Episode #32: Listener Insights

Handing over the mic

Hey guys, Em here! 

I’m interrupting our normal programming to celebrate you, our amazing listeners. 

Marty and I have been thinking about how we can thank and celebrate our podcast listeners - a few weeks ago we reached a milestone of over 35,000 listens, and this wouldn't have been possible without your loyalty and dedication to the podcast each and every week.

So instead of doing what a lot of podcasters do and read out iTunes reviews, we wanted to turn the microphone over to YOU, our incredible community of no bullsh!t leaders. 

We put the call out for you to send in your best No Bullsh!t Leadership tips as voice mails, and boy did you deliver!

LISTENER INSIGHTS: HANDING OVER THE MIC

Episode #32 Transcript

Em: Hey guys, I know that last week Marty mentioned that this week he'd be talking to you about “Regulation Can't Fix Culture”, but I want to interrupt our normal programming for something that I think is a bit special. And that's the beautiful thing about being the producer of this podcast. I can change the programming as I go!

I've pushed the episode back for what I think is a really good reason. We hit a milestone a few weeks ago where our listens went over 35,000 and, at the time of this recording, we're almost at 40,000. I really didn't want to gloss over this milestone because it's actually a really big deal to Marty and I. I know some podcasts are getting a few hundred thousand listeners a week, but to us impacting just one person's life through our content is worth celebrating, let alone thousands.

So look, to give you some context, the first episode we released got 132 listens in a week and we were seriously high fiving each other! We thought “Wow, imagine having a 132 people in a room, people who want to be there, and talking to them about Respect Before Popularity (which was our first episode) - that would be pretty amazing!”.

the impact

A few months later we were getting around 500 listings a week and Marty said to me, "You know, Em, at CS Energy, I probably only really impacted 15 to 20 people personally. I would never have been able to closely impact 500 people even if I spent the next 20 years there as CEO." I think that was the moment that we both realised what an impact this podcast was going to have on people. Our strategy from day one has been to give away the gold in every episode for no reason other than to change lives. I mean, sure, we wanted to build a brand, but what if we could build a brand and change lives at the same time?

Fast forward a few months and these days we get about 3,000 unique lessons a week and that number is increasing steadily with every new episode. On Wednesday mornings Marty and I look at the stats and we take a moment to chat about how grateful we are to have so many loyal, dedicated listeners out there from all over the world listening and learning, working on themselves, and helping us to achieve our purpose, which is to improve the quality of leaders globally.

Let me tell you what today's episode is going to be about. Marty and I've been thinking about how we can thank and truly celebrate our podcast listeners, shining a light on the incredible leaders that we have in our community. These are the people who come back week in, week out, they listen to our content, share it with their network, send us feedback and actually put Marty's strategies into practise. So instead of doing what a lot of podcasters do and read out the iTunes reviews, talking about how great their podcast is, we decided to turn the microphone over to our knowledgeable, successful community of No Bullsh!t Leaders. This episode isn't about us, it's about you.

We asked our email list, many of whom have downloaded our free resources or done one of our programs, to voice record the best leadership tips they had, and email them through to me. Whether it was something that they'd learned from our podcast or from their own experiences in the leadership trenches, we wanted them to share something that would really help the No Bullsh!t Leadership community.

Initially, I'd expected to get two, maybe three tops sent in this week, so I planned to add them to the end of the ‘Regulation Can't Fix Culture’ episode, but we got so many voicemails over the last few days that I decided to dedicate an entire episode to the brilliant leadership tips that you guys sent in. So over the next 15 minutes, you're going to hear unfiltered, No Bullsh!t Leadership Tips from leaders within our community. I'm going to kick this one off because I want to share a No Bullsh!t Leadership Tip that I've learned from getting all your feedback over the past six months. And yes, I read every single email, direct message and comment that you guys leave!

my tip for you

My tip is this: It's okay that you don't know what you don't know. A lot of leaders that reach out to us feel as though they are one minute away from getting called out as a terrible leader, or they know they are not leading their team to success, but they feel like they can't ask for help because they “should” know, or because their boss expects them to know.

You simply will not learn how to be an exceptional leader by osmosis. The frustrating fact is that many leaders are just fumbling their way through trying to figure out how to get results and not lose staff, get fired or get found out. Very few actually feel supremely confident in their leadership capability and often that can take a toll on their team and the value they then deliver for their organisation.

Alright, I'm going to get off my soapbox now and hand over to some of our brilliant leaders. I really hope you enjoy these tips as much as Marty and I did and if you want to leave your own No Bullsh!t Leadership Tip For us to play in future episodes, just click here. It's really simple to do and we would love to hear from you.

