00:08 Hi, I'm Denise Simpson, a master life and leadership coach who helps women step into their authentic and feminine power so they can lead like visionaries, influence with grace, and create a legacy of contribution and service. You'll hear about real leadership clients with real problems navigating their success in life, business, and career. If you're ready to become a masterful leader, then this podcast was made for you. So let's get started.00:46 Hey there. Welcome. Good afternoon. I'm hoping everybody is fantastic. I'm making sure that we have everything running on my end here. We are streaming into YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook, my Facebook page. So we, it looks like we are good here. Okay, excellent. Hello and welcome. Good afternoon. It is 2:00 PM Central time here in Austin. It's a little dark because it's raining, so I have lights on. I also have, um, some additional backup lights so that we can, you can see me clearly, but um, it's pretty dark out, so we're going to do the best we can in my office that's full of windows. So I hope you all are fantastic. I have such a great topic for you today. This is the secret, the secret that's keeping women from leading powerfully. What is that secret? Let's just break it down right now. Why, why make you wait until the end of this broadcast ?01:51 It's a secret because it's a thought. It's a thought that she has that is keeping her from showing up powerfully, from showing up in her fullest power and authority. And this is the thought. I can't trust my employees to do their jobs. That's the secret. She has this thought. It's a recurring thought. It is an underlying thought. It it's an undercurrent in how she leads. It's the lack of trust in her employee's abilities to get their jobs done. So it's trust. But this thought, I can't trust them to do their jobs. Creates some interesting things in your leadership practice. And I wanna talk about that because at every level of leadership, and I've been coaching hundreds of women leaders and students, leadership students at every level of leadership, this is the thought, the thought that will pop up, the thought that will come up unexpectedly.03:03 A thought that will run at the unconscious level of your mind, your leadership behaviors. And again, it is this thought. I can't trust my employees to do their jobs. It's something that I personally have experienced as a leader, as someone in the trenches with her employees as someone molding the clay with her employees. This was a thought that came up many times throughout different levels of my leadership. So whether you are an aspiring leader, you don't have a formal title yet, but you have duties because you're asking, you're, you're, you're putting yourself out there. You're using your voice, you're using your brilliance, you're asking for more duties, you're asking for more help. Pay close attention because it's so important. You're just starting your journey. Here's why it's important, because we don't want to develop bad habits that we pick up along the way from others and from our own brains creating certain stories.04:06 So whether you're an aspiring leader or an emerging leader, so you're right here, you've been in this role for a few years, you are still excited. Maybe some days you're not as excited, but pay close attention to this thought and how it's impacting your current role. What if you're a mid-career leader? You are a mid-season. And this thought, you know very well. It's a thought that we don't want to admit to others. It's a thought that we have about our employees that we don't want to share with the world. Until now, until today, we're bringing this out into the open. We're talking about this recurring thought. It's the secret thought that's holding you back. And I'm gonna share with you why it's holding you back. Or if you're in the C-suite, you know this thought probably better than the rest of us. If you are in, in an executive level role or in a C-suite role, you my friend know exactly what this looks like.05:10 You know exactly how it creates negative results in your divisions, your regions, your, your teams. It is a thought that we wanna talk about today. So I wanna encourage you to pay close attention today. And so this thought will come up in different variations. You will have different thoughts that will come up that sound very similar to this thought. I can't trust my employees to do their jobs. So you may not have that exact thought swirling in your brain, but I promise you there are other versions of this thought that you have been thinking about. And what it comes down to is trust. That's the emotion. That's, that's what we don't have with our employees. And here's what's interesting.06:12 Trust starts with you. Trust starts internally. If you don't trust your own abilities to lead others, then there's no way you're going to trust your people. So we want to do the internal work here today because this has nothing to do right now in this context, in this conversation. This has nothing to do with anyone outside of your brain. I know you're gonna say, but Denise, don't you know this employee over here? I didn't hire this person. I inherited this person. I, if I would've hired this person, this, we wouldn't have this problem. So pay close attention to your brain. It's gonna wanna create some interesting stories about why this doesn't apply to you. And it does because we're doing the internal mindset work. And as masterful leaders, this is what we do on a daily, this is what we do intentionally every single day.07:10 We are not at the effect of our employee's behaviors. We are the cause, we are the influence of our employee's behaviors. But we have to look inward, internally first. And this is why I say that thought's, very