words are kind of empty. You can say a lot, but your actions speak louder than your words.” [21:26]
“There’s no point in talking about what we’re going to do in three weeks when what we’re doing this week matters the most. But if they know what I’m working on and I know what they’re working on, then we’re all on the same page.” [52:25]
LINKS
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