HANDING OVER THE MIC: Listener #1

Libby: Hi everyone. I'm Libby from Melbourne and I work in marketing. Since listening to the No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast, I've been noticing great and not so great leadership both around me and also within myself. As a child and young adult, I was very confident, so was always steered towards leadership roles within my sporting teams, at uni and in my workplaces. However I wasn't given the tools and resources to really succeed in these roles and had to learn a lot through trial and error.

I made some cringeworthy mistakes in the early years of my leadership career and I wish podcasts like the No Bullsh!t Leadership Podcast existed when I was in my early twenties. Now, in my mid thirties, in a career as a marketing exec at an agency in Melbourne, I'm finding that the same principles that apply to those pursuing a CEO role apply to my role as a leader within our little team.

I take a completely different approach to having tough conversations and I've learned some really practical strategies to tackle things that I want to work on within myself.

Ep #1: Respect Before Popularity, still resonates with me as the most relevant as it's something I've always struggled with. Now I remember to check myself when I make a decision and ask am I making this decision because I want to be liked? It helps guide my leadership. Thanks Marty and Em for providing such an amazing free resource in the podcast. I get as much, if not more value from your free trainings as I do for programs I've paid thousands of dollars for, so keep it up. Thanks guys!

LISTENER #2

Speaker 2: Hi Marty and Em, I'm an exec in the finance industry in Hong Kong. The best leaders I've worked for a truly authentic, what you see is what you get and what they say they will do, they do. There is no misalignment between words and action and they truly care about you as a person, they're both passionate and compassionate. Passionate about the purpose of the team or the organisation and compassionate towards the people.

As Marty has said, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." It takes about 30 seconds to spot a leader who is in it for themselves, ready to throw you under the bus if things go wrong. People in your team want to know that you have their back. I love the quote attributed to Maya Angelo that says, “People will forget what you said. They will forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel."

In every aspect of leadership, whether it's exciting role of setting strategy and purpose of building motivation and engagement in the team or the hard work of difficult performance conversations, how you treat people really matters.

Leadership is that umbrella that everything else, as Marty says, "Leadership drives your whole culture and that culture drives performance, which results in a value that you can deliver." When you are delivering great value, that's when you start to feel real pride in your work and your team and a true sense of purpose and accomplishment. That's what I think makes you want to get out bed in the morning and lead.

LISTENER #3

Speaker 3: Hi guys! As a leader in the energy sector, one of the best pieces of advice I've been given relates to office politics, namely whilst you should never play office politics, you must understand them. Getting the job done requires us as leaders to collaborate with people we trust and some of those people we don't. In doing so, never compromise your own values and always deliver. Integrity and delivery will always, eventually, be seen by right people in any organisation. Now, if you still fall foul of office politics despite your integrity and delivering, you're in the wrong organisation. Cheers.

LISTENER #4

Fred: Hi Marty and Em, it's Fred from Brisbane. My biggest tip is consistency. It is so much easier to lead any team if you are consistent with how you deal with them. Nothing erodes a team or an organisation's culture faster than an inconsistent leader.

LISTENER #5

Massimo: Hi everyone, this is Massimo from Brisbane. I work in the risk and compliance space. The way I see things, is that leadership is a blend of aptitude and attitude powered by passion. Aptitude is about knowledge and skills. Attitude is about feelings, way of thinking and behaviour. Blending attitude and aptitude you have ability. Power your ability with passion and you will be a beacon in the storm.

As a leader, you influence people and if you Google the word influence, you probably end up with this definition, "The power to make other people agree with your opinions or do what you want." But I believe that a modern leader and influencer should go beyond this definition and expand the concept to, the power to make other people agree with your opinion so they can review their approach into things because they want to, and not because they have to.

I think that this podcasts is really great and Martin is a true leader and influencer. At the end of the day I follow him because I want to, and not because I have to. So thank you again for these great tips. Cheers everyone.

LISTENER #6

Jess: Hi, my name's Jess and one of my favourite leadership tips from the No Bullsh!t Leadership Podcast is, to stay out of your employees knitting.

Something that I think a whole lot of new leaders find, me included, is that it's really hard to step back and away from the tasks that you're really used to doing and getting your hands dirty and into a leadership role. So I absolutely love that tip and it's something we need to be very self conscious of.

LISTENER #7

James: Hi guys, it's James from Adelaide and I work in corporate agriculture. My key tip for anyone in a leadership role echoes Marty's very first episode about Respect Before Popularity.

There is no way you can become a successful later if you need to be liked by everyone in the office and you can't be close friends with your team, as Marty would say, "Friendly but not friends." If you can't manage these relationships, it can impact your ability to be an effective leader. That means sometimes you have to tell your team things they won't like.