interesting. I can't trust my employees to do their jobs. Well, let's look inward because you're projecting out how about we look inside? Okay, so what is it about your leadership abilities that you don't quite trust yet? Do you not have your own back yet? Are you lacking in confidence? Are you lacking in a leadership skill? Are you lacking in strategy and execution? Are you lacking in self-awareness right now? Because all of those things will impact the trust you have within yourself. And this was a hard lesson for me to learn because what resulted in, in, in my experience was number one, burnout. , because I want, I had to do everybody's job.08:21 I didn't let anybody do their jobs. I didn't trust them to fulfill the objectives of the team or the department. So I took on extra duties, which looked like burden, extra burden on my plate, which looked like taking homework that didn't belong to me. I didn't trust my employees because I didn't trust myself as a leader. I wasn't able to lead to influence a behavior, to influence my employees to, to move towards completing a goal, to achieving a goal or an objective. I didn't have the skills, I didn't have the mindset. So of course I didn't trust myself, but I didn't know that yet. I was so focused externally, I was so focused on them, their behaviors and why their behaviors were was causing such discomfort in me and why it was impacting negatively our entire department goals. I was so focused outwardly. And so if you take anything away from our time together today, it is to look inward.09:28 So if you're not trusting your employees to do their jobs, let's put that thought on the side. Let's, let's put it on the shelf for a moment. And let's look at, well, what do we not trust within ourselves? Why aren't we trusting ourselves to lead, to influence a behavior, a change of behavior, a change of of belief, a change in their actions? What is it that we, we are lacking and we're not able to trust our capacity or our current abilities to lead our people? So that's what you'll take away from today's session. And for me, it cost me trust with my employees because leadership is about relationship building. It's the number one thing you need to look at the relationship you have with yourself and the relationship you have with your team, with your employees, even your peers, your subordinates, your stakeholders, your community members, your constituents. It is about relationships. Number one, the relationship you have with yourself. And number two, the relationship you have with others. And so it cost me relationships, it cost me trust. They not trusting me. They not coming to me for help. They not, they fearing my reaction or my response to their request for help or their request for further explanation on how to do their jobs. It cost me a lot.11:06 And so there I was then hiring new people because these people exited cuz they didn't trust me because I was so overbearing. I was a micromanager. I then became someone who needed to see their work before they published it to the world. I needed to walk them step by step. This wasn't hold handing or, or, or hand holding. This was more like tyranny. It was more like, let me show me every single move that you're making. Let me see, let me see every single, uh, you know, uh, uh, output that you bring to, to this project. Let me see every action that you take before we can go and publish this to the c e l. It's very interesting, this brain, this brain of wanting to control because you don't trust others cuz you don't trust your employees. And then you come up with the excuse that you didn't hire them.12:04 So of course they're wildlands. Of course they don't know what they're doing. I didn't hire them. But when I do, it's not, we're not gonna have this problem. And guess what? When people left because they didn't trust me and I hired new people, same behavior, same response, same reaction, same brain. You see, I had the same brain, still didn't know that it was me. Still didn't understand that the trust wasn't, I didn't have the trust within myself. So of course I couldn't build trust with someone outside of me, of course. So it was the exact same behavior, the exact same context with different people, with different employees. This is so interesting about our brain. We take our brains and our hearts everywhere we go. So you may change the players in the room, but your behaviors are the same, your habits are the same. Your habits of thinking are the same.13:07 Your habits of feeling are the same. And so of course it was the exact same result. And so this thought, it's the secret thought. And no one wants to admit that this is what they're thinking. No one wants to admit that they don't trust their employees to do their jobs. No one wants to come to terms with that. And here's what's interesting in coaching. We get to dig through all of that through coaching is where we get to help with self-awareness. And we get to find all of those negative results that you've created as a leader. All leading back to the thought, I can't trust my employees to do their jobs. So speaking from this personal experience, this is who I was for many years. I thought I knew it all. I thought I I was the one who, you know, I was the one who, who knew how to, how to, how to lead and how to be an employee.14:04 And it was, it was an interesting time for me in my, in my early years of managing and leading. And so it cost me personal burnout. And then it cost me relationships with my employees. The trust was broken. And what did they do? They exited the organization. They left and they left me a bad review. They told hr, she's crazy, she won't let us do our jobs. Why are we here? If she's doing all of this work, we wanna contribute. We wanna be individual, unique contributors to