What Happens When 3 Serial Entrepreneurs Geek Out on Leadership?
I just listened to the final cut of a recent podcast I was interviewed on – and yes, I am one of the 3 leadership geeks!
Have you ever heard of Josh McCallen? If you don’t know his name, you need to! His home base is New Jersey and he is a nationally recognized hospitality executive, speaker, innovator, builder, investor…the ultimate entrepreneur…with a track record for development of exceptional resort properties and growing world-class operational teams. Josh’s side gig is interviewing entrepreneurs like me on his powerful podcast, Capital Hacking. He and his co-host, Erik Cabral (the quintessential “serial entrepreneur” who spends much of his time helping others grow their businesses and brands) are on a mission to bring practical information to entrepreneurs and investors so they can elevate their game.
I had the pleasure of spending an hour with both of these two “culture disruptors” a couple of weeks ago. We discussed everything from how to work with virtual teams to how to run your own reputation audit. It seriously felt like three guitar players who were riffing off one another – we had similar thoughts and philosophies on leadership and culture…and easily could have talked for hours.
One of the themes from this podcast was us discussing the importance of leaders taking care of all of their stakeholders. I want to expand on this for just a moment. Stakeholders, essentially, are anyone who touches your business. It could be the UPS driver that drops off packages or your office mate next door. Do you know how lucky we are to have those people in our life? How do those people experience you as a leader? It is crazy what people pick up on!
As an example, yesterday my exec assistant gave me feedback that I seemed “stressed” opening our Monday morning meeting last week. What helpful feedback AND it made me incredibly happy that she felt comfortable enough sharing that with me! In all honesty, I was irritated at that Monday meeting and I apparently don’t hide my feelings well. It was a reminder to me as the leader – I am representing the company’s values and people watch my actions! Employees miss very little and they are VERY important stakeholders. It’s something none of us should take lightly. Remember, individuals may not remember the words you say, but they will remember how you make them feel. Being transparent and authentic is key to you taking care of those stakeholders. So getting back to the podcast…
Part of why the three of us had such a great time discussing organizational culture and leadership on this podcast is that Josh and Erik do an amazing job trusting their team to provide the most authentic experience on earth to the clients they cherish. They also feel strongly about being able to connect and put some practical content in the hands of their audience – all of this is ultimately what drew me to work with them to produce this for you, our audience!
This serves as your official invitation to listen to the podcast, follow all of us on social media, and, hopefully, get a little pep in your step from something that we discussed. AND I love talking about anything culture-related so let’s get together and “riff” about what you hear as you click the button below!