An example that I faced in recent times is the end of year remuneration review. I'm lucky enough to have a great team around me and each year, for the last two years, I've been able to give them a pay rise to reflect their hard work and professional development. However now, the scenario is changed as we've reached the top of the salary band for the roles in question. It would've been easy to cave in and raise salaries, but it wasn't the right thing to do by the business and it would have set a precedent that salaries go up every year. I gave my team the bad news and of course they didn't like it, but what I found was that because they liked their job and the team they work with, they got over it pretty quickly and the discussion was that bit easier because we are friendly, but not friends.

LISTENER #8

Sarah: Hey guys, I'm Sarah from Sydney and I've really been loving the podcast. It's been really helpful to me in regards to the attitude of excellence over perfection. I used to be such a perfectionist because I thought that it was the only way to stand out to my boss, but I was becoming a micro manager and this was causing issues with my team thinking that I didn't trust them to do their jobs.

I still have to check myself sometimes, but I'm much better at focusing on excellence over perfection, so thank you for making me aware of this. It's really helped me so much.

LISTENER #9

Danny: Hi, this is Danny Hovey. I have an organisational development background. I’ve also had the pleasure of working with Marty Moore as he led a significant and successful organisational transformation. I'm very happy to report that the principles that Marty espouses in Leadership Beyond the Theory I've personally seen him put into practise for great outcomes in an organisational setting.

Anyway, the best pieces of leadership advice that I've been given. The first was this - having a leadership position or having ‘leadership’ in your title will not therefore make you a leader in the minds of the people. Leadership is about having willing followers and, therefore, about influence more than power. I know it's a bit of a cliche, but this next saying had a massive impact on my approach to leadership and that's this, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." So leadership is about genuine care and concern for your people. The first platform for having any chance of influencing anyone is genuine care and concern for their wellbeing and their growth.

The second biggest piece of advice was the question put to me. This question was, "Danny, what is your motivation for wanting to be a leader?" As I came to understand that if my motivation was about me and what I would get out of it rather than what others were becoming as a result of my influence over them, then I was unlikely to ever be known as a leader. So that piece of advice was, what are people becoming as a result of your influence over them?

Are they becoming better people? Are they becoming more adaptive, more robust? Are they becoming more open and adept at dealing with feedback? Are they becoming more open to learning? If these were the sorts of things that people were becoming, then I was likely to be known as a leader regardless of whether I was in a leadership position or had leadership in my title.

One of the most effective models that's helped me in understanding influence is the SCARF Model by David Rock. SCARF simply stands for status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness. Master these five dimensions of how you influence others and you'll be a successful leader.

Interestingly, the seven principles that Marty talks about in Leadership Beyond the Theory, in my opinion, provides more specific skills and better colour to the SCARF Model. Thank you for the opportunity to pass on my leadership advice.

LISTENER #10

Leon: Hi there fellow leaders, this is Leon here from Melbourne, Australia. The most valuable lesson I've learned from the podcast so far has been in giving upwards feedback. When you start with a foundation of trust and respect, any reasonable boss, will take your feedback on in the right way. By asking for permission to give feedback and framing it constructively, a good boss will treat your feedback as a gift and your respect for each other should increase. Life is a two-way street, right?

I also think it's worthwhile to recognise if you notice your boss has taken on the feedback you gave them. It's as simple as saying, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I've noticed you've made the effort to take my feedback on board and I really appreciate it." Thanks Marty and Em for all that you do and I look forward to hearing many more future episodes.

LISTENER #11

Genny: Hi guys, Genny from Perth and I work in health and safety. My tip is that you need to know your values, and that if you start compromising your values you start compromising your soul. So stay true to yourself, and try to improve in everything you do, and try to do more than what is expected of you. That is sometimes what makes you stand out from the rest. So that’s my tip, thanks!

Emma: How good were those No Bullsh!t Leadership Tips? Those were just a handful of them. I would have loved to put them all in, but what I think I'll do is I'll put a tip into each episode moving forward. I'd love to know what you thought of this episode and if any of those tips in particular resonated with you. So shoot me an email here and let me know what you thought.

We'll be back next week with the usual format when Marty covers ‘Regulation Can't Fix Culture’, this is a really good episode. If you're interested in the Hayne Royal Commission, you're not going to want to miss this one.

RESOURCES AND RELATED TOPICS:

• Ep #1: Respect Before Popularity - Listen Here

• Ep #14: Friendly, But Not Friends - Listen Here

• Ep #33: Regulation Can't Fix Culture - Listen Here

• Explore other podcast episodes - Here

• Take our FREE Level Up Leadership Masterclass - Start now

• Leadership Beyond the Theory - Learn More

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