this department. And she's not letting us. I paid the price because of this thinking. I paid the price because I didn't know I was unconsciously creating this because I had zero trust in myself as a leader. This is interesting work that we get to do as leaders. We're not passively leading. This isn't laissez faire leadership. We are proactive in our thinking.15:09 We are intentional in how we show up in the organization. We're also doing the behind the scenes work. You know what I'm saying? We're doing the behind the scenes work that no one else gets to see. We get to do the leadership training and development behind the scenes. We get to do the coaching behind the scenes. So our employees think we're showing up masterfully, but we've done all the dirty work behind the scenes. You understand? That's what we get to do as masterful leaders and that's what we get to create in the institute. And so this is the thought. So like I said, at the top of our time together, check in with where you are in your leadership career. Are you aspiring? You're not there yet. You have a form, you don't have a formal title, but you have taken on extra duties because you, you're showing the right people that you are leadership or management material.16:02 So whether you're aspiring, emerging, so you're there, my friend, you're in it. This is the time to learn new brand new fresh behaviors. I don't want for you to be a mirror image of your former leaders, right? Because we're culminations of, of our, of our predecessors. So if you had bad leadership examples, you may have turned those, you may have internalized some of those habits or behaviors. So I love, I love working with aspiring and emerging leaders because they're still new in the pipeline. They're still brand new on their, on their career tra trajectory. And it's exciting to me to support them, build new habits, new belief systems. Now listen, if you're mid-career, I'm with you my friend, I'm with you all the way because we have taken on a lot of interesting behaviors from our predecessors. We have seen a lot, we've endured a lot, we've been around the block a few times.17:01 So mid-career, you're special to me as well. So pay close attention to if you are currently currently thinking that thought, I can't trust my employees to do their jobs either today or in, in former rules that you've had. But this is a thought that's still probably ruminating in your unconscious mind. And of course, if you're in the executive suite or in the C-suite, this is important for you to understand. I know you have layers of leadership. I know you have a hierarchy up at the top, but there are people that you need to pay close attention to that report to you who are behaving in this way. Because all you have to do is look at us at a leader's behavior , and you can track back to their beliefs about their employees. You can track back to their beliefs about themselves. It's very interesting, especially someone who comes in to support leaders in organizations.18:03 I get to, to have an impartial spectator approach to to, to observing. And I get to see interesting behaviors and, and, and negative results that are created because of this thought. I can't trust them. Well, why not? Why can't you trust your employees? How was this created in your brain? How did this even happen? What is the source of this, of this thought? I can't trust them. Why? Because their behaviors showed you that they were incapable of completing a task. And so you made that mean that they're not le you can't lead them, you can't influence them. They're incapable of learning. That's the thing. Leader that ha, it's on you my friend. It's on you to not be passive and to not pass the buck. You're on the line. We're always on the line. Yo, I'm always on the hook with my clients, with my team members, with my employees. I'm always on the line. And so are you.19:13 So be careful with your thoughts about your employees and how those thoughts have been now swirling in your mind and now creating a very interesting leadership practice. Just look at your results, look at the results the team is creating, and then reverse engineer that. So when you think I can't trust my employees, how can you change that? Let's look inward, like I said, at the top of our time together, this is the internal work. Why you can't trust them is because you cannot trust yourself to lead. Because active, transformational servant led leaders, we are active, we are moving, we are excited, we are doing the behind the scenes work so that we can show up to influence our employees, not to pass the buck and not to say, well I inherited the these people. Now we don't do that. We don't do that. We influence, we use our power of influence.20:17 It's a skill that you can develop influence. It's a skill that we develop in the institute so that we can show up every day and influence behavior. We influence a change in their beliefs about themselves and their contribution to the organization. We're always looking at how to inspire to influence, sometimes even motivate our people. Sometimes it takes the motivation, but your primary role is to influence. So it doesn't matter to me if, if you don't trust them or not. We need to find a way for you to develop trust in yourself. And so if you're lacking the mindset, if you're lacking the skillset, if you're lacking strategy and execution, then the institute will help you improve. Find better ways to show up in your organization. You were hired to do two primary things in the organization. You were hired to solve for problems, , and to create results. Two very important things you were hired to do. And if you're not doing that right now, the institute can provide you what you need to be a masterful, impactful leader.21:40 So this thought, I can't trust