by Frame of MindSeptember 6, 2018

Kim Ades, President and Founder of Frame of Mind Coaching™, and Brian Brault, CEO of PURE Rooms, discuss why your #1 priority as a leader is NOT to guide your team.

 
 
What is your number one priority as a leader? Is it to delegate tasks? Is it to hold others accountable? Is it to mediate conflicts? Is it to guide your team to success?

Leaders no longer just focus on leading others. Their focus has shifted to something much more impactful.

Listen as Kim Ades, President and Founder of Frame of Mind Coaching™, and Brian Brault, CEO of PURE Rooms and former Global Chairman of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), discuss what a leader’s priority really is.

 
Your #1 Priority as a Leader
Brian: You’ve been doing this for 14 years − what is the evolution of leadership styles or the DNA of leaders that you’re seeing emerge? Do you see a change in that?

Kim: Absolutely. I’ve been involved in studying leaders for most of my life, since I was a teenager actually. I’ve always had a passion for it, and in fact, that was my focus of study when getting my MBA.

The shift that’s taken place is away from focusing on managing and leading people. In other words, the focus is no longer on others, those people, the team, them, the “they” component. We’re now looking at leadership a little bit differently and saying, “Hey, if I am not solid, if my thinking isn’t aligned with our goals, I can’t bring my team anywhere.”

“When leaders take the time to work on themselves, the company below them thrives.” -Kim Ades

The focus has shifted away from needing to manage and control and lead and influence others, to really understanding the influence or the impact that a leader has when they think in certain ways. The shift has gone from being other-focused to being leader-focused and really developing the leader and his or her thinking in a way that allows them to naturally lead and influence.

When you say to me, “I got involved in EO, and it made a big difference in my family life, my business, etc.,” what you’re saying is, “I took the time to develop myself.” When leaders take the time to work on themselves, their thinking, their emotional resilience, their view of the world; when they take the time to fortify themselves when they experience adversity; when they take the time to surround themselves with smarter people or people with different experiences; when they take the time to really create a solid foundation for themselves as leaders, the company below them thrives.

But when you’re in a state of chaos; when you let things fall between the cracks; when you’re not taking care of your health and your mental state; when you’re not exercising; when you’re not paying attention to the things that matter to you like your family and your fun, then things fall between the cracks and that impacts your business.

So the focus has gone from needing to manage everything around you to really managing yourself. That’s what I see as the big, substantial shift.