my employees to do their jobs, leads to micromanaging. It leads to you taking on this. And in some circumstances I know it wasn't mine. This passive aggressive approach. It's interest. So careful with your behaviors, especially when you think this thought and you feel aggravated, when you feel disappointed, when you feel hopeless, when you feel like this is all on your shoulders. So when you, when you come into the organization with that thought running in the back of your mind and those emotions, your behaviors are going to reflect that. And for me it was straight up micromanaging for me. It was taking over their tasks and then just passively aggressively blowing them off saying, it's okay, I got it, don't worry, I got it. And they're standing there going, but I'm, I'm, I wanna do it. Gimme a chance to do it.22:45 Take some time to show me how to do it. I'm actually ready and eager to do it. Why aren't you leading or influencing me to do this? But I didn't have the trust within myself to do that for them, to lead them, to influence them. So I took on that burden and then the burnout came because I was exhausted. I'm, that was it. I said, I can't keep doing this, but my employees quit before I did. And I said, see, see how they just quit? See, they were, they're not meant for this. That's, that was me passing the buck. Again, that was me not taking responsibility and accountability for being an, uh, uh, an inspiring, influential leader. I didn't know how to lead. Nobody was showing me how to lead. I had bad examples in my past of leadership. I didn't have the best models of excellence. So here I was trying to figure it out on my own. And professional development was never offered to me. And I didn't know that that was an opportunity. And so there I was winging it there, I was faking it until I made it there. I was micromanaging there. I was not trusting my employees and breaking those bonds, breaking those relationships because I'd had zero trust in my ability to lead.24:02 And what this also does, and I found this very interesting, this extended into my personal life where I became so, you know, dominant in, in, in the house and, and taking action instead of trusting my partner, instead of trusting my family, it was me taking it all on. Y'all can't do it right? I'm just gonna do it myself. So you start noticing these, these behaviors outside of your leadership practice because it's a thought that is in your brain. And remember, you take your brain and your heart everywhere you go. So of course this was going to extend into my personal life. Of course it was going to disrupt relationships, of course it was going to, to to break trust in my relationships. And so it created loneliness and disappointment. I was always so disappointed, disappointed in others. It's like, why can't anybody do anything? Right?25:02 Why am I the only person in this room that can do this? Right? Says who dude? Like says who? That these were the thoughts in my brain because that thought went unchecked for many years. For many years. And so it created isolation and loneliness for me because I couldn't be in a circle of people and try to get work done. I couldn't serve on committees, I couldn't serve with others because I felt like I I was the only person that could do it, right? No one else could. And so this is how it'll show up in your professional life, in your leadership practice, as well as possibly in your personal relationships. And this is the secret thought, the secret thought that holds most leaders back. It's a thought that's ruminating. It's a thought that's circulating in your brain. And if it goes unchecked, then there'll be years and years of this where you are not showing up powerfully, where you're not able to contribute like the leader that you want, that, that you know, you can, that that you know, you are able to contribute.26:14 And so I want for you to start paying close attention to these circumstances. And when you do feel, especially in your daily interactions with your employees, and when you do feel that sense of aggravation because of that thought, I can't trust them. I can't trust them. Okay, here's, here's what I want for you to do. I want for you to take a moment, just take a moment, be, first of all, you're, we're finding self-awareness around this today. That's the positive thing. But I also for you to end those interactions with your employees, I want for you to take just a moment. I go, is this true? Is this true that I can't trust them? Is it, is it true just because they showed me once or twice some interesting behavior, is it true that they they can't accomplish this ne next task on their own?27:03 Is it true that I can't trust them? What if I do trust them? Maybe I could be really surprised. Maybe if I give them an opportunity to do this, maybe they'll actually surprise me. Well, let's try then let's give them that opportunity. So I want for you to take a moment in, especially in those daily interactions, when you are assigning tasks, when you are delegating to your employees. And that's the thing is, you know, micromanagers, we don't delegate. That's something we do not do. And leadership delegates, leaders know exactly when to delegate. They know who to delegate it to. And so I want for you to start looking at this in how can I delegate this to my employees? More tasks. One may be ready over here, she may be ready, but the other one may not yet. So let me see about balancing this out for everybody, because I see her creativity, I see her specific skills, I see her unique contributions, and I think she could do really well in the, on this project.28:13 I think she could really excel actually on this project. I'm gonna trust her to do that. And you assign it to her, you delegate it to her. And then that other person, maybe they need a little more development, maybe they need a little more time, maybe they need a little more skill building. Maybe they need to understand mindset. And so you give them a chance and you tell 'em, well, you know, next time the the next project is coming your way right now she's gonna spearhead this. But I trust that you're going to contribute to the group and next time you'll take on the next project. So get ready, it's gonna be exciting. This is how you talk to your employees. This is how you delegate to them. This is how you build trust with them. You taking a proactive approach and getting to know them, understanding who they are, understanding their skillset, understanding their current abilities, understanding too, their capacity, right?29:05 Because sometimes their roles are limiting them to what they can only do in these, in this confined, confined space. And so maybe you give them a project to expand their capacity. But that takes trust. It takes trust in yourself as a leader to be able to identify those unique contributions that your employees make. It's, it's you trusting in your own ability to build rapport, build relationships with them. It really comes down to do you trust yourself? Cuz when you trust yourself, you trust your employees and you give them all the resources, you help them excel, you elevate their leadership potential, you're, you're wanting for them to succeed because you all then succeed. So when you trust yourself, it's, it's a direct reflection among your department or your team. So my friends, this is what is on my mind today because I am always looking for ways to help my clients.30:17 And like I said, at the top of our time together, this is the thought, this is the secret thought. This is the thought that holds a lot of us back. And we don't wanna admit that this is the thought that we have about our, about our employees. And so I wanted to bring it to light today. I wanted to bring it from this hidden space where we don't get to talk about it in public . It's, you know, we do this through coaching privately. But I wanted to bring this to your attention, your self-awareness, cuz that's what we're doing here in the institute and on my platforms here, is bringing self-awareness to your leadership practice. That's the number one skill of successful leaders. And so that's what we get to do. And so now you know, now you are aware. So now what will you do with this information?31:02 Now how will you go apply it? Cuz this is, this isn't just principle , you know, this is application, so we wanna apply this, we wanna practice this. So in, in, in your current leadership role, identify when you think this thought, identify when this thought comes up. And sometimes it looks like, well, well she can't do it cuz she's not capable, but I bet he can. Well, you don't trust that person then, right? So careful with the variations of this thought, it will, it'll come up in different circumstances in different ways. You know, sometimes I, you know, I used to think I can't talk to that leader that there's no way, you know, she's, she's in, she's incapable of understanding what I'm, I'm I'm bringing to her. So I'm just, I don't trust her. So check in with your employees, the thoughts that you have about your employees.31:56 Check in with the thoughts you have about your peers. Check in with the thoughts that you have about your direct reports, your stakeholders, your c e o, your board of directors. Check in with whether you believe them, whether you trust them to do their jobs. And I know in passing we have conversations about people, and this is through gossip and through, you know, um, water cooler, uh, gossip that we do often in the, our organizations will say, oh, that guy's an idiot or that one over there, she can't do much. She's so stressed out. And so it's, it's, it comes in these forms. The these thoughts come in these forms where we don't trust people to do their work. We don't trust them. But if you're leading a team, this is the work my friend. This is the work that we do behind the scenes.32:49 And so I want to invite you number one to get on my email list. This is where you'll get weekly leadership training and coaching. You will also get the announcements. So when I go live either on YouTube, LinkedIn or Facebook, you uh, will get that announcement on the day of. So join me here live. Um, and so I'm gonna pull up really quickly that email, um, the, uh, log in. That's where you are. You're going to submit your name and email and then you get on my email list and we stay in communication, um, until you decide not to. But this is where you'll get weekly leadership training, development, coaching, um, and other, um, uh, announcements that are important to us in the institute. All right, my friends, if you're watching the replay, please post a comment. Tell me you're watching the replay. Tell me whatever insights that you have, um, you have, uh, gained from this time together. Know that these are, uh, opportunities for us to talk about leadership, specifically women leaders. This is my, my lens, this is my specialty. And so it is always an honor to serve you. Uh, and I hope you all are fantastic. Um, and have a great rest of your week. And I'm gonna catch you in your inbox. Again, go to dr denise simpson.com/leadership sign up so we can stay in touch. And then I'll check in with you on our next live session. Take good care.34:29 Hey, leader, do you want weekly leadership tips, coaching and training straight to your email inbox? Yeah, I thought so. Head over to dr denise simpson.com/leadership. Again, that's dr denise simpson.com/leadership. Just submit your name and your email address and we'll get started right away. I look forward to serving you inside your email inbox. See you soon.
